MAEP Exhibition at Minneapolis Institute of Arts!

So about six months ago, I posted about a proposal I was putting together for the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I was rejected a year ago…which was disappointing as I thought it was my best proposal to the program to date, but not a surprise as it was my sixth or seventh rejection. MAEP is a program with three deadlines a year, and only one exhibition awarded per deadline. With every rejection, I would call the program administrator/curator to get the details on the panels response to my program. And with the panels comments about my proposal, I would make adjustments and wait for the next deadline. With this last rejection, I did find out that I was a finalist, so I was getting closer. And I did feel like I had made the best proposal possible, but when the curator offered that some images for scale on the felt sculpture would help, I figured I would give it one last go. My art buddy, Chris Rackley, was kind enough to bring his photo kit to my studio and model with my sculpture for images! I also had images of work installed in a recent exhibition and I had some newer work related to the things I wanted to explore with the exhibition, so I swapped out nearly all of the images for those, and included sketches of the proposed sculptures, my video of the work in the space and the floor plan. And then I waited. There were about five weeks in between the proposal deadline and notification, so I couple of days out from the notification deadline, I started checking my emails a little too frequently. There were no emails. But I was at my friend Chris’ house with two other artist friends helping him with an upcoming project deadline, and when they all went upstairs to eat lunch, I thought I would just check quick. And there was an email that I would be having the July 2020 MAEP exhibition at the MiA. This is big. And I was able to share the first news of it with my most favorite artists in the world. They have been there editing my proposals since the very beginning two years ago when I started applying. We hugged, ate chocolate, and then I basically shook with fear and smiled the rest of the day. If you would like to see my name on the MiA website, the link is here.

here i am....

Again. About the last time I thought to post, some exciting news got in the way. I found out a couple of weeks ago that I was a Jerome Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowship finalist...one of twelve.  This is a $12,000 fellowship given to five artists in Minnesota every year.  This was my third time applying or it, and really, I just thought it would be one of those awards I applied for in perpetuity.  But I came home from school one day to find a message on the answering machine.  I can't tell you what I thrill it has been.  So after the initial shock and excitement, I went about getting some things started and finished to share with the jury....which left a lot of other things to get sidetracked.  I got another large panel of sewing pattern paper made and started painting it...I strung the ball jointed doll I started this summer, and I started another smaller panel of sewing pattern paper without the fusible interfacing to see what kind of transparency I could achieve.  Then, last Saturday I loaded a bunch of work in the car and went to MCAD to begin installing it at 5 pm for my meeting with the jury the next morning.  It was a longer night than I have had in a while, but I got everything up that I wanted.  l stayed over with a friend, and then headed back for my critique with the jury the next morning.  Each artist only gets twenty minutes with the jury, and then they move on.  We had a really nice conversation about my work, and it is funny to have people you don't know come in and look at your work and identify your blind spot immediately.  The jury definitely left me with some things to think about.  Unfortunately, I wasn't awarded a fellowship, but I learned a lot.  I will be able to meet with the grant administrator and hear some of her notes from the Jury's deliberation.  The fellows will be announced on 11/20/15.  Early congratulations, all!