- Application Deadline
Thursday, May 4, 2017 at 4:00pm - September 2017 – September 2018
Call for Submissions
Year-long Mentorship Program, Sept. 2017 – Sept. 2018
Application deadline extended: Thursday, May 4, 2017 at 4pm
For all women-identified visual artists
Click here to download the FMP info package
The Foundation Mentorship Program (FMP) has been the core of MAWA’s activity since 1985. It is offered each year because it is so effective in helping participants in their journey toward being professional artists. Many women who have gone through the FMP describe it as having been “pivotal,” “transformative” and “life changing.” It is designed to help women in the visual arts develop skills and define their decision-making philosophies and to provide access to the information, resources and support they need to realize their goals.
How does it work? The FMP is a year-long program in which established artists share their experience with developing artists. Mentors meet individually with their mentees for 4 hours per month, and the entire FMP group meets for 3 hours per month for critiques, discussion, gallery visits and other activities.
Applicants are selected based on the quality and potential of the artwork submitted, the emerging artist’s willingness to dedicate time to the program, and the mentor’s ability to work with the emerging artist because they share a medium or conceptual interest. Mentors choose mentees who they feel they can help. Potential mentees of all adult ages and backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Successful applicants will be charged a $300 fee for the program. There is no fee to apply, although you must be a MAWA member. Students are not eligible.
If you have applied before and were unsuccessful, consider revisiting your application and the quality of your images and applying again. Demand for this program far outstrips available spaces. Sometimes the mentors agree that an artist’s work is excellent, but they do not feel that they have the specific skills or experience to help that artist. Another year, another mentor might select you.
To apply for the Foundation Mentorship Program:
Please email a single pdf document containing:
- a letter outlining why you want to participate in this program and what you hope to achieve through mentorship (make sure the letter also includes information regarding how we can contact you by phone, email and post); please also describe your artistic practice (if English is not your first langauge and you would would like to apply verbally, please call the office and we can make accommodations)
- an artist résumé (maximum three pages)
- up to 20 embedded jpg images of your artwork or links to up to 10 minutes of video captioned with titles of the work, the media, date completed and dimensions
If you are not already a member, please also submit a MAWA membership form and payment. MAWA membership costs $15 for underwaged persons and $30 for others. Applications are due at MAWA by Friday, April 28 at 4pm. Email applications to [email protected] and put “FMP” in the subject heading.
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KC Adams is a Winnipeg-based artist who graduated from Concordia University with a B.F.A in studio arts. She has had several solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and was included in the PHOTOQUAI: Biennale des images du monde in Paris, France. She has participated in residencies at the Banff Centre, the Confederation Art Centre in Charlottetown, the National Museum of the American Indian and the Parramatta Arts Gallery in Australia. Adams has received several grants and awards from Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts. Her work is in many permanent collections Nationally and Internationally. Twenty pieces from the Cyborg Hybridseries are in the permanent collection of the National Art Gallery in Ottawa and from her installation BirchBarkLtd, four trees are in the collection of the Canadian Consulate of Australia, NSW. Recently, she was the set designer for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Going Home Star: Truth and Reconciliation. She completed a public art sculpture for the United Way of Winnipeg called Community. She has an ongoing public art campaign called Perception that was on display all over Winnipeg, MB and Lethbridge, AB. She recently won the Winnipeg Arts Council’s Making A Mark Award and Aboriginal Circle of Educator's Trailblazing Award.
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Sharon Alward’s creative works span over 30 years, referencing performance, installation and ritual as potential sites for creativity and transformation. Interested in activism and the role of the artist, Alward utilizes video, performance, installation and ritual as sites for transformation and to subvert social constructs and cultural norms, challenge collective memory and transcend suffering while providing opportunities for wholeness and healing. The recipient of numerous teaching awards, Alward is a Full Professor at the University of Manitoba’s School of Art, Chair of the University of Manitoba Senate Appeals Committee and a former mentor in the Foundation Mentorship Program at MAWA.
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Chris Cooper is a multi-disciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, drawing and painting. Most frequently, Cooper works with clay and metals and she has built her own equipment to cast bronze. She has also created public art commissions and has curated community projects and exhibitions. Her work often explores tensions between humans and their environment. Cooper’s previous positions include instructor for the AGSM and Art City, artist-in-residence at Red Deer College and Carberry, and mentor for MAWA’s Mini-Mentorship and Manitoba Arts Network’s Rural Arts Mentorship Program. She is currently the Manager of Educational Programming at Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba. Cooper has exhibited locally and nationally and her work is held in the Winnipeg Art Gallery collection. She is the recipient of the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation Award (2016) and is currently co-curating a public art project in downtown Brandon.
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Jennie O’Keefe is a self-taught interdisciplinary artist who is an alumna of MAWA’s Foundation Mentorship Program and holds a degree in anthropology. Tongue-in-cheek at first glance, her work invites the viewer to critically respond to gender, social and family roles, human vs. animal, the environment, culture and identity. She is best known for her dolls created in a variety of media, which combine biography, myth and folklore. O’Keefe is workshop facilitator for the Youth Outreach Program at Martha Street Studio and an artist with Artist in the Schools. She has orchestrated large and small community engaged art projects in Winnipeg, northern communities and the US, and has exhibited locally, nationally and internationally.
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hannah_g is a writer, artist and community radio producer living in Treaty 1 territory. She recently became the curator of Galerie Buhler Gallery in St. Boniface Hospital. Her work is informed by queer echo-locating, contemporary art and recollection. hannah_g’s new book, Critical Fictions, will be published this autumn.