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By Kaili Berg

May 03, 2024

Renowned Cree Métis and Two-Spirit artist, activist, fashion designer, and educator Jason Baerg is set to make waves once again as they unveil their latest collection at the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA) Native Fashion Week on May 5. 

Operating under their fashion label, Ayimach Horizons, Baerg will introduce the Kapishkum (Transcend) Collection for SWAIA, paying tribute to their Cree and Métis heritage.

Inspired by the essence of water and the changing seasons, the collection blends traditional materials like leather and silk with contemporary design elements. Each piece reflects the fluidity and transformative power of water, with transparent fabrics and metallic accents adding a touch of elegance, while dynamic touches of horsehair infuse the collection with movement, evoking the spirit of the land.

After earning recognition as one of Vogue’s “21 Artists to Know at This Year’s Santa Fe Indian Market,” Baerg’s creative journey has taken them to prestigious platforms such as the Musée McCord Stewart in Montreal and Fashion Art Toronto.

Native News Online spoke with Baerg about their journey in the fashion industry, focusing on their inspiration, challenges faced by Indigenous artists, and their aspirations to contribute to the history of art and fashion.

This article has been edited for clarity and length.

What inspired you to get into the fashion industry? 

I started my first capsule collection in 2018, in the resort space, with the Fashion Art Gallery in New York City. I’ve always loved fashion, being raised by strong Indigenous women. I’m also two-spirit. Fashion was such a powerful vehicle in the 80s, making it an expressive art form for me. I’m also an artist, a tenured professor in drawing and painting at OCAD University in Toronto, which holds the largest painting department in North America.

​​What are you most looking forward to about showcasing the Kapishkum (Transcend) Collection at SWAIA Native Fashion Week?
I started this conceptual journey focusing on East-West sunrises and honoring elements like fire, earth, and metals. We’ll experience all the beautiful colors of water and its transformative power on the runway this year. 

Water seems to play a significant role in the collection.Could you elaborate on the symbolism of water and how it informs your artistic expression?
This year, I’m honoring water. Copper is also a key signifier because copper purifies water. So, we’re going to be experiencing all the beautiful colors of what water lives in. We also think about transformation. Water starts out as liquid, vaporizes to clean itself, rises through the atmosphere, and then returns as rain, snow, or hail. It carries memory and a story. There’s so much that water does, so I’m really honoring water through this collection. I’m looking forward to presenting that work. 

What challenges have you faced as an Indigenous artist in the fashion world, and how have you overcome them?
I’m white presenting. I just want to be honored and respected as an equal. Lateral violence is improving, but being white passing has been a challenge. My grandmother and great-grandmother went to residential school, andsome married white men for safety. I believe Native makers deserve space for mastery. That’s what I welcome in the next phase of making — to focus and honor my gift.

What message or feeling do you hope your audience takes away at SWAIA from experiencing the Kapishkum Collection?
I believe in our people and cultural teachings. I want them to feel empowered,inspired, to call in their dreams and live them, propelling forward together in power.

Finally, looking ahead, what are your aspirations for the future of your career?
I have an exciting project in Los Angeles within a museum space. I’ve previously presented at the National Gallery of Canada, making me one of the first Native artists there in the fashion space. Next, I’ll be opening a fashion festival in Montreal, reaching an audience of 10,000 in August. My aspirations include making valuable contributions to art and fashion, particularly for my people and our history, akin to greats like Eve Celeron.

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About The Author

Author: Kaili BergEmail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Staff Reporter

Kaili Berg (Aleut) is a member of the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq Nation, and a shareholder of Koniag, Inc. She is a staff reporter for Native News Online and Tribal Business News. Berg, who is based in Wisconsin, previously reported for the Ho-Chunk Nation newspaper, Hocak Worak. She went to school originally for nursing, but changed her major after finding her passion in communications at Western Technical College in Lacrosse, Wisconsin.

Submitted photo
Appalachian Forest Discovery Center in Elkins will display the new exhibit ‘Creating Home: Indigenous Roots and Connections in the Appalachian Forest’ on Saturday, May 18.

