2024 – 26 Fields Artist Fellows Announced

Four Oregon artists will receive $150,000 each over two years to develop their careers and engage their communities.

We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024–26 Fields Artist Fellowship, a partnership between Oregon Humanities and Oregon Community Foundation to invest in individual artists and culture bearers and their communities. 

Four Fields Artist Fellows will receive $150,000 each over a two-year period, along with robust professional development, networking, and community building opportunities. An additional eight finalists will receive a one-time award of $10,000.

During their fellowships, the four Fields Artist Fellows will develop their work and careers and participate in gatherings with other fellows. All funding for the fellowship is provided by the Fred W. Fields Fund of Oregon Community Foundation.

2024–26 Fields Artist Fellows

Myles de Bastion (Portland)
Myles de Bastion is a technical artist and disability rights advocate known for creating immersive, sensory-substitution art installations and experiences centered on themes of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility. As the founder and artistic director of CymaSpace, a nonprofit that facilitates arts and cultural events for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing, de Bastion spearheaded the Northwest Deaf Arts Festival and pivoted to virtual and mixed reality (VR/XR) events and projects during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is dedicated to building inclusive virtual and physical experiences for Deaf, disabled and nondisabled audiences that push the boundaries of accessible art and technology.

Chava Florendo (Ashland)
Chava Florendo is a Wasco/Filipina/multiracial photographer, multidisciplinary artist, performer, facilitator, and educator residing in Southern Oregon. She draws on her Wasco roots and the  teachings, stories, and art of her aduai grandmother, Alice Florendo, and her other incredibly talented family members to facilitate art and cultural opportunities for Indigenous youth and artists all across Oregon and the states. She is a proud alum of Southern Oregon University, where she also works with and for Native Youth and the community facilitating All My Relations and Konaway Nika Tillicum. Additionally,  Chava created the Indigenous Youth Digital Collective, sang for “How Can You Own the Sky?” with several symphonies, performed in the Native American musical Distant Thunder, supported the Indigenous Writers Collaborative, and curated the Visual Sovereignty Project with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Scott Kalama (Warm Springs)
Scott Kalama is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs of Oregon.  He is a certified prevention specialist and a Nammy Award–winning musician who performs as Blue Flamez. Kalama says he creates positive music that shares his story of growing up on the rez. As a prevention specialist he educates you on alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs and hosts hand drum-making classes and music workshops for youth and young adults. During his fellowship, he plans to expand his musical reach by performing locally and regionally, improving his writing, engaging new fans and creating new music. He says, “I will continue to raise awareness in the Community around missing and murdered Indigenous women and Water and Land Protectors. This opportunity will open doors for me and change my career.”

Eduardo Melendrez (Ontario)
Eddie Melendrez is a Mexican American artist from Ontario, Oregon. He started painting at a young age at the encouragement of his uncle Marcos and school teachers, but set art aside when he began competing as a professional boxer. He returned to painting in 2015, when he created a mural for an open house at a local nonprofit. Encouraged by his community’s response to the work, he began painting portraits of community members, working in acrylic on canvas. He says, “Everyone has beauty. Most people are surprised that someone would take the time to paint them.” Melendrez is also a member of the Ontario City Council and a youth boxing coach.

2024 Finalists

Esteban Camacho Steffensen (Eugene)
Esteban Camacho Steffensen is a Costa Rican/Oregonian muralist with eighteen years of experience creating murals in the Northwest to inspire the public with images of the beauty of nature, the complexity of ecosystems, and the bounty of our cultural diversity. His compositions emphasize the ecological relationships of critical species and encourage cultural reflection and action to protect the biosphere. His art practice also focuses on creating murals with community engagement and he has dedicated himself to mentoring youth and emerging artists using community-based processes.

Adolfo Cantu-Villarreal (Beaverton)
Adolfo Cantú-Villarreal is a Mexican filmmaker and cinematographer. He draws on the richness of his culture and his passion for cinema to create singular, emotional, and memorable work across his narrative, documentary, and commercial projects. In his films and through collaborations, he strives to tell the stories of the underrepresented and to showcase the artistry and talents of people of diverse backgrounds, both in front and behind the camera.

Anthony Hudson (Portland)
Anthony Hudson (Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Siletz) is an artist and writer also known as Portland’s premier drag clown, Carla Rossi. Hudson's performance work, from his award-winning solo show Looking for Tiger Lily to Queer Horror, the only LGBTQ+ horror film and performance series in the country, have earned him national fellowships, international engagements, and sainthood from the Portland Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. A 2023 FSG Writer’s Fellowship finalist, Anthony’s writing has appeared in American Theatre and Arts and International Affairs, and he is currently adapting Looking for Tiger Lily into a book.

LaRonn Katchia (Portland/Warm Springs)
LaRonn Katchia is a Warm Springs/Wasco/Paiute filmmaker and storyteller from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. He draws inspiration for his impactful narrative and documentary storytelling from his Indigenous teachings and background. Currently, he actively engages with the youth in his tribe, working to bring authentic representation to the forefront of the film industry. Katchia's mission is to challenge Indigenous stereotypes in film, shedding light on the overlooked original stories that deserve to be told, and he remains dedicated to amplifying the voices of Warm Springs and Indigenous communities from around the country. 

Ernesto Martinez (Eugene)
Ernesto Javier Martínez is an award-winning Chicano/Puerto Rican writer and educator, best known for the the animated kids movie Daniel Visits a New Neighborhood: The Movie (PBS KIDS, 2022), the short film La Serenata (HBO Max, 2019), and the bilingual queer children’s book When We Love Someone We Sing to Them. He teaches at the University of Oregon.

Yanely Rivas (Salem)
Yanely Rivas is a working-class Xicana, cultural worker, and visual storyteller with ancestral roots amongst the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico—lands traditionally steward by the P'urépecha. As an anti-imperialist and daughter of the corn, Rivas is guided by principles of community care and collaboration rooted in the well-being of the sacred ecosystems we call home. She is currently dabbling in the world of comics and playing in traditional art forms such as basket weaving and gourd art. Her heart lights up when she works in printmaking and watercolor mediums.

Shalanda Sims (Troutdale)
Shalanda Sims is the founder and executive director of World Stage Theatre and a multidisciplinary artist who has performed on screen and stages large and small both locally and across the country. A lifelong Oregonian, Shalanda studied theater at the University of Portland and English at Portland State University. She is the author of several plays, including Church Girls, Vanport, and Redefining Alberta, as well as the children’s book Night Rhythms. She is also a blogger and podcaster, teaches theater and playwriting to K–12 students K-12, and sits on various educational, artistic, youth, and culturally specific committees. She is an advocate for real change and loves spending time with her family, traveling, meeting new people, and being in community with others. Her greatest and most treasured adventure thus far is being a wife and mother.

Vo Vo (Portland)
Vo Vo (they/them) explores support strategies and models of community care within a post-traumatic social landscape, focusing on the resilience of BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+ and disabled communities. In their transdisciplinary art, they work in education, place-making, textiles, embroidery, audio, video, weaving, and furniture building.