Lilla Jewel Awards
Women and folks of marginalized genders have been erased from traditional art institutions for centuries. To this day, the vast majority of permanent collections in museums around the world are largely dominated by cis men.
The Lilla Jewel Award—named in honor of artist, radical feminist, and suffragist Lilla Jewel— was created to address these inequities by resourcing and amplifying Oregon-based artists of marginalized genders who advance a social change message through their work. Created in 1997, the Lilla Jewel Awards have funded dozens of poets, choreographers, singers, painters, photographers, filmmakers, writers, and other artists embedded in our social justice movements.
Eligibility
To be eligible for an award, applicants must:
- Be Oregon residents;
- Be at least 18 years of age; and
- Be of a marginalized gender, including trans and cis women, trans men, nonbinary people, gender non-conforming people, intersex people, and people of all genders that have been historically underrepresented and/or oppressed by structures of power.
Priorities
We are looking for artists whose work is:
- Steeped in social justice, touching on and calling the public to confront and address racial, economic, disability, gender and/or environmental injustice; and
- Timely and relevant to the struggles of social justice movements and communities most impacted by injustice.
Process
This award specifically seeks to support and recognize artists as people, not necessarily a particular art piece or project. We want to reward and invest in artists as activists who contribute to, elevate, educate within, and lend support to Oregon’s social, racial, environmental, economic, disability, and gender justice movements in Oregon.
Each year, the Lilla Jewel Award Committee—composed of former Lilla Jewel Award winners— selects one or more artists to receive an award.
Awards may be up to $10,000 per artist and if selected, artists must be willing to serve in the Lilla Jewel Award Committee in the future.
Please note that because Seeding Justice cannot make grants to individuals, this award will be considered taxable income. If this presents a problem for you, please let us know and we will work with you to find a solution.
Open Opportunities
If there are open opportunities, they will be listed through our Submittable page, below. Make sure to sign up for our newsletter to be notified when they open.
Lilla Jewel Award Application and scoring guide (for reference only)
Currently, these are the most up-to-date documents. Make sure to check back when grant applications are open for the most current version.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Lilla Jewel Award typically opens the application cycle each Spring. You can apply for the award via our online platform, Submittable. The first time you apply, you will need to create an account with your email address and a password. If you don’t see the application in Submittable, that means that the application is not open at this time.
Yes. If you’d like to look at the most current application questions, you may download a packet here.
Please note that we may make changes to the application from one cycle to the next, so make sure you check out the most recent version in Submittable once the application opens.
This opportunity is open to artists of marginalized genders: trans and cis women, trans men, nonbinary people, gender non-conforming people, intersex people, and people of any gender that have been historically underrepresented and/or oppressed by structures of power.
Applicants can can be musicians, performers, filmmakers, dancers, writers, poets, photographers, printmakers, sculptors, and multi-disciplinary and spoken-word artists, among many others.
Applicants do not need to be considered “professionals” or work full time in the arts in order to qualify, but their work must reach an audience in order to have an impact.
Artists must live and work in Oregon and must be at least 18 years old.
The Lilla Jewel Award Committee—composed of former Lilla Jewel Awardees—reads and scores applications after the award cycle is closed and meet to deliberate around June and make decisions.
At this point, only individual artists are allowed to apply.
If you can’t find an answer to your questions in the FAQ, please contact us.
