Artist Access Grant
Artist Access Grant
Paper Quilling Series on Minnesota Wildlife and Habitat.
Tara Makinen: executive director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Moira Villiard: visual artist, cultural programming coordinator at American Indian Community Housing Organization; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Margaret Holmes: visual artist, poet, and former Children’s Theatre employee; Tammy Mattonen: visual artists, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Kayla Aubid: Native American craft artist, writer, employee at MacRostie Art Center; Ariana Daniel: mixed media artist, arts instructor; Kathy Neff: musician, Director, Fine Arts Academy at the University of Minnesota Duluth; Ron Piercy: jeweler, gallery owner; Emily Swanson: arts administrator at Oldenburg Arts and Cultural Community; Christina Nohre: writer and arts advocate.
Tara Makinen: executive director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Kayla Aubid: Native American craft artist, writer, employee at MacRostie Art Center; Kathy Neff: musician, director, Fine Arts Academy at the University of Minnesota Duluth; Ron Piercy: jeweler, gallery owner.
ACHF Arts Access ACHF Arts Education ACHF Cultural Heritage
My ultimate goal with this project is to create and contribute beautiful, detailed artwork to our arts culture and community. I hope to bring something fresh and unique to the arts community with my work in paper quilling. Paper can be a very diverse medium with countless possibilities as to what can be achieved with it. I want to push those boundaries and explore the various techniques and methods I can use to achieve different outcomes. I hope to further develop my skill set using this particular medium using these different techniques to achieve specific effects and details by experimenting with methods of color variation, layering, textures, shape manipulation, etc. I aim to produce realistic depictions of my subjects to the best of my ability using only paper and that is challenging enough to be a goal in itself. If I can do this I will have achieved that goal. Once I have completed this series and I feel I have done the work to the best of my ability, I will be collecting opinions from my local community to help me evaluate my work and conclude whether I've accomplished my goal. If the majority of my peers agree I have achieved beautifully detailed, realistic renditions of my chosen subject matter, and are pleased with what I have produced with the use of something as common and simple as paper, I will consider the project a success. I will also consider the project a success by simply finishing five new pieces of work consisting of subjects I have never done using paper as my medium. It will be new and challenging. If I can complete these pieces in a beautiful and realistic fashion, convincing to myself and my viewers, I will have improved my skill set and my confidence as a paper quilling artist. I hope to continue to inspire myself to push the boundaries of what is possible and how it can be done, to continue to make exquisite art that takes ordinary subjects and makes them extraordinary.
The completion of this project allowed me to showcase the work outlined in the original proposal to create five paper quilled artworks of Minnesota wildlife and habitat, in several Juried art shows as well as several county fairs throughout northern Minnesota. As a result, I was able to sell several pieces of work, as well as receiving several request for custom work. Not only was I able to sell my work and skill in the art of paper quilling, but I was also hired on to instruct a series of classes in the art of paper quilling. This grant allowed me to create a series of work that showcased my ability and skill set in paper quilling, demonstrating what I can individually and uniquely offer to my audience as an artist. The Minnesota themed series was a success amongst my audience. The overwhelming majority of viewers I was able to ask for reviews at the various shows and fairs my work was showcased at agreed the Minnesota themed art work was a theme they could greatly appreciate.