ELKINS — Seneca artisans will display their art on Saturday, May 18 for the opening of the newest exhibit at the Appalachian Forest Discovery Center. The public is invited to welcome Native artists as they share their culture with beadwork, corn husk dolls, leatherwork, basketry, foods, and more, with a Seneca Artisan Showcase.

Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area (AFNHA) will celebrate the opening of their new exhibit “Creating Home: Indigenous Roots and Connections in the Appalachian Forest.” The exhibit explores the history and contemporary stories of Native American cultures with connections to the AFNHA region and their influence on Appalachian culture. The Appalachian Forest Discovery Center, located at the Darden Mill, 101 Railroad Ave, Elkins, will be open to the public with free admission from 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Thursdays through Sundays, from May 18 through the end of October.

“Many people have been told that there were no permanent Native American settlements in West Virginia or that they just used this area for hunting. Yet the names and languages of Indigenous people remain on our landscape in place names like Seneca Rocks, Mingo, and Monongahela,” explained Eleanor Renshaw, AmeriCorps member with AFNHA, who led the exhibit’s development. “Our exhibit brings together Native stories and arts past and present, along with archaeological research, to show some of the many ways that Indigenous people have lived, loved, and created home in the Appalachian Forest since time immemorial.”

The Seneca Artisan Showcase on May 18 will begin at 9:30 a.m. and will feature presentations and demonstrations on Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) art and culture by traditional artists from the Seneca Nation. There will also be artwork for sale and a community supper featuring Appalachian foods with indigenous roots (such as beans and cornbread).

Schedule:

9:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Artisans showcase with vendor tables

Special demonstrations throughout the day:

9:30 a.m. Penny Minner – Split Black Ash Baskets

10:45 a.m. Bernadette Scott – Corn as Art

12 p.m. Chef Lorinda John – Three Sisters Fritters tasting

1:15 p.m. Mary Jacobs – Haudenosaunee Clothing From Coverings to Fashion

2:30 p.m. Samantha Jacobs – Moccasin Making

4 p.m. Cliff Redeye – Leatherwork (Leatherwork class Sunday 12-4 p.m., $25 by reservation)

5:30 p.m. Exhibit Opening Address – Joe Stahlman

Followed by supper featuring Appalachian foods with Native influence (supper by donation, RSVP encouraged)

There will also be a leatherworking class with Cliff Redeye III on Sunday, May 19 from noon to 4 p.m., during which students can make their own carved leather pieces. Reservations are needed for the limited space in the class, which has a $25 materials fee.

Some of the artisans will also demonstrate and sell their work the same weekend at the Seneca Rocks Discovery Center; Cliff Redeye will demonstrate on Friday, May 17, and Samantha and Mary Jacobs will host demonstrations on Sunday, May 19.

AFNHA will host additional events throughout the summer and fall of 2024 as part of their “Indigenous Voices in Appalachia” program. The next event is planned for June 29 and will feature Indigenous dancers.

Admission to the museum and artisan event is free. Please RSVP for supper or leatherwork class to discovery@afnha.org or 304-636-6182. Visit www.afnha.org for more details, or contact afnha@afnha.org. This program was supported with funding from the National Park Foundation, The West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture, and History, and West Virginia Commission on the Arts.

The Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area conserves, interprets, and promotes forest heritage to enhance landscapes and communities in the highlands of West Virginia and Maryland. AFNHA works with partners to accomplish this through community development, conservation, celebrating cultural heritage, and creating opportunities for transformational experiences. To learn more, see HYPERLINK “http://www.appalachianforestnha.org/”www.appalachianforestnha.org.

On a sunny evening at the Governor’s mansion in Santa Fe, Paloma Rivera from the Pueblo of Pojoaque danced for a crowd of people in fabulous outfits of silk and leather, feathers and rhinestones.

Designers, models and fashion-lovers gathered to launch the first Native Fashion Week, the organizers say the first of its kind in the United States.

