The Indiana Heritage Fellowship Award recognizes a traditional artist who has made outstanding contributions to their artistic tradition and to their community. The award honors an individual’s long-term achievement within an art form that is rooted in community life in Indiana. Recipients of this award will receive an honorarium of $1,000 and an art prize.
What are folk or traditional arts?
Our program is modeled after the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowships, and we use the NEA definition of folk and traditional arts for this program:
“The folk and traditional arts, which include crafts, dance, music, oral traditions, visual arts, and others, are those that are learned as part of the cultural life of a community whose members share a common ethnic heritage, cultural mores, language, religion, occupation, or geographic region. These traditions are shaped by the aesthetics and values of a shared culture and are passed from generation to generation, most often within family and community through observation, conversation, and practice.”
Nominations for this prestigious award must include work samples and letters of recommendation to be considered for the following year’s award.
Application Deadline: December 2, 2024
Watch this video to learn more about the program and the application process:
Adjudication Process: A panel of traditional arts and community specialists will review nominations, work samples, and letters of support. Competitive nominations will be able to address the role of the nominee in their community as well as in their craft. Nominees should demonstrate excellence in their artistic tradition through the supporting materials provided.
Traditional Arts Indiana
Maxwell Hall - 010 750 E Kirkwood Ave