This article is to highlight and celebrate the efforts of three artists dedicated to their practice and forging a path forward. They each received a “Get a Leg Up” Award in February of 2020. Here is a bit about the grant and the projects that were supported by it.

About the RCS Project Award
RCS Project Awards are open to alumni (past assistants) of Rat City Studios. The mission of these awards is to offer continued support and to give alumni a leg up in their endeavors as artists. These awards are also intended to be a way of keeping in touch with the goals of alumni, as well as to honor the legacy of mentors who have fostered artists through offering opportunities, kind words, or through leading as a role-models.

There are three awards available, which will be awarded to three proposed projects. One at $1000, and two at $500. These awards are available to provide support for RCS Alumni projects. This may include the development, completion, or presentation of new work. Funding may also be used for artist fees, materials, equipment, space rental, travel for research/ education, documentation, professional development opportunities, marketing & promotion, and other project needs. These are open ended awards given with the intent of supporting them on their journey as artists.

More about the Get a Leg Up AWARD
View each artist’s proposal and the specific grant the received

Eliane Medina

http://elianemedina.com/
@artbyeliane

I recently came into contact with a woman named Yvonne Borgström in Blekinge, Sweden who was looking to sell everything from her pottery studio. With help from my friends, we picked up a kiln, an electric wheel, two kick wheels, dry materials, tools, shelves...everything imaginable, and drove it all to Ystad, where I live. Just prior to meeting Yvonne, I had found an available basement space in the apartment building I live in, which is now becoming my studio. I am still working on making everything nice and safe to work in, but it’s almost there. Some of the walls need fixing, and a leak needs to be sorted out. I can soon get to work on creating a large tableware set for my family here in Sweden, which is what my RCS award is going toward. I’m so grateful for how everything is turning out and I’m looking forward to getting back to making pots in my first ever personal studio! 

Jake Fetterman

www.jakefetterman.com
@jakefetterman

With the Kris Bliss Grant Memorial Award Jake Fetterman was able to create the work “In Place But Out Of Place” as a graduate student at the University of Washington. In this work, the artist was exploring notions of queer identity and potential signifiers attached to that identity, and in turn their identity.

The bathroom exists as the proverbial “closet” and is a space of secrecy, potential, and transition. This installation houses a multi-layered video playing on a tv oriented in the likeness of a mirror on top of a terracotta tiled “wall” with glitter grout and a bejeweled towel rack housing a terracotta towel. All these elements lead to the queerness of the bathroom space, and its existence as a stage.

Within the video exist multiple layers of reflections of self-examination, with at the base of all the layers the artist shaves their pink hair. The artist poses the question; what happens when you remove a key element that you have used to signify your identity? Can you still exist within that identity without those signifiers? “In-Place But Out Of Place” was installed in the group show It’s On The House in February 2020.     

View the Video

Rickie Barnett

https://twoheadeddiver.com/rickie
@rickiebarnett

Over the past couple of months, I have been trying to find my feet again, to be honest. The year started out with such strong momentum and whirlwind of opportunities. It felt like all the work I had been putting in was starting to pay off and everything was starting to click. When the pandemic hit a lot of those opportunities went out the window and that strong momentum went with them. It felt like the floor of my career and practice fell out from under me and I went into a bit of a hovering state. My sense of drive to be in the studio was gone and I found myself staring off into the dark a lot, contemplating my feelings and my career choices. Was everything really this fragile? Was I really this fragile? Everything was unraveling and I was feeling ways about my art practice that I had never felt before. Awful ways.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have started to see this fragility to be a thing of beauty and quite possibly, an even more precious thing, in need of a stronger caretaker. Reevaluating my practice and my relationship to it have been a very painful but, insanely informative, process and I’m starting to see and feel a new fire within my desire to make. This last week has been full of relearning to walk in the studio, as I rapidly try to get caught up on the few deadlines that are still there. 

Currently, in the studio, I am working on a few cup shows and some collaborative sculptures with my dear friend, Courtney Martin, and I’m super excited about them. I’m also working on redoing a lot of studio furniture. I have built two new shelves for storing work, relocated the kiln, taken apart two tables, and rebuilt them to fit the space, as well as, building a new table that is a bit taller. I’m currently working on a design for a new kiln shelve cart. The studio is feeling good and starting to flow in a more intentional way. It is spring and I’m feeling alive again, born with a new fire, and feeling super grateful. 

More About Rickie Barnett: Toe River Arts Studio Tour Highlight
Ceramics Monthly: Collaboration - Lynne Hobaica and Rickie Barnett