“Why Native Fashion Week? Because the time is way overdue!” said organizer Amber-Dawn Bear Robe (Siksika Nation), an art historian and curator, to cheers.

She said the fashion industry has long profited from Indigenous designs, but now it is time for Native designers to take the lead.

“Indigenous designers and artists are the original fashion makers of this land,” Bear Robe said in an interview. “It just hasn’t been framed as that, it’s been framed as a curiosity or anthropological object.”

The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, which also runs Santa Fe’s Indian Market, is organizing the week’s events.

“To see the amount of attention and love given to our communities right now is heartwarming and long overdue,” said SWAIA executive director Jamie Schulze (Northern Cheyenne/Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate).

As more people appreciate Native art and Native history, Bear Robe said there is more interest in designers like the ones who will be participating in a symposium at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture on Friday, May 3 and in runway shows at the Convention Center over the weekend. Tickets are available through the SWAIA website.

Other events during the week include a fundraiser at SITE Santa Fe at 6.30pm on May 4, including art, dance, sound and fashion. The money raised will go to support Indigenous artists through the 4KINSHIP Indigenous Futures Fund.

Despite all the growing attention and appreciation, Bear Robe said raising funding and sponsorship for an event like this is still very challenging.

“There is no shortage of Indigenous designers, of talent, of models, of the people who are interested,” she said. “But I need a Native Oprah.”

That is, someone with the resources as well as the will to champion Native creatives.

That challenge won’t go away soon, but this is a night of celebration. Participating designer Himikalas Pamela Baker (Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw/Tlingit/Haida/Squamish) called the fashion week a great recognition of Indigenous art.

“Every piece tells a story,” she said. “I think every designer you talk to, their pieces all tell a story of their history.”

Model Richard Smallboy (Maskwacis Cree Nation) said art and Indigeneity are intertwined.

“I think that inherently as Indigenous people, we express ourselves in a creative and artistic way and that this has always been a part of who we are,” he said.

He finds it natural for that art to modernize and change.

“The adaptive nature of how we are celebrating our fashion and our art is something that we have genetically within our blood, within our nations, within our practices, within our culture,” he said.

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Fifty years after it opened, the Gorman Museum of Native American Art at UC Davis is brand new again.

A unique showcase for contemporary works by Native American, First Nations, and Indigenous artists, in fall 2023 the Gorman Museum moved into a completely renovated, 1970s-vintage building that once served as the university’s faculty club.

The free museum joins the collection of cultural institutions, including the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, that comprise the university’s Gateway District along Old Davis Road. This new—and far more prominent—location will help bring greater visibility to special exhibitions at the museum, as well as rotating displays of art from its permanent collection. 

The Davis museum is nearly four times larger than its previous incarnation, giving the Gorman’s curators far more opportunities to show the collection of roughly 2,250 works, which is especially notable for pieces created since 1980.

“The renovated space was manifested and realized by a dedicated community of local, inter-tribal artists and allies who embrace the power of Native American art as a site to continue the creative and intellectual conversations that were interrupted by tropes and bias,” according to museum director and Native American studies professor Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie.

The museum and the entire UC Davis campus is located on land where the Patwin people lived for thousands of years. Their descendants include members of the federally recognized Cachil DeHe Band of Wintun Indians of the Colusa Indian Community, the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, and Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation.
 

The Museum Experience

The Gorman Museum is committed to visual sovereignty, the concept that Native peoples should tell their own stories and express themselves through the works they have conceived and executed. Outside the Gorman, a striking white pavilion created by Tsinhnahjinnie, who has worked as museum director since 2004, welcomes visitors. Intricately patterned with triangular cutouts and based on Native American basket designs, the curving, screenlike metal structure honors Patwin basket weaver and culture bearer Bertha Wright Mitchell (known as Auntie Bertha). By 1997, Mitchell was the only fluent Patwin speaker and has since been credited with saving the language.

The Gorman overlooks the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden and students in the arboretum’s sustainable horticulture program planted and designed the gardens adjacent to the museum with culturally significant native California species. A mural along the museum’s exterior walls further emphasizes the significance of native plants to California’s Indigenous people walls. The artwork depicts tlaka, the Wintun name for tule grasses, which are used to make baskets, dwellings, and canoes. 

