Announcing First Artist Grant Initiative Cohort

In alignment with Haystack's mission to connect people through craft, the Artist Grant Initiative (AGI) is a 3-year program intended to provide financial support and mentorship for three annual cohorts of emerging and early-career artists. Each cohort will collaborate on a capstone project designed to document and celebrate the evolution of their practice throughout the course of the program. Past participants in Haystack’s endowed and partner fellowships since 2018 were invited to apply last spring. This year’s jurors were Curtis Arima and Annie Evelyn.

The $10,000 grant awarded to each selected artist will be unrestricted. Each awardee will participate in both group and individual online mentorship sessions with mentor artists selected by Haystack. Cedric Mitchell and Vivian Chiu are the mentors for the 2025 AGI Cohort. They will lead sessions dedicated to portfolio reviews, group work critiques, and topics such as branding, professional practice, and network development.

Haystack is thrilled to share the inaugural Artist Grant Initiative cohort:

Aminata Conteh | Metals

Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Aminata Conteh (she/her)’s practice currently hybridizes the histories and traditions of metalsmithing with weaving and basketry. Conteh received a BFA in Metalsmithing & Jewelry from the Maine College of Art & Design (MECA&D) and was 2021 Wingate Lamar Fellows from the Center for Craft in Asheville, NC. She was recognized as a 2022 Early Career Artist by the Society of North American Goldsmiths and was most recently named as a 2023 Visiting Craft Fellow at SUNY New Paltz. Conteh maintains an active teaching practice and has led workshops at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and Penland School of Craft. Her work has been exhibited across New York, Los Angeles, North Carolina, and Maine.

Program Goals: Conteh is interested in creating a new body of work focused on the way her grandmother’s recipes might act as an archive of her maternal line, including video and sculpture work.

David Gutierrez | Glass

Rooted in glass since 2014, David Guiterrez (he/him)'s work explores identity, access, and representation through sculptural and light-based forms. He blends technical precision with narrative intent, drawing from community, mentorship, and lived experience. His practice is grounded in persistence and collaboration, with exhibitions at Brea Art gallery, LA Glass Center, and more.

Program Goals: Guiterrez's main goals are to obtain the correct language to better equip him when approaching institutions for youth group glassblowing programs and to learn efficient strategies when applying for grants that align with his goals.

Payton Harris-Woodard | Painting

Payton Harris-Woodard (she/her) is an artist investigating the emotional and psychological complexities of inhabiting a black female body. She received a BA from Columbia College Chicago. Prior to graduating, she was awarded a Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Fellowship. She received an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute. Harris-Woodard is the recipient of the New Artists Society Full Merit Scholarship, and her writing and artwork has been published in Hyperallergic Magazine; and Hand Paper Making Magazine where she received the Black Writers Fellowship to publish an interview with Howardena Pindell. Recent exhibitions include Human Resources at the Third Space Gallery at the Chicago Artists Coalition, Chicago, IL; Women on the Verge at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL; Golden Ratio at Art is Bond, Houston, TX; “Fantasticolismo”, Chiquimarca projects at Mana Contemporary, Chicago, IL; Ground Floor Biennial at the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago IL.; and Generations at Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL. Harris-Woodard lives and works in Chicago, IL.

Program Goals: Harris-Woodard is looking to build a relationship between the two dimensionality of her current painting and collage practice, and materials within the three dimensionality. In addition, she would like to think about how to better activate community and sustainability in her work.

Celina Hernandez | Ceramics

Celina Hernandez (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Phoenix, AZ, pursuing an MFA at Arizona State University. Her practice explores play, resilience, and social dynamics through diverse media, including ceramics, performance, sculpture, photography, and video. Hernandez received a BFA with a concentration in Ceramics from Texas State University. She has presented work in academic and juried exhibitions, including Weird Flex (ASU Humanities Institute, 2024), her thesis show, Between The Walls (2023), and Rising Eyes of Texas (2022), among others. Hernandez has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Undergraduate Research Fellowship (2023), the College of Fine Arts & Design Scholarship (2022), and the International Education Fee Scholarship (2022). Her professional experience includes serving as a Studio Assistant Fellow at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (2024) and President of the Texas State University Ceramic Arts Association (2023).

Program Goals: Hernandez is interested in continuing to play with her settings, using the boxing gym as a space to create and collaborate with the community. She is thinking a lot about symbolism and metaphor in the objects she wants to make, and how to build a bridge between those objects and their settings. With this mentorship, Hernandez hopes to explore questions about materiality and how to create a deeper connection with an audience through collaboration.

Jason McDonald | Glass

Jason McDonald (he/him) is an artist working in glass whose interests with the material are many. He uses the vocabulary of glassworking: fragility, difficulty, fluidity to express his lived experience, including: the systemic and social barriers that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) people face in accessing creative spaces; the embodied trauma of living in a nation with deeply racist roots; and more joyful topics like material curiosity and the wild joy of technical pursuits. McDonald received a BFA from CCA, and an MFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture. He teaches internationally, was a contestant on the show Blown Away, and is currently a three-year resident at Penland School of Craft.

Program Goals: McDonald is interested in establishing a marketing strategy for a line of home decor and art glass. He would like to reach more wholesale accounts as well as more consignment accounts, and also set up a web shop.

Alex Paat | Ceramics

Alex Paat (he/him) is an artist who uses ceramic and neon to examine themes of connectedness, generativity, and the mysterious joy of life. He received a BA in Studio Art from Cedarville University, OH, and an MFA in Ceramics from the School of American Crafts at Rochester Institute of Technology, NY. In 2020, Paat completed a year-long assistantship to potter Justin Rothshank in Goshen, IA. Currently, he serves as the 2024–2026 Student Director at Large on the board of the National Council for Education on the Ceramic Arts (NCECA).

Program Goals: Paat is interested in acquiring and setting up a neon studio to begin a body of neon work that uses geometry and rhythm to examine themes of embrace and life-source. He wants to build relationships with fabricators, architects, interior designers, galleries, craft schools, and commercial entities for future collaborations and partnerships.

David Vuong | Sculpture

David Vuong (he/they) is a Philadelphia, PA based sculptor whose practice explores material processes primarily in ceramics, metal, and glass. His practice engages with concepts of deep time, artifact-making, and biological processes, examining shared human experiences. Vuong's sculptures use scale and form to evoke connections between the human form, geography, and subconscious entities. He received a BFA in Sculpture at Alfred University in 2024 and completed a post-baccalaureate in Ceramics at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in 2025. Vuong will be the 2025-2026 Artist in Residence at The Steel Yard. He has also been a fellow and resident at WheatonArts through Crafting the Future, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts.

Program Goals: Vuong seeks to discuss his current projects and past, to able to learn how to speak about his work more coherently, and allow for a space to learn practices to generate thoughts, art making, and discuss future avenues within the upcoming year such as graduate school or residencies.

Tzyy Yi (Amy) Young | Furniture

Tzyy Yi (Amy) Young (she/her) is a Taiwanese-born designer exploring the intersection of traditional craft and digital technology. Trained at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and other renowned craft schools, she blends materials like clay and glass with 3D tools to create minimalist furniture and installations that evoke human connection through form, function, and quiet emotional resonance.

Program Goals: Young hopes to complete the first three design stages: concept and ideation (sketches, mood boards, user needs), design development (2D drawings, 3D models, materials, ergonomics), and prototyping (building and testing a prototype to refine comfort, structure, and usability through real-world evaluation and iteration).

Haystack's Artist Grant Initiative is generously supported by the Windgate Foundation.