2025 Artist Enrichment Grant Recipients
Press Release written by Ellen Birkett Morris
The Kentucky Foundation for Women awarded 46 Artist Enrichment grants totaling $182,568 to Kentucky feminist artists and arts organizations committed to creating positive social change throughout the state.
KFW’s Artist Enrichment grants provide opportunities for feminist artists and arts organizations to develop new skills and share art that advances social justice in Kentucky. Applicants may request funds to participate in artist residencies, explore new areas or techniques, and/or build a body of work.
Arts-based organizations and artists at all stages of their careers who demonstrate artistic skill and an understanding of the power of feminist art to enact social change were welcome to apply. The grant program drew 99 applications from throughout the state.
The Artist Enrichment grants awarded in Kentucky went to a diverse group of artists working in a variety of disciplines across the state. Their projects address vital concerns and highlight the contributions of women, femme, and nonbinary people to Kentucky’s rich artistic and cultural heritage. They included projects exploring feminist herstory, cultural expression, antiracism, representation within BIPOC communities, women’s health, issues facing the LGBTQIA+ community, and ecofeminism. By developing their craft, strengthening their voices, and building community, these grantees are at the forefront of positive social change that will better the lives of all Kentuckians.
“This round of Artist Enrichment grants goes to artists who are connected to their communities and deeply committed building their artistic skills and expanding their vision. These artists offer new perspectives and deeper insight into the lived experience of Kentuckians and the issues that affect their lives and influence their legacy. By supporting this work, we strive to build a more just, equitable and inclusive environment in Kentucky and beyond,” said Sharon LaRue, executive director of the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
KFW will provide applications and guidelines for its next grant cycle in February. Applications will open February 1st and close Feb. 23rd at 5pm ET / 4pm CT. KFW offers workshops for those interested in learning more on AMA 2026 virtual workshops will be January 27th at 6:30pm ET / 5:30pm CT and January 31st at 10:30am ET / 9:30am CT., via Zoom.
The Kentucky Foundation for Women is a private foundation formed in 1985 by Louisville writer Sallie Bingham. Its mission is to promote positive social change by supporting varied feminist expression in the arts.
KFW Executive Director Sharon LaRue and selected grant recipients are available for interviews/appearances. Contact Ms. LaRue for further information and to schedule interviews. A complete list of the grants awarded statewide broken down by congressional districts follows.
Artist Enrichment Grants 2025
Literary
Sylvia Ahrens (she/her), Lexington, $3,000
To research and develop a major collection of poems about unsung Kentucky women activists and resistors in various disciplines from mostly grassroots communities. The research and writing will deepen her Kentucky roots, demonstrate that one woman can make a difference, and offer others a doorway into discovering Kentucky’s unsung activists.
Backwoods Literary Press, Belle Townsend, and Shiloh Stump, Frankfort, $5,000
To launch a statewide series of community events featuring readings, panels, and workshops led by rural creators. The gatherings will highlight diverse voices—BIPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+, and women artists—while fostering dialogue around gender justice, cultural preservation, and collective empowerment. Insights and creative connections from these events will guide the development of Backwoods’ third anthology, deepening its commitment to amplifying marginalized rural perspectives, and expanding the reach of authentic storytelling across Kentucky and beyond.
Noah Ashley Blooms (they/them), Lexington, $5,000
To support the completion of speculative fiction that explores the influence of patriarchy on gender, family relationships, and the environment as experienced by a transgender protagonist. This grant will allow the author to attend a writing conference and focus on drafting and revising the manuscript.
Dionne C. Griffiths (she/her), Louisville, $3,000
To attend a national literary conference, submit her creative writing to literary contests, and travel to South Carolina to gain more exposure to the history of Black women trailblazers in the arts and the civil rights movement. As a Black woman writer, she will increase publishing resources, expand her literary audience, and gain lived experience about Black women trailblazers to illuminate these artists/social change agents for contemporary readers.
Melissa Helton (she/they), Hindman, $1,565
To research her family’s ties to Cloquet, MN and the broader Norwegian / Scandinavian community there. Her maternal family lost their ancestral culture upon immigration. Her nonfiction, photography, and poetry about this reconnects the stories about her great-grandmother’s silencing that filtered through the generations of women. She seeks to understand the familial ground (literal and figurative) that we spring from, and how that can shape her as mother to AFAB children in a culture that is hostile toward immigrants and their families.
