The Alliance for Young Artists & Writers is proud to announce its 2024 Alumni Micrograntees! In its ninth year, the Alumni Microgrant Program supports creative projects by alumni of the Scholastic Awards. The continual support of The Maurice R. Robinson Fund allows the Alliance to award ten grants to Awards alumni.
Judge Amy Kaufman selected Pritha Bhattacharyya, Morgan Gruer, Jennifer Huang, Annie Li, Crystal Miller, Ester Petukhova, Leah Schretenthaler, Derek Walker, Hanna Washburn, and JooHee Yoon.
Congratulations to all of our grantees—read more about their projects below!
Pritha Bhattacharyya (Fairfax, VA): If Only We Could Help It and Other Stories
Gold Key: Personal Essay (2011); Silver Key: Writing Portfolio (2011)
Pritha Bhattacharyya is a fiction PhD candidate and Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston. She has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Willapa Bay AiR, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, and others. She received the 2024 Cecelia Joyce Johnson Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, the 2023 Inprint Joan and Stanford Alexander Prize in Fiction, and the 2022 Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in Fiction. Her work appears in The Southern Review, Ecotone, and elsewhere.
With this microgrant, Bhattacharyya will further develop If Only We Could Help It and Other Stories, a short story collection exploring parent-child relationships, the immigrant experience, race divisions, sexual identity, scientific inquiry, and love in the context of the Bengali American experience.
Morgan Gruer (Brooklyn, NY): Fire at Will
Gold Key: Drawing (2011); Silver Key: Painting (2012); Honorable Mention: Drawing (2011)
Morgan is a multidisciplinary director whose bold, expressive storytelling celebrates the beauty of human imperfection. Drawing on her background in design, animation, and painting, Morgan fuses digital and analog formats to express tender, human stories through dynamic and innovative techniques. Her directorial work has been featured in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, VICE, Refinery29, and has three Vimeo staff picks. Her films have screened at festivals internationally, including the San Diego International Film Festival, Maryland International Film Festival, Los Angeles CineFest, Lower East Side Film Festival, and Prague International Film Festival. Morgan has directed music videos for Sara Bareilles, The Decemberists, Louis the Child, and MAX as well as commercials for Barbie, Red Bull, Affirm, and Georgia Lottery. Morgan is the Founder & Creative Director of the creative studio GRÜER.
Jennifer Huang (Brooklyn, NY): Cross, Twist, Loop: Lacemaking from the Margins
Silver Medal: Printmaking; Gold Key: Fashion, Printmaking
Jen Chen-su Huang is an artist and writer whose process-driven works interweave elements of craft tradition, language, history, and memoir. Her practice has been supported by fellowships through the Fulbright Commission in Taiwan, Luminarts, and the Textile Society of America, among others. She received her M.F.A. in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently an editor for the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of World Textiles and a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at NYU Tisch.
By studying minoritarian-made lace and embroidery in archives across New York City and Washington, D.C., Huang’s writing and corresponding textile works will reflect on the aesthetics of resistance and survival and contemplate themes of recuperation, ritual, and care enacted through daily practice. She will present her in-progress research at a Performance Studies conference, entitled The Aesthetics of Race: Affects and Embodiments, at Northwestern University in May.
Annie Li (Bell Mead, NJ): But No Matter: Writing the Past to Re-Imagine the Future
Gold Medal: Digital Art (2016); Gold Key: Digital Art (2016), Poetry (2016), Photography (2018); Silver Key: Photography (2017).
Annie Li is a Marshall Scholar pursuing an MPhil in Theology at the University of Oxford. Her research centers on race, religion, and civil rights activism among Chinese Americans who participated in the Civil Rights and Asian American Movements. Her writing has been recognized by the Academy of American Poets, Atlanta Youth Poet Laureate Program, Coca-Cola, Inheritance, and Imagining America. Through academic research and creative writing, she hopes to elevate narratives that inspire solidarity, flourishing, and liberation. She received her BA in History and Sociology from Emory University, where she founded and edited In Via, a faith-based thought journal.
“History has failed us, but no matter,” begins Min Jin Lee’s stunning 2017 novel, Pachinko. In the tradition of Lee’s creative inquiry that marries historical research with creative writing, Li will sharpen her creative skills to continue writing Asian American stories for social change, engaging in questions about the relationship between faith, liberation, and the imagination at the 2024 Festival for Faith and Writing hosted by Calvin University.
Crystal Miller & Derek Walker (Cleveland, OH): Tales of Two Tomorrows: An Afro-futurist Odyssey
Walker: Silver Key: Painting (2019); Honorable Mention: Ceramics & Glass (2019), Drawing & Illustration (2019), Art Portfolio (2019)
Miller: Gold Key: Illustration (2018)
Crystal Miller is an interdisciplinary mixed-media artist currently living and working in Cleveland, Ohio. Crystal has an Associate in Graphic Design and a BFA in Painting and SEM (Sculpture and Expanded Media) from the Cleveland Institute of Art, 2023. Her paintings and sculptures explore Afro-futurism using unconventional materials, including beads, glitter, rhinestones, and foam. Recent exhibitions include “DRMWRLD” at Maria Neil Art Project in Cleveland, OH, and “Black Spaces: Defying Social Constructs” at Summit Art Space in Akron, OH.
