Artist Fellows Excellence in artistic achievement recognized with Fellowships
In her fourth year as assistant professor of clarinet at Northern State University, Audrey Miller is a passionate and versatile musician, bringing expertise in both classical and contemporary performance styles into her playing. She performs in a trio for clarinet, soprano and piano that presented Life on the Edge at the 2019 International Clarinet Convention in Knoxville, TN. Miller spent the past two summers performing chamber music as an invited guest artist at the Saarburg International Chamber Music Festival and she premiered a piece for oboe and clarinet at Arizona State University. Miller plans to apply her grant to commissioning new compositions for the clarinet and to a recital tour throughout the region. Page 6
S
outh Dakota is enriched by a strong statewide community of artists—creating, producing, pushing the envelope of our cultural understanding and forging links between past and future artists. One role of the South Dakota Arts Council is to nurture, encourage and recognize our state’s artists, as well as to make their work better known around South Dakota and the world. One of the ways in which the state arts agency acknowledges artistic achievement is through the Artist Fellowship grants. This year, four Artist Fellowships of $5,000 were awarded to South Dakota artists of exceptional talent to recognize past artistic achievement and encourage future artistic growth. In reviewing applications, panelists considered the quality of the applicant’s work, the record of professional activity and achievement, how the Artist Fellowship would contribute to the artist’s professional growth and career at this time and each artist’s potential for contribution to higher standards for the arts in South Dakota. Recipients of the 2019 South Dakota Artist Fellowships are musicians Audrey Miller and Yi-Chun Lin, sculptor Becky Grismer and traditional artist Kevin Locke.
Yi-Chun Lin, the viola principal of South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, is also the founder of the Sioux Falls Chamber Music Collective. She successfully launched several artistic collaborations and chamber music series with different artists and musicians to encourage collaborations between artists/musicians and to bridge arts disciplines. Lin created the Latte series at Queen City Bakery in Sioux Falls to give fun performances regularly to introduce different types of music to audiences in a friendly environment easily accessible to everyone. With her fellowship, Lin plans to create artistic presentations with other creative minds, and continue developing her own professional growth while sharing with the community.
Living and working in the Black Hills, Becky Grismer’s work revolves around themes relating to her interest in human attributes and natural surroundings. Grismer’s work includes hybrid forms that exist in places of transition— the in-between spaces in life. Primarily a sculptor, she uses natural materials such as tree bark, stone and clay, but also works in a variety of media to create two-dimensional works. Grismer said the Artist Fellowship will make a significant impact on her career by helping complete studio upgrades planned for this year, having her recent body of work professionally photographed and continuing to create and exhibit. See an interview with Grismer on page 8 of this issue.
www.ArtsCouncil.sd.gov
For the past 40 years, Kevin Locke has demonstrated, organized and taught Lakota hoop dance and Indigenous flute making and playing workshops in the Standing Rock community, across South Dakota, throughout the United States and around the world. Locke’s workshops are geared toward social change for rural Indigenous populations, and primarily youth, with a goal to reconnect them with their ancestral spiritual heritage, specifically in the Dakotas. The Artist Fellowship will allow Locke to contribute to bridging the gaps in advancing human civilization. Read more about Locke and the Lakota hoop dance in a story by former SDAC Folk Arts Consultant Josh Chrysler on page 11.
