LCO Artist Awarded McKnight Foundation Fiber Arts Fellowship

An LCO Tribal Member, Rick Kagigebi, living in Detroit Lakes, MN, has been awarded a 2024 McKnight Foundation Fiber Arts Fellowship!

Rick Kagigebi is an artist who is a blanket maker, creating appliquéd mural blankets where a story is told conveying Ojibwe cultural values.

The Manoomin Arts Initiative stated, “The ability to make blankets, what he has been shown that turns into blankets – all of it is a gift that he has been given. The cultural influence in his artwork is a significant factor, and in giving away blankets for healing, each blanket finds where it belongs. In 1980, he made his first blanket and gave it away at ceremony and hundreds upon hundreds of blankets have since followed.”

The intent of the McKnight Fellowships for Fiber Artists is to recognize and support talented Minnesota fiber and textile artists whose work is of exceptional artistic and cultural merit, who have created a significant body of work over a period of at least 8 years, representing a sustained investigation and maturation of personal creativity and accomplishment in, and commitment to the field of fiber art and Minnesota’s arts ecosystem. These fellowships are in support of artists who are at a career stage beyond emerging.

Fiber Artists, as defined for the purposes of this fellowship, are artists who use textile and fiber arts materials, processes, histories, traditions, and/or sensibilities in their artistic and creative practice throughout the conception, execution, and resolution of their work.

The award includes many benefits and opportunities including a $25,000 unrestricted award in support of their creative work and practice. There are only two fellowships awarded annually.