Artaxis Fellowship • Artaxis.org

The Artaxis Board of Directors and Fellowship Selection Committee is pleased to announce that Kathy Garcia and Raven Halfmoon are the 2018 Artaxis Fellows. They have participated in a workshop with Courtney Leonard at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in August 2018.

The Fellowship is intended to increase diversity, equity, and access across the field of the ceramic arts. The explicit goal of the Artaxis Fellowship program is to increase the visibility of unique perspectives across the field. This year, we offered two fellowships, each one worth up to $2,000, to fund a two-week summer workshop in ceramics at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. The fellowships will cover room, board, and tuition for a two-week workshop, and up to $500 for travel to and from Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine, USA.

All 57 applications were reviewed by the Artaxis Board of Directors, and juried by our Fellowship Selection Committee – Fellowship Selection Committee, Neha Kudchadkar, Eva Kwong and Crystal Morey. These three prominent members of the field poured over the applications and deliberated to select just two recipients for the $2,000 Fellowship.

Eligibility:

The Fellowship is intended to increase diversity, equity, and access across the field of the ceramic arts. Therefore, Artaxis encourages artists of diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply.
Artists 18 years of age or older, at any stage of their career. Nominee does not need to be a student.
Artists must be able to demonstrate financial need and, if requested by the board, provide a copy of the first page of your most current tax return or other financial document.
The Fellowship is designed to offer an experience that would otherwise not be possible for the Nominee. To that end, any Nominee who has attended numerous workshops will not be considered in need.
This Fellowship is open to National and International applicants. Artaxis will provide International applicants with letters of invitation, but cannot offer additional funding or support with acquiring a visa.

The 2018 Artaxis Fellowship is supported by Artaxis members and funded by Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in an effort to nurture talent within creatively driven individuals by offering financial support to underrepresented artists.

If you have any questions, please email us at contactartaxis@gmail.com.

Photo credit: Amanda Kowalski

Meet the 2018 Artaxis Fellowship Selection Committee:

Eva Kwong

Eva Kwong grew up in Hong Kong and New York. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from the Tyler School of Art. Eva is known for her compelling, colorful and sensuous organic forms in her sculptures, vases and installations. Her work has been awarded fellowships from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, National Endowment For the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She is a McKnight Fellow at the Northern Clay Center in 2017. Her work can be found in the collections of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Archie Bray Foundation, The Finnish Craft Museum, Cranbrook Art Museum, Fule International Ceramics Museum, etc. She currently lives in Ohio with her wonder dog Wooz and make objects large and small to infiltrate private and public spaces.

Crystal Morey

Crystal Morey finds inspiration in the quickly changing and intricately complicated relationships humans and animals share in our natural world. She received her BFA in Ceramic Sculpture from the California College of the Arts and her MFA in Spatial Art from San Jose State University. Her work has been featured in New Age of Ceramics, 500 Figures in Clay, Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, American Art Collector, Hey Magazine, Palace Costas, Beautiful Bizarre, and Sculpture Review. Morey has been an artists in residence at The LH Project, Watershed, and Penland School of Craft. Currently living in Oakland, California she maintains an active studio practice exhibiting her work in galleries and museums regionally, nationally, and internationally.

Neha Kudchadkar

Neha Kudchadkar places herself in her social, political, material, cultural, and physical environment through her work – sometimes playful, sometimes somber. She often uses her body as the subject and object of her work and as a tool for the making of it. Kudchadkar is a visual and performing artist currently based in Mumbai. She is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, London, and the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S.U. Baroda. She is a recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship. Neha is founder, director of beej, a performing arts initiative in Mumbai.

Click here to learn more about Haystack

The 2018 Artaxis Fellowship is generously supported by Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts is an international craft school located on the Atlantic Ocean in Deer Isle, Maine.

The school was founded in 1950, as a research and studio program in the arts, and offers intensive studio based workshops in a variety of media. Haystack also functions as a ‘think-tank’ in looking at craft—publishing annual monographs, and organizing retreats, conferences, and symposia that examine the field in broader contexts. The campus was designed by noted architect Edward Larrabee Barnes, and was recognized with the twenty-five year award by the American Institute of Architects, one of only forty eight buildings in the United States to receive this distinction.

“Coming here is a freeing experience — free from the world, free from conventional ways of teaching and most importantly free from the distractions that keep us from interacting with new people.” – Suranga DeSilva

“The experience is extraordinarily different, very intense. You know that you are on a voyage with other people for a defined time. This gives you the freedom to take risks.” – Cynthia Schira

“Participating in Session 5 last summer was one of the most wonderful experiences I have ever had. The community, setting, architecture, and focus of the group was truly inspiring. I came home with new ideas about, and new approaches to, my work that have sustained me all year.” – Warren Anderson

Meet the 2017 Artaxis Fellow, Soe Yu Nwe:

Soe Yu Nwe working at Haystack

Soe Yu Nwe, the 2017 Artaxis Fellow, completed a two week summer residency at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine.

Participating at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts as an Artaxis Fellow has enriched my experience as a maker. I started exploring new ways of making, creating forms which are outside my body of work. The creative and supportive environment during the workshop led by Ann Agee and the stunning landscape of Maine inspired a new aesthetic. My work became more playful and light hearted, deviating from the previous pain-ridden sculptures that narrate alienation and confusion as a cultural outsider. Because of this fellowship, the financial burden placed on me to pursue my artistic career was reduced and I was able to fly from my home country, Myanmar to USA to participate in this amazing workshop at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

Learn more about Soe Yu Nwe and her work here: https://www.soeyunwe.com/

Meet the 2016 Artaxis Fellow, Natalia Arbalaez:

Natalia Arbelaez working at Watershed

Natalia Arbelaez, the 2016 Inaugural Artaxis Fellow, completed a two week summer residency at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine.

“I came to Watershed with no plans, no material, and some tools. I was looking to change things up in my work and wanted to make sure I tried new things. This fellowship allowed me to be surrounded by new ideas, different materials, and resources. With an open mind and new environment I had the opportunity to work with Watershed’s beautiful racked hillside earthenware brick clay. Working with the materials and manner that I did at Watershed was an invaluable asset to my studio practice, it has informed my work as well as added a new dialogue that I’ve been looking to add to my body of work.” — Natalia Arbalaez

Learn more about Natalia and her work here: http://nataliaarbelaez.com/