Grantee Grant/Fellowship Year Awarded Location
World Folkfest TourWest 2023 Springville, Utah
WYO Theater TourWest 2024 Sheridan, Wyoming
WYO Theater TourWest 2023 Sheridan, Wyoming
Wyoming Arts Alliance State Advocacy Funds 2020 Laramie, Wymoing

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

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Wyoming Arts Alliance State Advocacy Funds 2021 Laramie, Wymoing

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

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Wyoming Arts Alliance State Advocacy Funds 2022 Laramie, Wymoing

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

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Wyoming Arts Alliance State Advocacy Funds 2023 Laramie, Wymoing

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

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Wyoming Arts Alliance State Advocacy Funds 2024 Laramie, Wymoing

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

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Xavier Blake Leaders of Color Fellowship 2023 - 2024 Columbia, South Carolina
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A native of Bamberg, SC, Xavier Blake earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Newberry College and a certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from the University of South Florida. He spent over two decades at South Carolina Educational Television, working with creatives and communities creating and amplifying representative content, leading to important community conversations.

Driven by his passion to infuse diversity into leadership and content creation spaces, he most recently held positions as the Community Programming & Engagement Coordinator at Nickelodeon Theater and the Content and Engagement Manager at WMHT. He also serves as a creative mentor for the South Carolina Arts Commission, The Art of Community: Rural SC, which helps advance creative placemaking initiatives in rural South Carolina.

Blake believes that centering historically marginalized voices is imperative to build the kind of society where everyone is able to thrive.

Currently, he serves as the Executive Director of One Columbia for Arts and Culture, the city’s local arts agency. Xavier is committed to collaborating with citizens, the cultural community, and city government, with the mission of enhancing the quality of life for all residents, attracting tourism, building sustainable and equitable pipelines for artists, and connecting our diverse cultural community.

Yasmin Ruvalcaba Leaders of Color Fellowship 2022 - 2023 Oregon
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Arts & Culture Manager

Yasmin Ruvalcaba is a Portland-based director, writer, consultant, and arts advocate. She centers her work around advancing equity, honoring mentorship and education, and promoting community outreach and engagement. Yasmin is currently working at Centro Cultural as the Arts & Culture Manager. Previously, Yasmin has worked with Advance Gender Equity in the Arts as the Grants Program Director and Bag&Baggage as the Problem Play Project Manager. She is also honored to be a co-founding member of Moriviví Theatre.
Yasmin has also engaged with her community through directing. Through her time at Williams College she directed El Nogalar and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. In Portland, she has directed The Tempest (Bag&Baggage). She was also honored to be the assistant director of Wolf at the Door (Milagro), La Ruta (Artists Repertory Theatre) and La Isla En Inviero/The Island in Winter (Bag&Baggage).
Yasmin is also an active writer in the community. Two of her monologues, Carmelita and Ruega Por Mi, were featured in Theatre Diaspora’s Here on This Bridge: The -ism Project. Yasmin has also had the opportunity to workshop her work with the Northwest Theatre Workshop. Yasmin also premiered a Dia de los Muertos performance, EL JIMADAOR, in partnership with Bag&Baggage and Centro Cultural in 2020.

Yerba Buena Arts & Events TourWest 2024 San Francisco, California
Yerba Buena Arts & Events TourWest 2023 San Francisco, California
Yorba Linda Orchestra Association TourWest 2024 Yorba Linda, California
Young Musicians, Inc. TourWest 2024 Evanston, Wyoming
Young Musicians, Inc. TourWest 2022 Evanston, Wyoming
Young Musicians, Inc. TourWest 2023 Evanston, Wyoming
Yumi Janairo Roth BIPOC Artist Fund 2024 Boulder, Colorado
BIPOCArtistFund_18_Yumi Janairo Roth

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

Yumi Janairo Roth’s research-based practice includes projects built around social engagement and site-specific installation. She has produced and exhibited works in the US, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Philippines. She has engaged Manila-based artists, call center agents, jeepney drivers, and artisans in projects that explore labor, creative exchange, and cultural translation. Since 2017, she has worked closely with professional sign spinners in southern California, Las Vegas, and Denver and developed collaborations between sign spinners and professional dancers, conversations between sign spinners and contemporary art curators, engagements with audiences, and participation in professional sign spinning competitions. More recently, she and Emmanuel David have developed, “”We Are Coming,”” which unearths the stories of a group of Filipinos, known as the Filipino Rough Riders, who performed with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in the 19th century.

Yurika Isoe Leaders of Color Fellowship 2022 - 2023 Arizona

Grants and Services Manager

Yurika Isoe is the Grants and Services Manager at the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona. Yurika partners with executive leadership, including Executive Director Adriana Gallegos to administer transformative grantmaking to excel recovery, innovation, and growth of the artistic sector to the highest potential in Southern Arizona. Yurika has managed the equitable distribution of over $2.3M of Federal CARES funds in the COVID-19 pandemic and advocated for increased direct investments to artists resulting in a 20% increased investments in artist-led community initiatives. By spearheading applicant service initiatives, Arts Foundation’s grantee profile averages 75%, non-white grantees.

Prior to joining Arts Foundation, Yurika served on the Board of Directors of Warehouse Arts Management Organization (WAMO) as Vice President- a creative spacemaking organization overlooking the acquisition and renovation of commercial property into artist studio spaces and galleries. As an artist, she works in sewing/embroidery through a circular economy lens and organized art events by participating as a cooperative member of SUBSPACE Arts Collective. Yurika has a BBA from the University of Arizona- Eller College of Management. Yurika holds space in an intersection of identities as a Japanese-Okinawan Muslim born in the settler-colonial United States.

Yvonne Montoya Leaders of Color Professional Development Fund 2023 Tucson, Arizona
Yvonne Onakeme Etaghene BIPOC Artist Fund 2023 Oakland, California
BIPOCArtistFund_Yvonne Onakeme Etaghene

Discipline: Interdisciplinary

Yvonne Onakeme Etaghene is an Ijaw Urhobo Nigerian dyke poet, performer, author, dancer, playwright, visual artist and fashion designer. Etaghene is the author of For Sizakele, a novel that addresses African lesbian/bisexual identity, love, intimate partner violence, and gender. Yvonne’s writing is published in five poetry chapbooks; and her poems, essays and fiction featured in various journals/anthologies.

Etaghene has shared her visual art in five solo art exhibitions. Etaghene created Ankara Queen by Yv. Etaghene, a fashion line exploring the nexus between Nigerian aesthetics, gender expression and self-acceptance. Yvonne hosts the NIGERIAN DYKE REALNESS Podcast.

Yvonne received a B.A. from Oberlin College, a Master’s degree from New York University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Antioch University. Etaghene is a Svane Family Foundation Inaugural Artist in Headlands Center for the Arts’ Bay Area Fellowship. www.myloveisaverb.com, www.nigeriandykerealness.com

Zion Canyon Arts and Humanities Council TourWest 2024 Springdale, Utah
Zion Canyon Arts and Humanities Council TourWest 2023 Springdale, Utah
Zion Canyon Arts and Humanities Council TourWest 2022 Springdale, Utah