Individual Artist Awards Program

Note: The Foundation has temporarily paused grantmaking. The timing of the next cycle of the Individual Artist Awards will be announced in mid-2024. The IAA program will not open for applications this winter. Read more here.

Rasmuson Foundation honors the merit and significance of a life dedicated to serious artistic exploration and growth. We believe an artist’s energy, ideas and creative drive become more fully realized with time devoted to experimentation, education and personal reflection. We also acknowledge artists need opportunities to explore at various stages of their artistic careers.

The Individual Artist Awards provide Alaska artists funding to support the time, reflection, immersion or experimentation beneficial to the development of their artistry. It is our hope that these investments result in substantial contributions to Alaska’s culture, the vibrancy of our communities and to art itself.

2022 awardees share
what “Art is …”

Pictured: “How I Wonder Where You Are,” an interior view of beadwork by Beth Blankenship

Our award programs for individual artists living and working in Alaska include:

Artist Awardees and Projects

Impact Stories

Qaspeq Project honors missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls

Amber Webb calls attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women through her art. She received an Individual Artist Project Award in 2018.

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Lesson from a master: Never weave angry

The most significant turning point in Delores Churchill’s life came in her 40s, when it sunk in that traditional Haida weaving was endangered.

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Power and passion in percussion

Gail Jackson didn’t turn to a gong until she was 52 years old, but music was always intertwined with her life.

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