2023 LEAP Award - Applications Now Open!
Pictured: 2022 LEAP Winner Danielle Attoe
The LEAP Award was established in 2007 in honor of Contemporary Craft Director of Exhibitions Kate Lydon’s 20-years of service. The program recognizes exceptional emerging talent in the contemporary craft field and provides opportunities for these early career artists to bring their artwork to the consumer market. The yearlong retail program features, markets and sells the work of one winner and four finalists. The winner also receives a $1,000 prize.
LEAP is open to exceptionally talented graduate students and/or emerging artists who are beginning to receive recognition for their work, but are not currently represented by well-established galleries. Artists must work in craft media: ceramics, wood, metal/jewelry, glass, found materials, mixed media, fiber or a combination of these materials.
OVERVIEW
● The award was established in 2007 honoring Kate Lydon, Contemporary Craft (CC)’s Direction of Exhibitions, for her 20 years of service to the organization.
● LEAP recognizes exceptional emerging talent in the contemporary craft field and provides opportunities for early career artists to bring their artwork to the consumer market.
● The retail store will feature, promote, and sell the work of one winner and four finalists on consignment.
● The winner receives a $1,000 prize, national promotion, special newsletter feature and a one-year retail feature; finalists receive special features on rotating basis throughout 2023.
JURORS
In addition to Contemporary Craft staff Alyssa Kail (Retail Sales Manager) and James Ebbert (Store Associate), we're pleased to have Sara Huston as our Guest Juror.
Sara Huston is a craftsperson, designer, educator, and curator. Her studio, The Last Attempt at Greatness, is cross-disciplinary and engages design, craft, art, and architecture. Her practice explores rural life, ideas of progress, expectations, and value. Sara's work aims to provoke discourse and contemplation in the viewer or user in an attempt to disrupt conventional ways of thinking, induce reflection and challenge the boundaries of what is known.
Huston is currently the Chair of the MFA in Applied Craft + Design at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon and the Lecturer Director at the Columbia Grange, a local agricultural learning and community center in Corbett, Oregon. In 2016 she was the visiting artist and full-time professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects department and has taught at the University of Oregon, Marylhurst University, and Oregon College of Art and Craft along with serving as curator at White Box Visual Laboratory in Portland, Oregon.
Huston has shown her works at LeRoy Neiman Center, Chicago; The International Furniture Fair in Cologne, Germany; Portland Art Museum; Bellevue College; and Daimler Chrysler international headquarters, among other national and international locations. Sara received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
ELIGIBILITY
● LEAP is currently open to artists who reside in the United States and Canada.
● LEAP is open to exceptionally talented artists who are in the early stages of their career. “Emerging” artists may have had some professional experience (i.e., exhibitions, sales, publication, etc.), but have not yet established reputations as artists.
● Artists must work in craft media: ceramics, wood, metal/jewelry, glass, found materials, mixed media, fiber, or a combination of these materials.
● Two-dimensional work will not be considered.
ADMISSION SUBMISSION CHECKLIST
1. Entry Fee: A non-refundable entry fee is required and can be paid online or by check (see below for further details). Entry Fees paid by 11/30/22 will be $15. Entry Fees paid 12/01/22-12/15/22 will increase to $25. Please place your name in the memo section of the check. The entry fee supports the award prize.
2. LEAP Online Application Form
Statement - articulating why you believe you are an “emerging” artist and how this award will benefit your studio practice (250-word maximum);
Resume in pdf format (file size must be under 1MB);
Artist statement in pdf format (file size must be under 1MB);
6 representative images similar in quality and nature to the work the artist would enter if selected as a finalist, images need not be the exact pieces the artist intends to enter;
Each uploaded file must be labeled with your full name and content. For example: sally.smith.resume.pdf or sally.smith.image1.jpg
You will receive a notification from The Store once we receive all the materials.
Item 1 can be mailed or paid online (if mailed, postmarked by 11/30/2022).
Item 2 must be submitted electronically through the online application form noted below. Please prepare the following materials BEFORE starting the ONLINE submission process. All six items listed below must be completed in order for you to be considered for the LEAP Award.