Lee and Crane awarded prestigious United States Artists Fellowships


UW–Madison faculty member Helen Lee, who holds the Helen Burish Faculty Fellowship with the School of Education’s Art Department and is the director of UW–Madison’s Glass Lab, and alumna Tanya Crane, who earned her MFA from the Art Department in 2015 and is currently a professor of the practice in metals at the School Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, have been named as 2024 United States Artists (USA) Fellows.

Lee (left) and Crane

USA Fellowships include annual $50,000 unrestricted awards recognizing the most compelling artists working and living in the United States, in all disciplines, at every stage of their career.  In addition to the monetary award, Fellows also have access to financial planning, career consulting, legal advice, and other professional services.

“This fellowship will grant me access to the most precious mid-life commodity of time,” Lee told Glass Quarterly in their recent announcement of her award. “It’s also quite a gorgeous affirmation of my intention for my labor as an artist (amongst my many other identities) to be one of my lasting contributions to the creative field.”

Lee also noted in a recent Wisconsin State Journal article that this award is one of only a few that acknowledges contemporary glass practitioners. “I am representing glass under the discipline of craft, amongst many, many other disciplines,” she said, “and I really appreciate being in the company of architects, filmmakers, and many other different categories, and being part of that broader dialogue.”

Each year, individual artists and collaboratives are anonymously nominated to apply by a geographically diverse and rotating group of artists, scholars, critics, producers, curators, and other arts professionals. Applications are reviewed by discipline-specific panels who select the finalists, which are then approved by the Board of Trustees.

Since its founding, the USA Fellowship program has awarded over $41 million to more than 850 artists thanks to our funders who understand the value of supporting artists.

Learn about the full 2024 Fellows cohort.

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