Christian Loriel Lucas (she/her), Louisville, $1,500
To travel to Kentucky-born Blanche Taylor Dickinson’s hometown to support an anthology of Dickinson’s work and to correct her biographical record. Lucas will do this by sharing the story of the Harlem Renaissance poet, fiction writer, and journalist who spoke to the complexities of Black womanhood and feminism, and the deep scars of racism. An exploration of Dickinson’s birthplace, her final resting place, and Simpson County’s Black history will allow Christian to unlock the mystery behind Dickson’s life, her work, and her quiet exit from the literary world.
Melissa Bell Pitts (she/her), Lexington, $2,500
To help complete her first novel, The Sand Artist, which focuses on an elderly woman who is facing end-of-life issues with her husband, a World War II vet, and is on a journey to reclaim her power once she learns the truth about a horrible act her husband committed in a moment of PTSD. This story will act as a cautionary tale against patriarchy and women giving up autonomy and financial sovereignty.
Samantha Renee Ratcliffe (she/they), Frankfort, $1,500
to complete Common Wealth, a multimodal collection of poetry and prose that uses printmaking and lyrical writing to examine concepts of belonging in the south. This work examines what we share and what we fight to protect. Rooted in trans and LGBTQIA+ lives in Appalachia, the collection confronts daily survival within social climates and landscapes altered by extraction and environmental change.
Amy Le Ann Richardson (she/her), Olive Hill, $5,000
To create a poetry collection that explores how generational knowledge passed down by Appalachian women serves as a map for surviving climate collapse through practices of care, adaptation, and resistance. Drawing from oral histories, family stories, and inherited wisdom, this project honors the women who helped their families endure past traumas. These activities will deepen her work as a feminist social change artist by blending fieldwork, writing, and environmental reflection into a poetic testament to resilience.
M.A. Riggle (she/her), Goshen, $3,000
To support her ability to focus time away from paid work to write and complete a publishable manuscript of poems. Rooted in feminist commitments to equality and care, her work explores gender, motherhood, our bond with nature, and the intersection of the sacred with the mundane. This concentrated period of writing and revision will allow her to deepen her craft, finish a manuscript, and amplify feminist perspectives to foster empathy and social change.
Lora Eli Smith (she/her), Lexington, $2,500
To write an experimental historic novel about the 1919 racial expulsion in Corbin, Kentucky. The novel blends a fictionalized story with her own family’s history and archived depositions from a court trial that followed the violent event. Funds will be used for archival research related to female and trans femme character development, travel expenses, fees, and networking with other authors.
Susanna Spearman (they/she), Lexington, $1,500
To publish her full-length, poetry manuscript, which deals with issues of sexism, religious abuse, homophobia, and more. This published work will open doors for young, marginalized people, who defy gender norms, to raise their voices, and make room for the exquisite, eclectic panoply of the LGBTQIA+ community, who have shared/similar experiences.
Media
Sarah Albrecht (she/her), Lexington, $2,500
To expand her award-winning short film script of a queer coming-of-age dramedy set in Kentucky with a female protagonist into a feature-length script, which sheds light how Kentucky is more diverse than people realize. Once the feature-length draft is finished, she will host a table read featuring paid local actors. This work will support Sarah’s development as a writer-director.
Lexi Bass & Allison Ogden, Louisville, $2,821
To create and record an original music soundtrack to an upcoming film centered on Lexi’s mother’s sudden death in 2023. The songs and the film will underscore neurological health issues in Lexi’s matriarchal lineage, celebrate the resilience of her mother, and facilitate the cinematic treatment of dreams following her mother’s death. The soundtrack will be composed by collaborator, Allison Ogden with Lexi Bass and performed by student musicians and bluegrass ensembles.
Ashley Bell (she/her), Campbellsville, $5,000
To create a portrait and storytelling series that captures the lived experiences of disabled femmes in the South, highlighting their beauty, struggle, resilience, and resistance. This work will challenge ableism, uplift marginalized voices, and deepen her practice as a feminist social change artist by centering community, visibility, and collective liberation.
Erica Chambers (she/her), Berea, $3,300
To fund “Dirt Pearls” a portrait and documentary series addressing food justice, environmentalism, and challenges women face from societal expectations to domestic violence. Erica will elevate these powerful stories by recording women’s own words on video that will open a new journey into filmmaking for her artistic practice as a documentarian.
