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Dakota Creative Connection Recipients Announced

July 17, 2008—

The Bush Foundation today announced the first recipients of its Dakota Creative Connections grants. Ten visual artists from South and North Dakota will share $50,000 for projects focused on helping them develop new ideas and directions in their creative lives. These ten artists also will participate in three retreats over the next year to help create professional development programs uniquely geared toward the needs of artists in these two states.

The 2008 Dakota Creative Connections recipients are:

Diana Marie Behl (Brookings, SD) will create a new body of mixed media and intaglio works on paper that address memory, narrative and personal history. (www.dianabehl.com, $3,400 grant)

Sara Christensen Blair (Aberdeen, SD), who transforms traditional craft and domestic processes into fine art context, plans to capture on video the stories of family members who engage in domestic fiber crafts, to be used in future exhibitions of her own work. (www.northern.edu/schristensen-blair, $6,000 grant)

Karen Lynn Davidson (Minot, ND) creates unusual and unexpected 2-D abstract surface designs with zippers on wooden, metal and glass objects. She plans to create larger pieces, including 3-D objects. (www.zippermosaics.com, $4,650 grant)

Kim William Fink (Grand Forks, ND) will create large-scale, mixed media works exploring popular cultural images during three residencies in Vermont, Colorado and Italy. (www.und.edu/instruct/kfink, $5,185 grant)

Sister Nancy Gunderson, OSB (Bismarck, ND), a Benedictine sister of Annunciation Monastery, will focus on hand-dyeing fabrics and creating embellishments to incorporate into art quilts. ($4,000 grant)

Alfred Jason Lindell (Park River, ND) will construct a large-scale, bell-style to create fused stained glass panels without leadlines. (www.sundogglass.com, $6,000 grant)

Linda Nelson (Sioux Falls, SD) will continue creating and preserving the traditional Native American beadwork taught to her by relatives and elders, traveling to Lower Brule. ($4,000 grant)

Sherry Lee Short (Fargo, ND) will study landscapes on Lake Superior for a new body of surrealistic paintings. (www.mnstate.edu/shortsh, $5,765 grant)

Sarah Regan Snavely (Bowman, ND) will create a new collection of animal forms from clay for a series of solo exhibitions. (www.sarahregansnavely.com, $6,000 grant)

Mary Wipf (Deadwood, SD) will make relief linoleum block prints based upon detailed observations and digital photographs from Black Hills sites. ($5,000 grant)

Dakota Creative Connections provides artists with project grants ranging from $3,000 to $6,000. The grants can be used for travel, study and research; artist residencies and retreats; equipment and materials; and/or short-term projects. The program is managed in partnership with the St. Paul-based Springboard for the Arts, and coordinated by South Dakota artist Grete Bodøgaard.

Dakota Creative Connections is one of three initiatives of the newly expanded Bush Artist Program supporting individual artists. The program also includes the Enduring Vision Awards (three awards of $100,000 each given annually to artists in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota who have at least 25 years of experience as working artists) and the Bush Artist Fellowships ($50,000 grants given annually to 15 artists).

“The selection panel chose a terrific first cohort of Dakota Creative Connection recipients. These artists are going to make a huge impact in the Dakotas, not only by deepening their own art practices and providing leadership among their fellow artists, but also by teaching the Foundation how better to support artists in North and South Dakota,” says Bush Foundation President Peter Hutchinson.

The Dakota Creative Connection recipients were chosen by a regional panel of five artists and curators who met in Brookings, SD, over a two-day period in June. (A list of panelists is given at the end of this release.)

About the Bush Foundation

The Bush Foundation was established in 1953 by 3M executive Archibald Granville Bush and his wife Edyth. In 2007, the Foundation made grants of approximately $40 million to support programs and efforts to sustain communities in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.  With a mission to improve the quality of life in this region, the Foundation aims to be a catalyst to shape vibrant communities by investing in courageous and effective leadership that significantly strengthens and improves the well-being of the region’s people.  The Bush Artist Program, one of three programs to support individuals in the Foundation’s region, was established in 1976. Since then, 447 grants have been awarded to 392 different artists.

Panelists for the Dakota Creative Connections Awards

Jhon Goes in Center Lakota metalsmith and engraver, Rapid City, SD

Kyja Kristjansson-Nelson (Bush Artist Fellow 2007) Filmmaker, video artist and Acting Chair, Film Studies Department, Moorhead State University, Fargo, ND

Margaret Miller Executive Director, Minnesota Textile Center, St. Paul, MN

Linda Olson Artist, and Full Professor and Chair, Humanities Division, Minot State University Minot, ND

Peter Strong Director, The Heritage Center at Red Cloud Indian School, Pine Ridge, SD