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BUSH FOUNDATION ARTIST FELLOWS WINNERS
15 Artists Receive $50,000 Awards
(St. Paul, MN — June 26, 2007) — The Bush Foundation recently introduced its 2007 Artist Fellows at an event at Open Book in Minneapolis. Each of the 15 fellows will receive $48,000 in unrestricted funds. In addition and new this year, the Foundation will expand its program to include professional development activities for fellows and an additional $2,000 for fellows to plan and implement individual communications strategies.
The 2007 Bush Artist Fellows
Minneapolis
Douglas R. Ewart, Music Composition
Edie Hill, Music Composition
Allison Moore, Script works, Playwriting
Bonnie J. Rough, Literature, Nonfiction
Sun Yung Shin, Literature, Poetry
Matthew Sawyer Smith, Music Composition
Sheri Wilner, Script works, Playwriting
Greater Minnesota
John Salter (Glyndon), Literature, Fiction
Eliot Khalil Wilson (Northfield), Literature, Poetry
North Dakota
Liselotte Erdrich (Wahpeton), Literature, Nonfiction
Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson (Fargo), Film, Video
Karen Van Fossan (Bismarck), Script works, Playwriting
South Dakota
Chris Eyre (Hermosa), Film, Video
Milt Lee (Rapid City), Film, Video
Darren Renville (Sisseton), Literature, Fiction
The Bush Artist Fellows Program provides strong and promising artists with resources that enable them to deepen and advance their work and foster their careers as artists. It is one of only two open-application artist fellowships in the country to provide grants of this size.
The fellows are selected through a rigorous, national peer panel review process. This year, the 15 were chosen from a pool of 477 applicants. The final selection panel included:
Dwight Andrews, composer, associate professor of music theory and African American music at Emory University, Atlanta
Genny Lim, poet, performer, playwright and faculty member at the New College of California, San Francisco
Ed Radtke, filmmaker and screenwriter, Transparent Films, Yellow Springs, Ohio
Janice Giteck, composer and faculty member at Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle
Michael John Garcés, playwright, director and artistic director of Cornerstone Theater Company, Los Angeles
This year’s Bush Artist Fellows were chosen in the categories of literature, music composition, film/video, and script works. A revised group of categories will be introduced over the next two years. In 2008, the categories will include visual arts; traditional, ethnic and craft arts; and media arts. In 2009, the categories will include literature; script works; performative work; and performance-based traditional and ethnic arts.
In introducing the 2007 Bush Artist Fellows, Bush Foundation chair Kathy Tunheim said, “The Bush Foundation has supported the work of artists throughout our region for 31 years. Over time, we have gained ample evidence that this work is vital: these artists contribute to community dialogue and problem solving; they interact with young people through the schools and youth programs; they create the work that is presented and exhibited by the community’s cultural organizations; and they enrich the fields in which they work. It is for these reasons we are here today to celebrate the particular accomplishments of the 2007 fellows.”
The biographies of the fellows and the preliminary and final panelists are included with this release.
The Bush Foundation, a private grantmaking organization established in 1953 by 3M executive Archibald Bush and his wife, Edyth, improves the quality of life by strengthening organizational, community and individual leadership in the region that includes Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. Its grantmaking and individual fellowship programs in the arts, medicine and leadership are open to candidates and organizations from the three-state region.
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