2025 Project Award

CJ Harrell will produce a series of large prints about growing up in rural Alaska, experiencing both abundance and poverty as a young person. Harrell will document the many dry cabins, buses and mountaineering hostels they grew up in, living under the midnight sun, eating smoked salmon and high-bush cranberries, and co-existing with mice, hunger and parental substance abuse. Harrell will travel to research these homes, create block prints, and exhibit them in a solo show.

When asked what they would like the public to know, Harrell responded, “I am beyond grateful for this opportunity to grow as a person, artist, and storyteller. This is a project I have been wanting to do for a long time, and feel immense gratitude and relief to be given the space to finally pursue it.”

(Left to right) Hard at Work in the Fish Shed, linoleum relief print, 2025; Framing the Caswell Homestead, linoleum relief print. 2025; Catch of the Day, linoleum relief print, 2025.

(Left to right) My Mother and I, block print, 2025; Motherlode, linoleum relief print, 2024