Everson Awarded Creatives Rebuild NY Grant for Collaboration with Haudenosaunee Artist Natasha Smoke Santiago

Syracuse, NY (July 8, 2022): The Everson Museum of Art is proud to be among the notable organizations to receive an Artist Employment Program (AEP) grant from Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY). Designed to support employment opportunities for artists, the program is funding 98 collaborations involving a dynamic group of 300 artists employed by community-based organizations, municipalities, and tribal governments across New York State. CRNY has awarded a total of $49.9M in funding to support artists’ salaries and benefits, with an additional $11.7M in funding provided to the organizations holding employment.

The funding award from CRNY will allow the Everson to engage Haudenosaunee artist Natasha Smoke Santiago for a two-year residency. During this tenure, Smoke Santiago will have the opportunity to expand her catalog and implement community partnerships, programming, special events, and art-making opportunities that will center on Haudenosaunee art and culture. Her work with the Everson will also dovetail with her efforts to explore and preserve Haudenosaunee food culture by collaborating with Indigenous chefs, farmers, seed-keepers, and healers.

A Rochester-native brought up within Haudenosaunee culture, Smoke Santiago’s work explores native Haudenosaunee culture, contemporary life, the miracle of pregnancy, and the beauty of the natural world through mainly ceramic forms. Selected from an initial pool of over 2,700 applicants, Smoke Santiago is one of very few artists practicing today whose work attempts to resurrect and elevate Iroquoian style of pottery.

In addition to the funding to cover Smoke Santiago’s salary and benefits, theEverson also received $60,000 in unrestricted funds to assist with staff oversight, supplies, materials, travel, marketing, and fundraising.

“If we are to truly rebuild our amazing state, we must celebrate artists’ contributions not only to the economy but to what makes us human,” says Creatives Rebuild New York’s Executive Director Sarah Calderon. “The incredible work being funded through CRNY’s Artist Employment Program underscores the importance of direct support for both individual artists and the organizations that hold their employment.”

For media inquiries, contact Kristin Sheehan at (646) 421-0291 or [email protected].

About Creatives Rebuild New York
A highly selective and sought-after funder, CRNY provides grants that aim to catalyze systemic change in the arts and cultural economy, recognize the value of artists’ contributions, and reshape society’s understanding of artists as workers vital to the health of our communities.For more information about Creatives Rebuild New York’s Artist Employment Program, visit creativesrebuildny.org.

About the Everson Museum of Art
The Everson is a museum of firsts. It was the first museum to dedicate itself to the collection of American art, to create a permanent collection of ceramics, to collect video art, to create a docent program and to hire the now internationally-known architect I.M. Pei to design its building, a sculptural work of art in its own right. Located in Syracuse, NY, the Everson is home to over 10,000 works of art: American paintings, sculpture, drawings, video, graphics and one of the largest holdings of international ceramics in the nation. Visit everson.org to learn more.

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