2009: E Newsletter #4
July 14, 2009 - SWAIASWAIA Announces the 2009 Youth Fellowship Award Winners
Many Santa Fe Indian Market artists began making artwork as children. It is an inextricable part of who they are as individuals and as members of their tribal communities. SWAIA recognized the need to support artists at every stage of their career, so in 2003 SWAIA introduced the Youth Fellowship program.
The $500 Youth Fellowships are awarded to Native artists who are 17 years old or younger, and are designed to encourage and foster creative talent at a young age. Like the SWAIA Artist Fellowships that support emerging artists, the winners of the Youth Fellowship Awards may use the fellowship funds to buy supplies, take classes or apply it to opportunities relating to their artwork. Young artists who participate in Youth Indian Market or sell through their parents booths during Indian Market are eligible to apply.
For more information on Youth Fellowships, please contact SWAIA at (505) 983-5220 or visit www.swaia.org
Tol-pi-yine Simbola
Picuris
Jeweler
Tol-pi-yine Simbola is 17 years old, from Picuris Pueblo, but lives in Isleta Pueblo. He has been making silver jewelry for 6 years. Tol-pi-yine was home schooled from 6th grade and received his high school diploma at 16. He will be starting college this fall. In addition to making jewelry and playing the drums, Tol-pi-yine is also a filmmaker. He wrote, directed, starred in, and edited a short film and won 1st place in the comedy category at the 505 Youth Film Festival in Albuquerque. "I am honored to have won this fellowship because it means so much to be recognized and picked out of so many other artists," he says. "Indian market is something I have always looked forward to and love participating. It gives me the chance to share my work and culture with people from all over the world. When I make, then finish each piece of jewelry, it gives me a sense of pride and accomplishment, knowing that I created and crafted something I am proud of. This year I am going to use different materials and techniques to make more creative, diverse, and elaborate jewelry that I was not able to do before." Tol-pi-yine plans to buy silver, new tools, and other materials to begin soldering, casting, and stone setting. "I am looking forward to the 2009 Indian Market," he says, "I know this year is going to be my most creative year ever."
Josiah Brown
Pokagen Band of Potawatomi
Basket Weaver
Josiah Brown is an eleven-year-old basket weaver from the Pokagen Band of Potawatomi. His mother began teaching him the art of weaving traditional black ash baskets when he was eight years old. Hiking around the wetlands to find the best black ash tree for raw materials, is one of Josiah's favorite family activities. Pounding the log, splitting, shaving, rutting and dying the splints for weaving is also a job that Josiah, Jamie and his mother do together. Josiah's grandmother, Mary Church (a direct descendant of Leopold Pokagon) would buy his baskets as he began weaving to encourage him in his native artwork. His sister, Jamie, a Youth Fellowship recipient in 2007, has inspired him to continue weaving traditional black ash baskets. Josiah entered the Seventh Indigenous Peoples Art Market in Mt. Pleasant, MI and won second place in the Traditional Basket Division. He was inspired by his Uncle Casey's picture of an Indian memory scroll, done on birch bark. Josiah combined the ancient art of birch bark bitings with black ash basket weaving in his own creative design to make his prize-winning piece, Turtle Bitings. "Winning the Youth Fellowship Award has encouraged me to make more baskets and it is an exciting experience," he said. "I plan to use the award money to buy a better basket knife, digital camera, and an axe head that will stay connected to the handle when I pound the Black Ash log."
SWAIA, INC. IS A 501 (C)(3) NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION WHICH ALLOWS CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS.