Anchorage Daily News

Ron Senungetuk, visual artist, curator, Inupiaq scholar and former University of Alaska Fairbanks professor of art and design, has been named 2008 Rasmuson Foundation Distinguished Artist.

The award provides $25,000 in unrestricted funds to allow artists to pursue their work. The awards were announced at a program last week and details provided in a press release from the foundation.

Born in the Inupiaq village of Wales, Senungetuk attended high school in Sitka, then received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School for American Craftsman at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Oslo, Norway, in 1960-61 and the Alaska Governor's Award for the Arts in 1979.

He founded and directed the University of Alaska Fairbanks Native Arts Center (1965-86) and was head of the UAF Art Department from 1977 until his retirement in 1986, when he was named UAF professor of art, emeritus.

Besides the grant to Senungetuk, the foundation announced $135,144 in awards to 19 other artists.

Six artists will receive $12,000 Fellowship Awards:

• Carl Battreall, Anchorage, photographer.

• Nicholas Galanin, Sitka, multidiscipline artist.

• Sonya Kelliher-Combs, Anchorage, mixed-media visual artist.

• Philip Munger, Wasilla, composer.

• Linda Smogor, Homer, photographer.

• Vladimir Zhikhartsev, Fairbanks, painter.

The foundation awarded Individual Artist Project grants to:

• Audrey Armstrong, Anchorage, folk/traditional fish skin artist, $5,000.

• Michael Engelhard, Fairbanks, literary artist, $5,000.

• Clara Haley, Wrangell, traditional Northwest Coast cedar bark weaver, $5,000.

• Denise Heimel, Wasilla, clay artist, $5,000.

• Caroline Kroll, Anchorage, folk/traditional artist, wood carver, weaver, $5,000.

• Leslie Hsu Oh, Eagle River, literary artist, $5,000.

• Roswell Schaeffer Sr., Kotzebue, folk/traditional artist working with wood, ivory and bone craft, $5,000.

• Teresa Shannon, Fairbanks, clay craft artist, $5,000.

• Ruth Sorensen, Anchorage, oil painter, $5,000.

• Tasha Walen, Juneau, glass-craft artist, $5,000.

• Sheila Wyne, Anchorage, multidiscipline, multimedia artist, $5,000.

• Christopher Miller, Juneau, photographer, $4,999.

• Rosemary McGuire, Cordova, literary artist, $3,145.

The awards are part of a 10-year, $20 million project. To date, the foundation has awarded $962,621 to 132 artists.

The next deadline for Project Award applications is Sept. 1 (postmark deadline). More information is available at the foundation's Web site or by calling Victoria Lord at 297-2827 or toll-free 1-877-366-2700.

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