Introducing the Inaugural Recipients of Haystack’s Artist Grant Initiative
Over the past six months, a cohort of makers from the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts community has grown together via its Artist Grant Initiative. Supported by the Windgate Foundation, this award provided eight emerging artists with an unrestricted $10,000 grant and an online mentorship program with artist Vivian Chiu and maker and designer Cedric Mitchell.
“It was inspiring to spend time with a group of artists who are navigating their own paths while thinking seriously about how their work lives in the world. The cohort brought curiosity, honesty, and a real openness to the process. It reminded me that building a creative life is as much about community and dialogue as it is about the work itself,” noted Mitchell.
After a competitive review process by jurors Curtis Arima and Annie Evelyn, the 2025 awardees are Aminata Conteh, David Gutierrez, Payton Harris-Woodard, Celina Hernandez, Jason McDonald, Alex Paat, David Vuong, and Tzyy Yi (Amy) Young.
The cohort spans the spectrum of contemporary craft, representing painting, papermaking, glass, neon, ceramics, metalworking, and furniture design. Invitations to apply were extended to past participants in Haystack’s endowed and partner fellowships since 2018.
“As an artist working in wood, I was incredibly proud to support such an exciting and experimental group of artists working across craft mediums,” said Chiu. “I witnessed not only their deep commitment to their own practices, but also their shared ambition to uplift the communities around them.”
Aminata Conteh (Brooklyn, NY) weaves metal baskets that hold space for memory, grief, and the intangible. She is currently developing a basketry method that archives recipes from her Sierra Leonean matrilineal heritage. Explorations via video, repetition, and photography capture the intimacy of her objects, which, while not wearable, are intrinsically tied to the body. She expanded her practice into a new studio space with the grant’s support.
David Gutierrez (Los Angeles, CA) explores themes of existentialism, mortality, and destiny. From plasma vessels to planetary abstractions, his work reveals his dedication to craftsmanship, and his cohort project testifies to his dedication to community. Gutierrez is building a mobile hot glass studio and education program to serve Los Angeles youth, using glass’s fiery allure to spark a love of the handmade in the next generation.
Payton Harris-Woodard (Chicago, IL) paints and collages self-portraits that confront viewers with the complexities of inhabiting the Black female body. Her symbology draws from memorabilia, monsters, and deities, and her practice is enhanced by her work as the Southside Community Programs Manager at Arts of Life, a studio that supports artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Harris-Woodard invested her award in a papermaking residency, where she pushed her compositions into three dimensions with sculptural paper experiments.
Celia Hernandez (Phoenix, AZ) grew up in a family of boxers. She felt like an outsider after relocating for grad school, but discovered familiarity and inspiration in the behind-the-scenes rituals of the boxing gym. Hernandez has embarked on a study of the speed bag, appreciating the poetry of this “tear-shaped object.” Through performance, video, and iterative studies in clay, she mines the metaphors of the boxing community to build conceptual bridges between athleticism and artistry.
Jason McDonald (Bakersville, NC) uses the vocabulary of glassworking to express his lived experience, including the systemic barriers BIPOC communities face in accessing creative spaces, the embodied trauma of living in a nation with deeply racist roots, and more joyful topics like material curiosity. McDonald recently opened his hot glass studio – a safe, inclusive space to access materials, tools, and fellowship that might be otherwise out of reach.
Alex Paat (Columbus, OH) combines ceramics and neon into luminous novel constructions reflecting themes of generativity and joy. Previously reliant on fabricators to complete his works, he has been developing his neon skills to expand the possibilities of his practice. The cohort has supported Paat in accessing neon education and opportunities, and he was recently awarded a neon residency at Pilchuck Glass School.
David Vuong (Matthews, NC) is a sculptor who utilizes the transformative qualities of ceramics, metal, and glass to tell stories of diasporic shift and cultural persistence across vast distances. The layers of his large-scale, hollow vessels connect body and earth in conversation. His award has supported his long-term residency at the Steel Yards in Providence, Rhode Island, and travel to Vietnam for artistic research.
Tzyy Yi Young (Seattle, WA) who also goes by Amy, bridges the delightfully unpredictable processes of the handmade and the rigor of functional design. Her collections spark moments of curiosity and pause, inviting people to connect more deeply with the objects that surround them. Young is currently collaborating with design firms to develop a