In 2021, Tinworks Art piloted a grant program to support regional artists. We awarded eight grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 to Montana artists through a highly competitive process. Our grants focused on Indigenous artists, emerging artists, and those working with endangered forms of knowledge. Our goals included removing hurdles to the arts profession and advancing an artist’s career.
Tinworks Art will not be offering grants at this time, as we continue to reflect upon and evaluate the pilot program. We are committed to exploring ways to support regional artists and art professionals in the future.
2021 Tinworks Artist Grantees
ANNE APPLEBY
Jefferson City, MT | applebystudios.com
Anne Appleby was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and moved to Montana at age 17. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Montana and embarked on a 15-year apprenticeship with an Ojibwe elder, learning to patiently and deeply observe nature. She would watch and then translate into color the cycles of leaves, stems, buds, fruit, and seeds, transforming nature’s fluid evolution into two-dimensional portraits. Her work is held in numerous collections around the world. For her project, Ms. Appleby will be working with the staff of the Missoula Art Museum, on a retrospective catalog of her work that will help to frame it critically and historically.
RAVEN HALFMOON
Helena, MT | ravenhalfmoon.com
Raven Halfmoon (Caddo Nation) is currently based in Helena, MT where she is an artist-in-residence at the Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts. Her work has been featured in multiple exhibitions throughout the U.S. as well as internationally, and was recently featured in Vogue. She is represented by Fritz + Kouri Gallery in Santa Fe, NM. For her project, Ms. Halfmoon has proposed a monumental sculptural piece, anchored in Caddo ceramic traditions, as a response to recent removals and reframing of public monuments.
TRACY LINDER
Molt, MT | tracylinder.com
Tracy Linder lives in south-central Montana where she sources material for her installations such as bone, leather, seeds, leaves, grasses, often combined with resin and beeswax. Her work addresses our integral connection to the land, the sanctity of our food sources and the innate survival skills of all species. Yellowstone Art Museum presented a major mid-career retrospective of her work in the winter of 2020, entitled “Open Range” and her work has appeared in Sculpture Magazine. Ms. Linder will be using her grant money to perform environmental upgrades to her studio for safer working conditions when constructing her installations.
ALAYNA RASILE
Bozeman, MT | alaynarasile.com
Alayna Rasile is a natural dyer and a handweaver who utilizes traditional craft forms and expertise that come from decades of studying fiber structures and engaging in hands-on material research with plant dyes. She is currently an instructor at Montana State University where she received her MFA. Ms. Rasile has proposed a project entitled "Chromatic Botanic Garden", a public dye garden as the site for a living art exhibition where she will approach the cultivation of a wide range of dye plants as a sculptural installation.
PAUL ROWLEY
Somers, MT | @haidahooligan
Paul Rowley was born in Seattle, Washington, is an enrolled member of the Tlingit and Haida tribes of Alaska, and a descendant of the Blackfeet and Cree of Montana. Paul received his MFA from Pacific University in creative writing and he weaves both contemporary and traditional objects using cedar bark, striving to make wearable art that reflects the rich traditions of the Pacific Northwest’s tribal history. Using his grant funds, Mr. Rowley will acquire space to make new work and to teach cedar harvesting and weaving in northwest Montana.
Evaluators
Tinworks Art would like to extend our deepest appreciation to the team of evaluators who lent their time and expertise to this process: Susan Barnett, Michele Corriel, Allie Foradas, Joe Horse Capture, Brandon Reintjes, Gary Snyder, and Connie Wolf.