UCROSS — Ucross, the artist residency software in northern Wyoming, lately welcomed the recipients of the spring 2022 Fellowships for Indigenous American Visual Artists and Writers. Acclaimed visual artist Savannah LeCornu and former Montana Co-Poet Laureate M.L. Smoker will be in residence for the up coming two months, acquiring uninterrupted time and house on Ucross’ 20,000-acre ranch at the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains.
LeCornu is a visible artist and theater maker originally from Ketchikan, Alaska, who resides in Bellingham, Washington. She is part of the Tsimshian (Wolf Clan), Haida, Athabascan and Nez Perce tribes and To start with Nations Nisga’a. LeCornu mostly attracts and paints in equally standard and digital formats her artwork is centered on representing indigenous people today and artwork forms.
A poet, Smoker is Nakoda, Dakota and Lakota from the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. She served as co-poet laureate for the state of Montana from 2019-2021, alongside Ucross alumna Melissa Kwasny. In 2021, Smoker was named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow.
As part of their Ucross Fellowships, LeCornu and Smoker will just about every acquire a residency that contains a studio, dwelling lodging and foods by a experienced chef. Ucross will also existing every artist with a $2,000 award and a stipend to defray vacation prices, as properly as the option to existing their operate publicly.
LeCornu’s function will be highlighted in a future exhibition at the Ucross Art Gallery. Smoker presently presented her work.
On March 25, she gave a examining at a dedicated Ucross Uninterrupted reception at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Offered biannually, the awards characterize Ucross’ motivation to supporting modern day Indigenous American artwork and voices.
“We are happy to welcome Savannah LeCornu and M.L. Smoker to our ranch and facilities, and we are honored to provide them with uninterrupted time and house to target on their imaginative perform,” Ucross President William Belcher reported.
LeCornu is very best identified for her “Still Here” series, which highlights the perseverance of contemporary indigenous peoples, as perfectly as her “Indigenize Sequence,” which returns indigenous names to stolen land.
Smoker’s 1st assortment of poems, “Another Try at Rescue,” was printed by Hanging Loose Press in 2005. In 2009, she co-edited an anthology of human legal rights poetry with Kwasny entitled, “I Go to the Ruined Spot.” She acquired a regional Emmy award for her operate as a writer/marketing consultant on the PBS documentary “Indian Relay.” A children’s graphic novel she co-wrote will be published at the conclude of April.
In 2022 and 2023, the recipients of the Ucross Fellowship for Native American Visible Artists and Writers are funded, in element, by a grant from the Countrywide Endowment for the Arts.
The up coming phone for apps for the Ucross Native American Fellowships for Visible Artists and Writers will get started June 1.
