Announcing the 2019/20 Jerome Fiber Artist Project Grant Recipients

Textile Center is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2019/20 Jerome Project Grants for Emerging Fiber Artists.

The culminating exhibition of this grantee cohort was on view at Textile Center through August 2020!  Check out the virtual exhibition HERE!

After a review process involving three professionals engaged with the field of fiber art, the jurors selected the winning artists – Ian Hanesworth and Erin Lavelle, both from Minneapolis, and Dawn Tomlinson from Eagan. During the selection process, these artists’ proposals were described as “clearly articulated with goals that would advance the artists’ emerging careers as well as draw attention to current creative trends involving identity, community engagement, and sustainability on behalf of Textile Center’s mission,” said Tracy Krumm, Director for Artistic Advancement.

• Hanesworth intends to produce work that builds off research into deep ecology, kincentrism, and systems of reciprocity. They will work toward establishing a carbon-neutral, land-based practice, sourcing plant fibers from the environment and processing these materials using techniques that resonate closely with their conceptual concerns. Check out Hanesworth’s article, The Long Practice of Cumulative Attentiveness, on Mn Artists website.
• Lavelle is planning a participatory opportunity for connection and discovery using social experience, fiber arts, and the practice of mindfulness to connect people and environment. Using concepts of breath and impermanence, she proposes to make a “living” installation using a grand, altered, embellished garment that evolves throughout a continuous doing-undoing-redoing cycle.
• Tomlinson will work to develop a hybrid process combining geometric and freeform styles of beadwork as she moves the focus of her work from her own Korean adoptee identity to work that investigates the life of her birth mother. Research into the Camptown women of Korea and developing a storytelling component will inform and complement her project.

Three jurors, all of whom are textile arts professionals, lent their expertise and time to review the 43 completed proposals. Ilse Aviks has been a practicing fiber artist for over 40 years and is known for her stitched works, essays and reviews about textiles, and teaching at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO and workshops across the nation. Teresa Paschke is a Professor of Art and Visual Culture at Iowa State University in Ames, IA, whose artwork and research have been recognized with numerous grants, fellowships, and exhibitions. Her current scholarship examines the impact of global perspectives on diverse urban landscapes. Cecilia Ramón is an artist/educator who currently teaches courses in art and cultural diversity, and multicultural art perspectives at the University of Minnesota- Duluth. A native of Argentina, Ramón’s sculptural and installation works have been exhibited internationally and she has received numerous grants and awards, including a Jerome Mentorship in 2006 and a Fellowship in 2010.

Top image, from left: Ian Hanesworth, Dawn Tomlinson, Erin Lavelle