Barry is an award-winning author and cartoonist with the School of Education’s Art Department. She is an associate professor of interdisciplinary creativity and holds the Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art.

White Hawk earned her master of fine arts degree from the Art Department in 2011. She is now a visual artist and independent curator based in Minnesota.

The mission of the fellowships, according to a report by Art Forum, is to support and encourage American artistry of all kinds. The reward recognizes artists who push the boundaries of their media and experiment across genres, according to Art Net.

USA bases its selections off of the candidate’s contributions to their field. Fellows are all at different stages in their careers, and fall into multiple different disciplines, like design, music, visual art, and architecture. The fellowships are unrestricted and are used at the recipient’s discretion.

The president of United States Artists, Deana Haggag, says to ARTnews, “What I love about this group, collectively, is that it really feels like they’re collapsing the distance between all these disparate disciplines while also maintaining the legacies of the things they make.”

Read USA’s list of recipients here, and their press release here.