For one month, a Prince Rupert First Nations artist is being featured as an artist-in-residence in Sante Fe, New Mexico.
Nakkita Trimble said she has a habit of applying for as many different grants she can as an artist.
She was selected by a jury to be a part of the residency program at the Institute of American Indian Arts from Oct. 4 until Nov. 4.
As a resident, Trimble receives a $3,000 stipend, housing, a meal plan, a car rental if needed, studio space, a material budget for $500 and airfare. Throughout the year, the institute brings in different artists to showcase, and Trimble is sharing this month’s residency program with an artist from Alaska.
“Today we have an open studio,” Trimble said over the phone on Oct. 18. “Anyone is welcome to come in and watch us work. It’s lots of exposure. We get to meet other artists and we’re able to access the facilities down here.”
The facilities include a silk screening studio, a print-making studio, a lab where artists can create anything out of wood using a laser burner, and much more.
“I asked to do silkscreening. I have designs I’m working on down here. I have a student helping me in her senior year who is going to be teaching once she graduates. She’s helping me with my images with silkscreening,” Trimble said.
The Nisga’a artist added that she hasn’t done a lot of silkscreening before other than a few T-shirts. On paper, silkscreening is much more absorbent.
Her hope, once she returns to the North Coast, is to create a studio in the city to produce print in large quantities for the feast hall.
“I’m hoping this is a way for me to support the feast hall, support my chief, and my house through creating art this way,” said the young Nisga’a woman whose name means “speaking through art.”
A few shops in the Sante Fe area have told her they would like to buy some of her designs to put on shirts for their shop. Trimble is going to try to spread her art through as many different avenues as she can while she’s there.
Recently, another First Nations artist from Prince Rupert was in Santa Fe for the Indian Market where more than 1,100 artists from the U.S. and Canada sell and showcase their work. Dale Campbell won two first-place ribbons and a second-place ribbon for her wood carvings.
“Santa Fe has the biggest art scene I’ve ever seen, and it’s in every building I go to. Art is flourishing down here. I’m so happy to be a part of it,” Trimble said.