UCROSS — Ucross, the artist residency plan in northern Wyoming, lately welcomed the recipients of the spring 2022 Fellowships for Native American Visual Artists and Writers. Acclaimed visual artist Savannah LeCornu and previous Montana Co-Poet Laureate M.L. Smoker will be in residence for the next two weeks, acquiring uninterrupted time and area on Ucross’ 20,000-acre ranch at the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains.
LeCornu is a visual artist and theater maker originally from Ketchikan, Alaska, who resides in Bellingham, Washington. She is aspect of the Tsimshian (Wolf Clan), Haida, Athabascan and Nez Perce tribes and Initially Nations Nisga’a. LeCornu principally draws and paints in each regular and digital formats her artwork is centered on symbolizing indigenous people and art forms.
A poet, Smoker is Nakoda, Dakota and Lakota from the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. She served as co-poet laureate for the condition of Montana from 2019-2021, along with Ucross alumna Melissa Kwasny. In 2021, Smoker was named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow.
As portion of their Ucross Fellowships, LeCornu and Smoker will each get a residency that incorporates a studio, residing accommodations and foods by a qualified chef. Ucross will also current each and every artist with a $2,000 award and a stipend to defray travel costs, as very well as the prospect to present their do the job publicly.
LeCornu’s do the job will be highlighted in a potential exhibition at the Ucross Artwork Gallery. Smoker presently presented her do the job.
On March 25, she gave a reading at a dedicated Ucross Uninterrupted reception at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Offered biannually, the awards represent Ucross’ commitment to supporting contemporary Native American art and voices.
“We are happy to welcome Savannah LeCornu and M.L. Smoker to our ranch and services, and we are honored to deliver them with uninterrupted time and room to concentrate on their resourceful do the job,” Ucross President William Belcher claimed.
LeCornu is finest regarded for her “Still Here” sequence, which highlights the perseverance of modern indigenous peoples, as very well as her “Indigenize Collection,” which returns indigenous names to stolen land.
Smoker’s 1st collection of poems, “Another Try at Rescue,” was revealed by Hanging Unfastened Push in 2005. In 2009, she co-edited an anthology of human legal rights poetry with Kwasny entitled, “I Go to the Ruined Location.” She obtained a regional Emmy award for her work as a author/expert 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 Indigenous American Visible Artists and Writers are funded, in part, by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The future connect with for apps for the Ucross Native American Fellowships for Visible Artists and Writers will start out June 1.
