Awards from the Foundation were first made in 2007. Awards have been made in years when funds have been available from the growing endowments, or when funds have been donated for specific annual awards.
These awards are made possible because of the generosity of our endowment donors. Thank you for your vision, commitment and support of Saskatchewan Artists.
We acknowledge the current and past volunteer Board of Trustees for their efforts in supporting the work of the Foundation.
In 2017, the designated endowment funds provided 5 awards of $6000 each.
The Foundation gratefully acknowledges the expertise of the Saskatchewan Arts Board for the facilitation of the adjudication process.
FLOYD FAVEL – Cameco Indigenous Artist Award
Floyd Favel is the director of Miyawata Culture Inc, based on the Poundmaker First Nation. He leads an Indigenous performance festival that is multi-cultural in presentation. This festival also presents Indigenous knowledge keepers from across Turtle Island, sharing their vital knowledge and stories to the world.
The SFFA award enabled the company to work on an Indigenous adaptation of ‘Uncle Vanya’ by Anton Chekhov. Artists from Poland and across Canada came to the festival to rehearse this production utilizing unique Indigenous performance methods created and developed by F. Favel and Miyawata Culture.
Mr. Favel won the Saskatchewan Multi-cultural Leadership award in 2020 for this work.
* Featured Artist
TODD GRONSDAHL – Visual Arts Endowment Fund Award
Todd is from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan working primarily in sculpture and installation. He studied visual art and industrial design at ECUAD and the U of S. He has shown work internationally and locally at the Mendel Art Gallery, the Dunlop, and recently a solo exhibition at The Kenderdine Art Gallery. His making is a practical act, involving repurposed materials. These materials, coupled with an intuitive approach to building, leads to work with a pragmatic aesthetic like a prototype or prop. Todd’s intention is that these sculptural works lend meaning to narrative projects. Like an anthropologist speculates on an artifact, his hope is that audiences will jump to conclusions about the work unearthing hitherto unknown “facts” that subvert official history. Todd has received support and awards from the SAB, the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Vermont Studio Centre.
This award will support building a wooden framework that supports light/sound reflecting cones, in which iPhones perform a sound/light effect manipulated by text messaging.
* Archival biography; no update available at this time.
ANNE LAZURKO – The Colleen Bailey Memorial Award
Anne Lazurko is an award-winning novelist, a no-awards farmer and a sometimes poet. Her novel What is Written on the Tongue is forthcoming from ECW Press, Spring 2022. Dollybird received the Willa Award for historical fiction while her short fiction and poetry have appeared in literary magazines and anthologies.
The SFFA award she received was instrumental in allowing her time to complete What is Written on the Tongue, and to find an editor/publisher. Set in 1947 Indonesia, it tells the story of twenty year old Samuel Vandenberg, drafted into the Dutch army to help reclaim the East Indies colony as World War II ends. But the Indonesian Independence Movement is far ahead of the Dutch. Everything about Sam’s response to the people and events of this new war is foretold by his recent experience of occupation and internment by the Nazis. What is Written on the Tongue explores complex loyalties, the nature of truth, and the writing of history as an exercise in reckoning, as Sam navigates the emotional landmines that come from understanding the enemy might be you.
The opportunity for three months to focus fully on completing this novel and finding it a home was truly a gift, one made possible by the SFFA award.
* Featured Artist
LAURA PETTIGREW – Harry Nick Kangles Regina Artist Award
Laura Pettigrew’s contributions in Canada are well known and appreciated, but her influence and achievements have now expanded all over the world. Her music has received world premières and recorded by GRAMMY® Award–winning I Solisti Veneti (Italy), GRAMMY®, JUNO® Award winning Toronto Symphony and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, Regina Symphony Orchestra (Canada), Sérgio Carolino, Yamaha International tuba artist, Massive Brass Attack (Portugal), George Georgiou and, Gergana Georgieva (Cyprus) Ensemble Chaminade, Quartetto Image (Italy).
She was one of forty composers commissioned by Toronto Symphony Orchestra for their Canada Mosaic Project, Canada’s Sesquicentennial celebration. She created the international award-winning short film, The Sky Came Down and has received additional awards from Saskatchewan Foundation for the Arts (Regina Artist), Regina Mayor’s Arts and Business Award, Living the Arts, University of Regina Crowning Achievement Award, Distinguished Humanitarian and Community Service, YWCA Women of Distinction Jacqui Schumiatcher Arts Award, and nominee Lieutenant Governor’s Award.
Her music has been praised as “spectacular, breathtaking, inspirational” (Reel Rave International Film Festival 2013); “sublime with a style reminiscent of the television show Game of Thrones … patrons were drawn in by the composition … simply put it was awesome” (Regina Leader Post 2014); “Bellissimo”(LA9 SAT Television Station, Padua, Italy 2015); Dòchas enveloped the Roy Thompson Hall, entrancing the audience immediately with a lavish, calming sound”(Broadway World 2017); “distinguished by an impetus openly suspended in fluid, winding, enveloping atmospheres, characterized by an exquisite, beautiful melodic ductus, with fine intertwined voices in the winds; a persuasive dialogue, serene and luminous” (L’Eco di Bergamo 2019).
* Featured Artist
LAURA ST. PIERRE – Jane Turnbull Evans Female Visual Artist Award
Laura’s installations, sculptures, public works and photography have been exhibited throughout Canada. She earned undergraduate degrees at UBC and the U of A, and completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at Concordia University in Montreal. Laura has received arts grants from the Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Quebec, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the Canada Council. Laura is preparing for numerous exhibitions in 2018, including solos at the Dunlop and PAVED, and group exhibitions in Calgary and Montreal. She currently lives and works in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
This award will support the creation of new photographs depicting the activities of a fictive character called the Gardener, who plants gardens in urban junk spaces.
* Archival biography; no update available at this time.