Demi Gardner (she/her), Louisville, $4,600
To create a feature-length documentary titled Westward Expansion, which documents the stories of Black women from the West End of Louisville as they navigate changing environments while building careers, community, and family. This work centers Black women’s voices and experiences. The documentary will further her development as a feminist social change artist by deepening her engagement with community storytelling to inspire awareness, dialogue, and empowerment.
Cintia Segovia Figueroa (she/her), Murray, $5,000
To create photographic portraits and video interviews of Latinas in Western Kentucky that highlights the complexities of immigrant identity and empowered womanhood. She will present this work in community workshops to encourage discussions about culture, and promote societal understanding. This project will deepen her development as a feminist social change artist by documenting the often-unseen labor of Latina women and amplifying the lessons their experiences offer to feminist movements, fostering broader awareness and dialogue.
Te’zha Jones (she/her), Louisville, $1,500
To create the Ancestral Womb Archive, a documentary and community storytelling project that blends archival research with oral histories from African American women to uncover and preserve the erased reproductive narratives of the Ohio Valley. This work centers Black women’s bodies, voices, and agency as an act of feminist resistance, The project will expand her skills in archival research and filmmaking while fostering intergenerational dialogue, community healing, and social change through the reclamation of ancestral womb wisdom.
Evelyn Medley (she/her), Berea, $4,986
To create of a short documentary film about Beth Ireland, a professional woodworker, educator, and artist, whose career challenges gender norms in a traditionally male-dominated field. The film will highlight feminist resilience and creativity, further her development as a filmmaker committed to social change and amplify underrepresented voices in craft.
Babita Shrestha Moreland, Lexington, $2,500
To fund a solo photography exhibition “The Art of Nourishment” showcasing her work from her two cookbooks “Plant-based Himalaya: Vegan Recipes from Nepal ” and “Garden Exotica: International Plant- Based Fusion Cuisine”, challenging patriarchal narratives while honoring the intergenerational labor of women food artists. By curating this visual narrative from ancestral roots to a global plate, she will not only advocate for a more equitable and sustainable food system, but also promote a dialogue around the health benefits of cooking wholesome meals at home. This project will develop her skills in public engagement and art curation, solidifying her path as a feminist social change artist.
Katie Romano (she/her), Lexington, $4,793
To create a photographic body of work that explores the strength, resilience, and self-expression of women affected by domestic violence (DV) while furthering her analog photographic practices, including using vintage film cameras, Polaroid emulsion lifts, and hand processing. She will strengthen her research and communication abilities by collecting stories and making site visits, all to raise awareness and create social change around DV.
Bryn Silverman (she/her), Louisville, $2,500
To finish production of feature documentary Vestibule that chronicles Riley Hooper’s decade-long journey to diagnose, treat, and heal from Vestibulodynia — a vulvar disorder that made intercourse painful. What begins as a quest for pain-free sex becomes a multigenerational story of resilience, dignity and self-discovery.
Performing
Lilianna Fischer (she/they), Frankfort, $4,610
To write and produce 8 original songs that tell a narrative story through lyrics, album art, and visuals, and to play three live shows at close-to-home community locations. These projects will grow their competencies as a female songwriter and live performer, allowing them to interface directly with their local community and encourage them to embrace their own authenticity and creativity, rooted in the ethics of feminism.
Clarity Hagan (she/they) & Three Witches Shakespeare, Louisville, $2,893
To start the process of becoming a nonprofit. After producing 5 full-length plays, Three Witches Shakespeare, a queer, feminist Shakespeare company, will develop a more sustainable and collaborative administrative structure to ensure they are able to continue to make powerful queer, feminist art with community and healthy creative practices at its center.
Malissa Kano-White (she/her), Paducah, $1,500
to support the development of an original musical theatre script that examines how social media ‘likes,’ influencer culture, and deepfake content influence our perceptions of identity, truth, and accountability within the high-stakes world of reality television. This playwriting project will cultivate an intentionally inclusive and collaborative creative process that centers underrepresented voices, challenges dominant social constructs around identity and truth, and raises our collective awareness of whose stories are told in order to foster a more authentic, intentional, and socially engaged community conversation through the power of live theatre.
