The Rasmuson Foundation recently announced its 2021 Individual Artist Awards, with several Homer and Kenai Peninsula artists represented.
Ten $18,000 fellowships and 25 project awards in the amount of $7,500 were awarded out of 300 applicants.
The top grant of $40,000 went to this year’s distinguished artist Ernestine Hayes, a writer and former professor at the University of Alaska Southeast. She was the Alaska State Writer Laureate from 2017 to 2019, and her work includes poetry, a children’s book and her autobiography, “Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir."
Locally, project awards went to Silas Firth and Bjorn Olson of Homer and Melissa Shaginoff of Kenai.
Firth plans to film and produce a documentary about the little-known 1918 sinking of the SS Princess Sophia. Firth will travel to learn more about how and where the ship struck a reef and about the 350 people lost in the disaster.
Olson plans to purchase lightweight, dependable and professional multimedia equipment to capture video and audio of travels through Alaska. His goal is to bring viewers closer to the cultural and natural world he experiences.
Shaginoff plans to use the grant to create a series of workshops and a performance piece around moose and caribou hide work from an Indigenous perspective. She also will help establish a community by hiring teachers and elders to share knowledge.
