It has been just about a year since I was appointed President & CEO of United States Artists, and I am so proud of what USA has accomplished during that time, including the work that was set in motion place before my tenure officially began — from the awards distributed through our Programs and Initiatives teams to the events and publishing projects that provide additional platforms for artists’ voices.
I’m also busy reflecting on those first twelve months, listening to my colleagues within USA and across the field about how we can continue to build support for artists and their communities. On top of the unrestricted funding that comes with our Fellowships, we have been offering artists access to individualized financial planning, and this year we have started adding access to legal and wellness services. We already have some hunches about what directions we might build out next.
Thank you for all of your trust as we continue our growth and evolution, driven as always by artists’ needs, even as these needs change in response to the world around them.
With gratitude,
Judilee Reed
President and CEO
She // Her // Hers
We celebrated sixty-three creative disruptors, social sculptors, and material vanguards who ignite our imagination beyond limits. In addition to their award, each Fellow has the opportunity to work with a Certified Financial Planner for a year, giving them access to tools to improve their lives and further their agency over how they choose to spend the funding.
→ Learn more about the 2022 USA Fellows.
Photo by Hadley Fruits.
[ID: Tom Carruthers on an iPhone video call with Jennifer Newsom with the green hill of the site in the background. Tom holds the phone in a gloved hand while Jennifer grins on screen. Tom is visible on a window in the corner of the phone.]
Photo courtesy of the artist.
[ID: A man with a baseball cap painting in a studio space with many containers of different-colored paints next to him.]
Photo by MC Newman.
[ID: A Black woman with an afro sits on a green floor cushion among houseplants and a wall of open brown paper bags. She is wearing a red sweatshirt and dark denim pants. Her legs are crossed and she looks casually at the camera.]
Photo by Nanobah Becker + Blackhorse Lowe.
[ID: A woman with long dark hair, wing-tipped eyeliner holds a violin in front of a mountainous landscape.]
Photo by Kehala Two Bulls.
[ID: A brown man sits on a stool playing an acoustic guitar. He is wearing a yellow pullover hoodie and a black stocking cap with pink letters that read “tatanka nunpa.”]
The 2022 USA Fellowships were generously made possible by: Sarah Arison, Barr Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Builders Initiative, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, The Ford Family Foundation, David Horvitz and Francie Bishop Good, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Steven H. and Nancy K. Oliver, Opportunity Fund and Heinz Endowments, Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation, Rasmuson Foundation, Reis Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, MacKenzie Scott, The Fred and Eve Simon Charitable Foundation, The Todd and Betiana Simon Foundation, Paul and Annette Smith, Walder Foundation, Katie Weitz PhD, Windgate Foundation, USA Ambassadors, USA Board of Trustees, USA Endowment Fund, and USA’s Show Up For Artists Campaign.
We awarded the Berresford Prize to writer, bookseller, artist, and Native arts advocate Louise Erdrich. The Berresford Prize is given annually to a cultural practitioner who has contributed significantly to the advancement, well-being, and care of artists in society. As the owner and founder of Birchbark Books and Native Arts, Erdrich has created an intentional space that serves as a critical part of the ecosystem supporting and celebrating Native American language, culture, and values.
→ Learn more about Louise Erdrich.
Photo by Alessio Jacona from Rome, Italy – Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78830332.
[ID: A black-and-white photo of Louise, a woman with a fair complexion and shoulder-length black hair smiling and holding a microphone.]
[ID: A graphic image combining graphics for the Disability Futures Fellows 2022, Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, Rainin fellowship and Maxwell Hanrahan Awards in Craft.]
Partnerships
Disability Futures, a fellowship created in partnership with Ford and Mellon Foundations aimed at increasing the visibility of disabled creative practitioners across disciplines and geography and amplifying their voices, awarded twenty artists. The Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, a partnership with The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which provides funding for artists whose practices span across Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, immersive installation, performance, Artificial Intelligence, and more, awarded five artists. The Rainin Fellowship, a partnership with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation celebrating Bay Area artists working in dance, film, theater, and public space who are anchors in their communities, awarded four artists.
Photo by Tohono O’odham Community Action staff; courtesy of the artist.
[ID: A Native American man with short hair and a thin-striped gray shirt smiles at the camera in front of a red and black maze-like patterned cloth.]
Photo by Jade Beall.
[ID: A light-skinned Mestizx wearing a blue bandanna, silver hoop earrings, dark lipstick, a silver bracelet, and a black shirt sits in their scooter, surrounded by pencil cholla, holding the book Sustaining Spirit: Self-Care for Social Justice and looking out at the crowd.]
Photo by Staci DeGagne.
[ID: A Mexican-American woman with short hair sits and smiles at the camera in front of large crane and older warehouse buildings.]
Turning Towards a Radical Listening, 2019. Spatialized sound and lecture performance, 70 min. Presented at The Kitchen. Photo by Paula Court.
[ID: A person with long braids, glasses, and a black jacket holds a sheet of paper and stands in front of a large projection which fills the frame. The projection shows dozens of layered black words of varying sizes against a white background, forming obscured blocks of text.]
[ID: On a geometric color block background of yellows and purples the words “New Suns” are rendered in a funky black font. Text reading “Issue 6: Ways of Learning” is placed in the center.]
We published three more issues of New Suns, our digital commissioning platform for conversations, artwork, writing, and more. We featured twenty one artists and USA Fellows on themes including touch, pedagogy, and nature, allowing contributors to share new work and participate in conversations about their unique practices.
Photo by Christopher Briscoe.
[ID: A portrait of a woman with dark brown skin wearing a vibrant red dress against a white background. She smiles warmly.]
Photo courtesy of the artist.
[ID: A man poses seated in front of two colorful quilts mounted on the wall behind him. He wears wire-framed glasses and smiles into the camera.]
Photo courtesy of the artist and United States Artists.
[ID: A screenshot from Zoom showing a woman with long gray hair, holding a long strand of basket weaving material against an autumn backdrop.]
[ID: Beige text against black background reads “Shift Space” with a green circle reading “2.0.”]
We launched a new edition of Shift Space, an annual digital publication exploring new media landscapes and spotlighting the Knight Arts + Tech Fellows. Shift Space 2.0 was edited by Natalia Zuluaga with contributions from Simone Browne, Stefanie Hessler, Robin D. G. Kelley, Darla Migan, Ade Omotosho, K Allado-McDowell, Ernesto Oroza, Tao Leigh Goffe, Alenda Y. Chang, and Jason Edward Lewis.
Photo courtesy of Danielle.
[ID: An East Asian woman with medium length black hair and a blue sweater holds a string of origami cranes horizontally. The lower part of her face is covered by the string of cranes, which are arranged in a rainbow from blue to red. A sea of origami cranes lays across the bottom third of the frame.]
Photo by Mashall Khan.
[ID: A Black woman in her mid twenties with cornrows poses in a turtleneck dress poses in front of a background of pink and purple lights.]
Photo courtesy of Luz.
[ID: Luz celebrates a harvest of herbs at a farm by hugging a bundle of Tulsi Vana and standing behind a table covered in leaves and vegetables.]
Photo courtesy of Mandy.
[ID: A white woman in hiking gear crouches in front of a mountain lake while her yellow lab looks up at her.]
Photo courtesy of Judilee.
[ID: An Asian-American woman with short black-and-white hair smiles,
standing in an apple orchard and looking down at the apples she is holding in her arm.]