For Immediate Release
Contact: Cassandra Stalzer, 907-334-0520

Anchorage, AK –  Rasmuson Foundation announced today the selection of four artists from Alaska who will each spend eight weeks in residence at acclaimed Lower 48 arts organizations as part of the 2016 Artist Residency Program. Alaska artists selected for the program are:

Sara Tabbert, a Fairbanks-based visual artist trained as a printmaker, will be in residence at Zygote Press in Cleveland, OH. Training as a printmaker gave her a love of careful craft, a desire to create interesting surfaces, and a sculptor’s interest in materials. Carved blocks have become increasingly important to her as finished pieces rather than just a matrix to print from. Observation and life study inform her creative process which yields pieces interested in both science and the fantastic.

Rosemary McGuire, a writer based in Cordova, will be in residence at Djerassi Resident Artists Program near Woodside, CA. Her book of stories, “The Creatures at the Absolute Bottom of the Sea,” was published this year by University of Alaska Press. She’s completing the final edits of a commercial fishing memoir, and beginning a novel set in coastal Alaska.

Peter Williams, a skin sewer and designer from Sitka, will be in residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute, in cooperation with Institute of American Indian Arts. Williams hunts, skins, and fleshes sea otters, and stretches their hides to design, market, and sell garments influenced by indigenous art and craft traditions.

Sheila Wyne, a visual artist in Anchorage, will be in residence at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, NC. Her pursuits include visual art, public art projects, set design, neighborhood-initiated environmental design, grassroots community art support and art interventions. Her studio work has been shown across Alaska, in the Lower 48, and overseas. The recipient of many awards, her work is in permanent collections of museums in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau and Homer. The residency will allow her to focus on two series of artworks, “Land Marks” and “Adaptions.”

About the Foundation
Rasmuson Foundation was created in May 1955 by Jenny Rasmuson to honor her late husband, “E.A.” Rasmuson. The Foundation is a catalyst to promote a better life for all Alaskans.