The Wyoming Arts Council’s Native Art Fellowship is a prestigious $5,000 unrestricted merit-based award recognizing outstanding Native artists living in Wyoming. Introduced in 2021, the fellowship aims to elevate the visibility and celebration of the state’s rich Indigenous arts and traditions. The award is based solely on artistic excellence, as demonstrated in a submitted portfolio.
All artistic disciplines are eligible, including but not limited to visual, literary, performing, and folk/traditional arts. Jurors, who are notable Native artists from outside Wyoming, evaluate applicants' work independently and may also name honorable mentions. In addition to the monetary award, recipients receive support from the Arts Council to secure a venue for showcasing their work.
The application period for the 2025 Native Art Fellowship runs from March 12 to May 15, 2025. The program promotes artistic expression, cultural preservation, and cross-disciplinary creativity within the Native community of Wyoming.
The 2025 jurors are TahNibaa Naataanii, a Diné weaver and NEA National Heritage Fellow, and Jackie Sevier, a Northern Arapaho artist with national accolades in Indigenous art shows. The 2024 recipients were writer and journalist Jackie Dorothy (Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone) and visual artist Bruce Cook (Haida and Arapaho), recognized for contributions in narrative podcasting and Haida/Arapaho visual design, respectively.