Looking for Lilith Theatre Company, Louisville, $6,000
To merge longstanding models of devising original work with new interactive theater techniques developed through our community-based Ancestors Project and exploring how these approaches can come together in a single production centered on the Lilith myth and contemporary “Liliths.” This proposal specifically supports the production phase of the project, which will include participation from longtime community partners and youth from our education programs, as the play creation phase is already underway and funded through other grants.
Daisy Love (she/her) Berea, $1,500
To support her development as a performance artist through the purchasing of professional LED hula hoops, dance props, costuming, paying for an online dance class, and hiring a photographer. The acquisition of these materials will take her performance to a new level—allowing her to realize her dreams, step into professionalism, and foster empowerment, inclusion, and cultural change by modeling self-expression as a tool for liberation and social engagement.
Marjorie A. Marshall (she/her), Louisville, $4,000
To offer 4–6 therapeutic and creative workshops for women and girls culminating in a collective performance that blends journaling, playwriting, dance, and music as tools for healing, self-awareness, and empowerment. Rooted in feminist principles of voice, agency, and resistance to oppressive social norms, the work deepens her practice of using theatre to confront trauma and power dynamics, while empowering participants to reclaim their narratives and model resilience and accountability for their communities.
Pones, Highland Heights, $5,000
To tour Somewhere Over the Holler in rural Kentucky. This powerful project celebrates rural queer identities and amplifies voices often silenced by mainstream narratives and patriarchal cultural norms, through a groundbreaking fusion of documentary film, dance, music, drag, burlesque, and movement. This immersive experience will honor the stories of queer and gender-diverse rural residents and assert their visibility and resilience in places where these identities are too often isolated or erased.
Caroline Stine / InBocca Performance, Southgate, $5,000
To create a piece of theatre called Charlie’s Girls that examines the ways in which women fall victim to cult leaders’ rhetoric, especially under the guise of feminine power, and how that not only shifts how we look at these women culturally (The Manson Women), but also how we see this reflected in other women who have fallen victim to cult-like rhetoric in our current society. The final goal is to de-program affected women or help them as a community.
Visual
Aji AK (she/her), Berea, $5,000
To design and create a series of carved ceramic tablets and a mosaic centerpiece that honors her Appalachian matriarchal ancestors through folk surrealist symbolism, ancestral storytelling, and ritual installation. These activities will refine her folk surrealist style, increase her skills as a ceramic artist/carver and deepen her feminist storytelling. This project will create visual tools for dialogue and remembrance that invite folks to reconnect with ancestral matriarchal strength, women’s history and wisdom as a source of cultural memory and social transformation.
Anne Beyer (she/her), New Concord, $3,761
To support the making of a new series of wall hung ceramic sculptures centered on the exploration of experimental surface treatments and the relationship between her personal story and the material transformation of the wood firing process. She plans to exhibit this new work, allowing her to grow professionally, nationally, and internationally. Wood firing is a mentally and physically demanding process and Anne is one of only a handful of women in the country to own and operate a high temperature wood kiln.
Dr. Jabani Bennett (she/they), Louisville, $5,000
To create eight large-scale portraits of diverse women leaders in Louisville who fight for climate justice and resist environmental racism. Each portrait will stage them in settings reflecting their joy and vision for a sustainable city, with symbolic cues of collective wellbeing. Integrating fiber arts, figurative traditions, collage, and poetry drawn from interviews, the series honors portraiture history while revealing the complexity of advocacy and climate action. This project builds on her existing art samples in portraiture, collage, and fiber arts that employ a feminist storytelling approach.
Kim Dixon (she/her), Lexington, $9,200
To create a series of story quilts inspired by her mother’s reflections on the recent passing of her best friend, renowned poet, Nikki Giovanni, exploring their shared experiences and deconstructing poems that shaped their understanding of life, love, and Black womanhood. Through this intergenerational project, Kim will honor the legacy of Black feminist thought and deepen her engagement with it as expressed in the everyday lives of these two women, which continues her practice as a feminist social change artist through storytelling, memory, and cloth.
Riley Hamm (she/her), Louisville, $5,000
To produce a maximalism inspired clothing line that experiments with the celebration of feminism in all forms using sustainable craft practices, which will create a space for women like her who never felt they could fit into any box. This will allow her to celebrate the two causes she is most passionate about: Making the fashion world a more sustainable place, while also validating the women who came before, after, and during her who always felt like they were “too much”.
