Grantees
Spokane Arts Grant Awards (SAGA) funds multiple programs and projects three times every year through a competitive application process. Grant winners carry out arts related activities in the Spokane area during the twelve months following their award date. Awards can be for any amount up to $10,000.
SAGA defines the term “arts” by observing our community’s creative activity. We live in a region populated by many cultures, talented in varied crafts and trades, and curious about learning and engaging in technique, expression, and artistic community. SAGA has funded blacksmithing and glassblowing, cultural art forms such as canoe making, performance, exhibition, education, therapy, and individual artistic development. We have also funded arts-based businesses and new collaborations.
SAGA stands on the principle that creatives should be paid for the work they do and we educate both the broader community and the artistic sector that creative work has value.
2023 was SAGA’s seventh year serving the Spokane region. At the end of its seventh year, SAGA had funded 171 proposals providing a total of more than $800,000 dollars to local artists, organizations, and businesses. Below we provide a complete list of each of our awardees since our first year of funding in 2017.
View just the most recent year’s winners here.
Jundt Art Museum
The Jundt Art Museum has a 23-year history of providing quality art exhibitions to the Gonzaga, Spokane, and Inland Northwest communities. The Museum is always free of charge.
Dr. Robert Bartlett
Dr. Bartlett has nearly 30 years of university teaching and presentation experience in Eastern Washington. “Jumping Into Fire” is his feature length documentary that uncovers the hidden story of the first and only all African-American paratrooper unit in military history, the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion.
Grace June
Artist, Grace June, draws inspiration for her work, “Survive,” from personal experience. June’s “Survive” photographic series and book are being created to acknowledge the experience of people in our community and surrounding areas most impacted by suicide.
Vytal Movement Dance Company
Vytal Movement Dance Company (VMDC) is Spokane’s only professional dance company, founded in the summer of 2016. The troupe is composed of several highly trained dancers, most of whom connected via community adult dance classes taught by Vincas Greene, VMDC’s director.
Spokane Interactive Arts / Laboratory
Spokane Interactive Arts is a local nonprofit which runs “Laboratory,” an artist residency program in downtown Spokane. Laboratory brings in interactive artists from all over the world for one to three months, so they can make and show work and connect with local Spokane creatives and businesses.
Spokane Civic Theatre
Spokane Civic Theatre is a nationally recognized non-profit theatre located in Spokane, Washington. Incorporated in 1947, our theatre is one of the oldest community theatres in the country.
Gonzaga University Choirs
Gonzaga University Choirs seek artistic expression through choral excellence to deliver passionate, imaginative performances that move audiences, spark the imagination, and create a sense of awe and wonder.
RGZ Prints / Reinaldo Gil Zambrano
Reinaldo Gil Zambrano is a Spokane-based printmaking artist from Caracas, Venezuela. Gil’s current practice includes the creation of large pieces using relief printing applications, and collaboratively incorporating the audience in his printing process.
Willow Springs Books
Willow Springs Books is an independent press in Spokane, overseen by Eastern Washington University’s MFA Creative Writing program. The small press plans to publish an anthology of poetry and short prose for each animal of the Chinese Zodiac.
Richmond Art Collective
Richmond Art Collective (RAC) is a dynamic, place-based community of multi-disciplinary artists, designers, curators, and academics practicing in the Spokane area. Its aims are to create a nurturing space for creativity, to perpetuate and disseminate the arts, to provide peer support, and to sustain the Spokane artist.