Grand Ronde, Oregon – The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde has selected Anthony Hudson (Grand Ronde) as one of two Indigenous Place Keeping Artist Fellows for 2022. During the fellowship, they will focus on researching stories and records of gender variance and queer indigenous traditions in their ancestral homelands throughout Western Oregon, including interviewing Two Spirit and queer Indigenous artists from the Grand Ronde Tribe and other tribal nations for the purpose of applying this information to an initial draft of a forthcoming memoir, Looking for Tiger Lily.
A descendent from the Hudson and Lane families of the Grand Ronde and Siletz Reservations in Western Oregon, Hudson is a multidisciplinary artist and writer perhaps best known as Portland, Oregon’s premier drag clown CARLA ROSSI, an immortal trickster whose attempts at realness almost always result in fantastic failure. Together they have been featured at the New York Theater Workshop, La Mama (NYC), Portland and Seattle Art Museums, The Vancouver Queer Film Festival, the 2019 Portland Biennial, the Risk/Reward Festival, PICA’s TBA Festival, Melbourne’s Yirramboi Festival, and more, in addition to regularly hosting and programming QUEER HORROR- the only LGBTQ+ horror film screening series in the United States- at the historic Hollywood Theatre. Hudson also hosts the weekly queer feminist horror podcast GAYLORDS OF DARKNESS with writer Stacie Ponder.
“To receive this honor from my Tribe is beyond massive. Not only does it represent a huge, crucial step in my practice and toward the creation of my long-dreamt-of memoir, it also represents an affirmation of queer people within our Tribe and our ancestors, as well as our art, our histories, and our present-day experiences,” Hudson stated. “I am overwhelmed with joy to spend the rest of this year researching and interviewing queer Indigenous artists from our Tribe and other Nations, and to create a book that tells both my story and our stories as we actively reclaim what it means to be queer, Indigenous, and sacred walkers between worlds.”
Hudson has been broadly recognized for their work. Recently being named a 2018 National Artist Fellow from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, a 2018 Western Arts Alliance Native Launchpad Artist, a 2019 Oregon Arts Commission Fellow, a 2021 First Peoples Fund Fellow, and a 2021 Nia Tero Pacific NW Artist Fellow, and has received project support and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Performance Network, USArtists International, the Oregon Community Foundation, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Portland Art Museum & NW Film Center, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Ucross Foundation, Caldera Arts Center, and more. Hudson graduated from Pacific Northwest College of Art Portland, Oregon in 2013 with a focus in Intermedia.
“It has been an honor to watch Anthony develop as an artist and a person,” stated Grand Ronde Tribal Council Member Lisa Leno. “I look forward to seeing what he accomplishes over the next year as one of our first IPKA Fellows.”
Hudson’s work on the 2022 Fellowship begins immediately.
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The Indigenous Place Keeping Artist (IPKA) Fellowship was created in 2022 by the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and provides up to $20,000 for serving as a Fellow. The Fellowship exists to develop indigenous artist capacity within the Grand Ronde Tribe’s homelands. Art by indigenous people is one of the most effective and recognizable ways that we as indigenous people of place can hold a place in our homelands and further our own recognition and persistence. The Fellowship is seen as a means to develop artists resumes with an intent that artists who have been Fellows become more competitive for local, regional, and nationwide funding opportunities that will make an independent career as a full time artists possible for more indigenous people of this place.
A call for applications is made each fall for the IPKA Fellowship and is open to individuals who can demonstrate a verifiable indigenous connection to ancestral peoples of Western Oregon from the lower Columbia River in the North to the Klamath River in the South. One or more Fellows are selected based on available funding. The IPKA Fellowship is administered by the Grand Ronde Cultural Resources Department. More information can be obtained by emailing Cultural.Resources@grandronde.org.