Four Minnesota American Indian artists win regional fellowships

Painter Jim Denomie with recent work at Bockley Gallery in south Minneapolis.

Four Minnesota American Indian artists have won fellowships from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation based in Vancouver, Washington. The fellowships include awards of up to $20,000 each from the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation based in Eden Prairie.

TheMinnesota winners are expressionist painter Jim Denomie who lives near Franconia, Mn and is of Annishinabe-Lac Courte Oreilles heritage; Pat Kruse, a maker of traditional birch-bark objects who lives in Onamia and is affiliated with the Red Cliff band of Chippewa and the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwe; and two artists from the Twin Cities: abstract painter Dyani White Hawk of the Sicangu Lakota (Rosebud Sioux) and textile artist Maggie Thompson, a Fond du Lac Ojibwe.

Additional awards went to sculptor Bennett Brien, of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, Amelia Cornelius, a maker of traditional cornhusk dolls, from the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin; and April Stone-Dahl, who specializes in making intricate black-ash baskets and is affiliated with the Bad River band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe).

Work by various of the Minnesota artists has been shown frequently in the Twin Cities, especially at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the All My Relations Gallery or Bockley Gallery in south Minneapolis.