Devan Horton (she/her), Bellevue, $10,000
To build a body of work with botanical dyes and homemade paints using tie dye, batik, print making, and painting techniques. She will work through the perspective of women farmers, focusing on individual backgrounds and the uniqueness of each farmer and farm. This project builds her artistic skill set and develops an important shift in her art that allows her to be more closely connected to the farmers and communities who care for the land, build support of our women-owned farms, and motivate others to reconnect with practices passed down by generations of Appalachian women.
Josephine Sculpture Park, Frankfort, $10,000
To support a Kentucky-based emerging woman artist in the creation and exhibition of a large-scale sculptural installation rooted in eco-feminist values, complemented by public programming including a community potluck, storytelling sessions, and hands-on art workshops. These activities will deepen the artist’s exploration of feminism and social change by centering care, shared memory, and cultural equity, while fostering artistic and professional growth, amplifying underrepresented voices in public art, and building meaningful connections between artist and community.
Lori Larusso (she/her) Louisville, $2,500
To continue her research into cookbooks, menus, and photography from the Ohio Valley region over the past 85 years—materials that both reflected and shaped the domestic work and foodways, which was traditionally women’s work. Support for new tools and materials will significantly impact her ability to make and exhibit work and continue her practice as a feminist social change artist.
Danica Novgorodoff (she/her) Louisville, $5,000
To create the artwork for a nonfiction graphic novel about women artists exploring themes of freedom, feminism, and the tensions between the labor of art-making and the labors of motherhood. The project will develop her skills as an experimental visual storyteller and memoir/art history writer. The work will raise awareness about the difficult economics of motherhood, sexism in the art world, and the seemingly contradictory demands of creativity and domestic care for women artists.
Laura Poulette (she/her), Berea, $2,500
To further develop her proficiency in the craft of green woodworking. This project will further her development as a feminist social change artist by supporting the creation of a new collection of sculptural artwork made from indigenous natural materials that will be impactful both as artwork that spotlights the imperiled botanical diversity of Eastern Kentucky but also broadens perspectives about what type of person “can” be a woodworker.
Beth Reitmeyer (she/her), Bowling Green, $2,500
To create Torrent, an immersive installation that investigates waterfalls as a metaphor for all the information and experiences that nourish and bombard us every day, the torrent of life. Words and stories collected from Kentucky women and children will be embroidered into a glimmering fabric waterfall, reminding us that we support and celebrate one another in the chaos of life. This project will help her grow as a feminist social change artist by incorporating contemporary art making technical skills (video editing and project mapping) with more traditional skills.
Dianna Settles (she/her), Lexington, $5,000
To produce a new series of 4-color stone lithography prints which explore motherhood and the fight for collective liberation as it pertains to protecting the earth for future generations. Settles is returning to the medium of traditional stone lithography after many years of working professionally as a painter. This work will allow her to articulate different modes of collective action and stewardship, as well as to produce a more accessible and affordable set of works, ensuring the messages these works contain can affect a wider audience.
Shand Stamper, Paducah, $2,204
For a week-long metalsmithing workshop followed by a two-week art residency, where she will deepen her traditional metalsmithing practice to create a new body of work exploring themes of storytelling and home. Her work merges time-honored craft with contemporary narratives of women’s roles, positioning jewelry and metal art as the catalyst for feminist dialogue and cultural memory.
Monique Williams (she/her), Louisville, $5,000
To create a capsule collection of crochet garments and accessories by drawing on legacies of Black women’s global fiber practices and contemporary craft/activism. Her activities will include studio production, researching feminist textile histories, and conducting community workshops. These activities will advance her development as a feminist artist by deepening her technical practice, curatorial approach, and engagement with transnational feminist histories. The intended impact is to elevate crochet into contemporary art discourse, spark intergenerational dialogue, and empower women to see their own creative labor as valuable, political, and transformative.
Haley Younce (she/her) Lexington, $4,835
To support a new body of work that combines printmaking and quilting, using photographs sourced from mothers and caregivers in rural communities, to document their relationship to domestic spaces. Rooted in place, this project will foster reflection and dialogue on caretaking and the social value of women’s labor, while also expanding Haley’s experience in community-based practice.
