We are happy to announce our first round of Alaska Art Fund (AAF) and Collections Management Fund (CMF) grantees! In this round, we are awarding $123,625.31 to eleven organizations across Alaska.

A huge thank you to Rasmuson Foundation for renewing their support over the next three years for these two grant programs. We are looking forward to funding even more projects and artworks in the years to come. 

We also want to thank our amazing panelists who spent their personal time to carefully consider the applications and have provided thoughtful advice and comments for each applicant.

And without further ado, congratulations to the following grant recipients!

Collections Management Fund - Round 1 Grants - $84,482.31

• $20,000 - The Alaska Native Heritage Center will execute a thorough inspection, cleaning, and maintenance project for its Southeast Alaskan totem pole originally carved by Nathan Jackson.

• $18,161 - The Alaska State Museum will use collaborative methods to establish and execute the most up-to-date gut conservation treatments and exhibition techniques in the museum field while providing a model of inclusive collections care practice.

• $14,972 - The Museum of the North will undertake a comprehensive rehousing and stabilization project on the 54-piece flag collection held by the Ethnology & History department.

• $12,719.50 - The Fairbanks Children’s Museum will repair two of their most popular permanent exhibitions—the AirMaze and bubble tubes.

• $8,437 - The Aunt Claudia’s Dolls, a Museum will hire a conservator for thorough in-person advice and training to establish collections management protocols for routine care of the Northern Indigenous Doll Collection.

• $5,859.48 - The Anchorage Museum will hire consultants to train collections care staff how to produce quality standardized photographs of museum collections using practical and innovative skills and equipment. This training will be open to all local museums.

• $4,333.33 - The Pioneer Air Museum will install UV blocking film on all 12 of the museum’s exterior windows, as well as the 5 glass panes enclosing the museum’s public exhibition case located at the Fairbanks International Airport.

Alaska Art Fund - Round 1 Grants - $39,143

• $6,500 - The Ilanka Cultural Center will commission Eyak & Sugpiaq Housing Models, three indigenous house models to be crafted by Sugpiaq artist, Andrew Abyo to be used for a variety of educational purposes to improve traditional understanding.

• $5,500 - The Alutiiq Museum will acquire Kadiak, an oil on canvas painting by Kodiak Alutiiq artist Alvin Eli Amason. The painting depicts a person inspired by Alutiiq community members, a unique subject matter for Amason, who usually paints animals.

• $5,500 - The Alutiiq Museum will acquire Matriarchs in the Making, Afognak 1950s, an oil on canvas painting by Kodiak Alutiiq Artist Gloria Selby that will assist the museum in telling recent Alutiiq stories. Selby’s painting will help them interpret Alutiiq village life and share a story of persistence, resilience, and connection.

• $3,700 - The Sheldon Jackson Museum will acquire Midsummer Moon Mask, a fusion of artist Allie High's own Alutiiq, Tshimshian, and Haida background and her simultaneous nod to Alaska Native women's traditions and her family's roots in Ninilchik. The mask will be the second contemporary mask in the collection carved by a woman and it is the only one with such diverse array of Alaska Native cultures in a single work of art.

• $3,000 - The Alutiiq Museum will acquire Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women Headdress, a beaded headdress by Alutiiq artist Kayla Christiansen McDermott. Indigenous women make up about 1% of the United States population, but they are murdered at ten times the rate of other citizens. McDermott’s headdress tells this story.

• $3,000 - The Alutiiq Museum will acquire Bird Mask Hat, a festival garment stitched by Kodiak Alutiiq artist Cassey Rowland. Using the hat, the museum can discuss skin sewing, material use, and garment design along with other related stories.

• $3,000 - The Anchorage Museum will acquire Sylva, a mask created by Tsimshian, Haida, Sugpiaq, and Russian artist Allie High. The piece will be a unique addition to their collection as it is a mask created by a female Indigenous carver and represents the artist’s blended heritage so beautifully.

• $3,000 - The Anchorage Museum will acquire The Far Edge of Summer, an acrylic painting of the forest floor by Gail Priday. Priday’s unusual approach to landscape painting makes the work a compelling addition to exhibitions about the contemporary North, climate change, gender in the North, as well as programs and research dealing with forest ecology, the boreal biome, forest fire, and fungi.

• $1,900 - The Alaska State Museum will acquire Ben Huff's image Seven Doors of Doom, which is the keystone of a series of images entitled Atomic Island. The pictured WWII and Cold War Naval outpost on the Aleutian island of Adak tells a complex story of our westernmost front against communism, and the people who live among the remnants of our past military ambitions.

• $1,500 - The Talkeetna Historical Society will acquire High Country Grizzly, an oil pastel by David Totten, who was an important and popular artist in Talkeetna for over 20 years. This painting will expand their contemporary art collection and will be the first painting in their collection by Totten.

• $1,250 - The Anchorage Museum will acquire Impermafrost and Lichen Cross-Section, small-scale collages created by Gail Priday from painted and cut paper. The pieces depict different aspects of the Northern environment at a cellular/microbial level. These collages will help tell the story of climate change using a visual language that also represents a shift in how artists are grappling with depicting landscape.

• $650 - The Alaska State Museum will acquire Cody Swanson’s Dipnetters, a pinhole photograph made using a camera constructed from a cast of the artist's head. The print, ink on gelatin silver, was then altered with mixed media to express fantasies and memories within the landscape. The photographic process and the hand manipulation of the print is so unique that the museum feels that it will be a valuable addition to their photography collection.

• $643 - The Talkeetna Historical Society will acquire Aurora Guitar, a mosaic guitar by Rose Jenne, who has became famous locally for abstract mosaic on musical instruments, tables, postal boxes and even Xtratuf boots. The guitar will allow the museum to talk about the importance of music and art in the local community and also talk about an important local elder and her contributions to the community over the last 50 years.
  

Congratulations to everyone on their successful grant applications! We can’t wait to see the progress on your projects.