Derek Walker (b. 2001) is a visual artist from Cleveland, Ohio. Walker’s current work explores dystopian paintings of the commute within Cleveland, Ohio. He received his high school diploma at the Cleveland School of the Arts and his BFA in Painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art. His work has been exhibited in the 2021 AXA Art Prize at the Wilkinson Gallery in New York City, NY, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, OH. His awards include the 75th annual Student Independent Exhibition Board Grand Prize at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
In their forthcoming exhibition, the creative worlds of Miller and Walker converge to weave a unified Afro-futurist narrative. Miller delves into the realm of feminine beauty, employing a vivid palette to underscore an idyllic future for Black women and femmes. Meanwhile, Walker amplifies the captivating allure of a liberated Black neighborhood, flourishing amidst the echoes of a transformative revolution. In unison, their artistic expressions craft an enthralling tale of an envisioned future where vibrant and punk-inspired visions meld seamlessly, offering a distinctive Afro-futurist perspective.
Ester Petukhova: “Little Odessa” Brighton Beach: A Shifiting Post-Soviet Landscape
Gold Medal: Painting (2019), Painting (2018); Silver Medal with Distinction: Art Portfolio (2019); Silver Medal: Painting (2019), Painting (2018)
Ester Petukhova is a painter and researcher translating the digitally afflicted language around Russian and post-Soviet bodies through image-making. With the use of CNC wood-cutting procedures, collage, and paint, Petukhova slices into collected visual and digital materials to decode an asynchronous post-Soviet history. Petukhova received her BFA alongside a Minor in Russian Studies at Carnegie Mellon University (2023) and has studied at Yale University’s Norfolk School of Art (2022), Rhode Island School of Design (2018), New York University (2017), and the Pacific Northwest College of Art (2016-2017).
Petukhova will visually document South Brooklyn’s historic neighborhood Little Odessa/Brighton Beach and the community of post-Soviet emigres in two parts. The first part seeks to preserve local ephemera by scanning materials for a historical visual index (edition of 10 books) accessible to the community and through the NYPL. The collected materials will be translated into a secondary format of artworks ranging from drawings, collages, and paintings.
Leah Schretenthaler (Milwaukee, WI): The Invasive Species of the Built Environment
Gold Key: Photography (2006); Silver Key: Photography (2006), Photography (2005)
Leah Schretenthaler was born and raised in Hawaiʻi. She holds an M.A. in art education and an MFA. Her work uses traditional photography and research to create a connection between land and material. Recently she was named a finalist for The Aftermath Project Grant. In 2020 she won the Mary L. Nohl Fellowship for Emerging Artists and the College Art Association Fellowship. Leah was also named one of LensCulture’s Emerging Talents of 2018 and was awarded 2nd place in the Sony World Photography Awards. In 2019, she was awarded the Rhonda Wilson Award through FRESH2019 at the Klompching Gallery.
Schretenthaler’s photographs will focus on the spaces where infrastructures impede on the natural environment. Using silver gelatin prints, manmade spaces will be removed to create a burnt and sometimes empty area, removing spaces to visualize what Hawaiʻi would be like without industrial imposition.
Hanna Washburn (Beacon, NY): Tendrils, Limbs, Bellies, and Blooms
Gold Medal: Jewelry (2010); Gold Key: Jewelry (2010), Art Portfolio (2010); Silver Key: Jewelry (2010); Honorable Mention: Jewelry (2010)
Hanna Washburn is an artist and curator based in Beacon, NY. Washburn’s work has been featured in publications including The New York Times, Hyperallergic, and Cult Bytes. Exhibition venues include SPRING/BREAK Art Fair (New York, NY), the Dorsky Museum of Art (New Paltz, NY), Sotheby’s Institute of Art (New York, NY), and Rice University (Houston, TX). Washburn has held artist residences at organizations including Haystack Mountain School (2023), Monson Arts (2020), and Vermont Studio Center (2019). Washburn received her MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts in 2018 and her BA in Fine Art and English Literature from Kenyon College in 2014. She currently works in the Curatorial Department of Storm King Art Center.
In May 2024, Washburn will present Tendrils, Limbs, Bellies, and Blooms, a solo presentation of a new body of work at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance in Narrowsburg, NY. Expanding upon her practice of building sculptures with recycled textiles, this exhibition will explore the ways we care for our environments and each other.
JooHee Yoon (Providence, RI): Rhode Island Bird Guide
Gold Medal: Painting (2010)
JooHee Yoon is a Providence, RI-based artist whose practice spans illustration, design, and printmaking. She regularly contributes to publications such as The New York Times and the New Yorker, along with working on projects in advertising and publishing. She has been recognized by the Art Directors Club, the Society of Illustrators NYC, and was named one of Forbes 30 under 30 in the arts and styles category. From 2021-2023, JooHee was the assistant professor in residence in the illustration department at RISD, teaching courses related to editorial illustration, publishing, and printmaking.
Rhode Island Bird Guide is a 75-page illustrated guide of birds observed in Rhode Island, written and illustrated by the artist drawing from her direct birding experiences. A meditation on place encouraging everyday appreciation of the environment, the artist hopes to share the joy of observing birds with the local community. She will collaborate with the designer Marie Otsuka to create an engaging and easily accessible risograph printed pocket guide. Using the East Bay Bike Path as the main frame of reference for observation and research, a variety of birds that live or pass through the Ocean State will be featured.