The museum’s interior is divided into a space for changing exhibitions and the Collections Gallery, which displays works from the Gorman’s permanent collection. Visitors can also peer through a glass wall and into a storage area to see staff at work and catch glimpses of many works that are not currently on exhibit.

Leading California artists, including Mad River Band of the Wiyot Tribe member Rick Bartow and Karuk/Yurok/Hoopa painter Lyn Risling, are represented in the permanent collection. The collection runs the gamut from works on paper to such traditional crafts as baskets, ceramics, and textiles.

Contemporary California Native Art, the museum’s inaugural exhibition, featured 40 works by artists from around the state and incorporated select pieces from the Gorman’s permanent collection. Among the artists represented were Cahuilla tribal leader and sculptor Gerald Clarke Jr., Karuk painter, sculptor, and poet Brian D. Tripp, and Sacramento-born Nisenan-Maidu painter Harry Fonseca, who is best known for his series of whimsical paintings of coyotes.

The museum gift shop offers a selection of books, as well as works responsibly sourced from Native American artists and craftspeople.
 

The Origins of the Gorman Museum

The museum honors Carl N. Gorman, the Navajo artist and teacher who played a central role in the history of Native American studies at UC Davis. He was also the father of the renowned painter R.C. Gorman, famously described as “the Picasso of American Indian Art” by The New York Times.

Born in Arizona and a member of the Black Sheep Clan, during World War II Carl Gorman served in the U.S. Marine Corps as one of the original Navajo Code Talkers, the contingent of 29 servicemen who developed an undecipherable secret code from the Navajo language. Created to covertly convey messages, the code successfully prevented the Japanese military from discovering U.S. operational plans in the Pacific and remained unbroken throughout the war. 

After leaving the military, Gorman studied at the OTIS Art Institute in Los Angeles and his works portrayed Navajo cultural themes in a modernist style. In 1969, Gorman became one of the founding members of the UC Davis Department of Native American Studies, among the country’s oldest departments of its kind and one of only four nationally that grants doctorate degrees in the field.  

Gorman taught studio art and art history at UC Davis and, to augment his teaching, often brought in Native American artifacts and art. The collection grew as others donated and loaned their own pieces and was first housed at the Tecumseh Center, a onetime Army barracks that served as home to the Native American studies department. The collection informally came to be known as the Gorman Museum before the university officially named the museum for the artist in 1973. 

From 1992 until the current building opened, the museum operated out of a cramped 1,200-square-foot space in the university’s Hart Hall. Now, in its modern and sustainably designed new home, the museum can more fully carry out its mission to present the works of both established and emerging contemporary Native American artists. 

 “Native Americans have not vanished or disappeared. We are very present,” Tsinhnahjinnie said. “The UC Davis community, and others who visit the Gorman, will witness a very vibrant, Native American art community that visualizes the complexities of being Native through art.”

On the national theater stage, Oklahoma — the state, not the show of the same name this time — is having a moment in the New York spotlight, with plenty of award nominations to prove it.

The new stage adaptation of “The Outsiders” shines like gold, the new musical “Dead Outlaw” looks alive, and Oklahoma natives Kelli O’Hara and Mary Kathryn Nagle are contenders as the nominees for the Tony Awards and other New York theater prizes have been revealed.

Presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, the 77th Annual Tony Awards, which honor theater professionals for distinguished achievement in 2023-2024 Broadway productions, will air live Sunday, June 16 on CBS and will stream on Paramount+ in the U.S. for subscribers.

Oscar winner and Tony nominee Ariana DeBose returns to host the Tony Awards for the third time at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.

But the nominations also have been announced in the past few days for the Drama Desk Awards, Drama League Awards and Outer Critics Circle Awards, which all honor the top Broadway and Off-Broadway productions of the past season.

Here’s a look at the theater award nominations with Oklahoma ties:

‘The Outsiders’ nominated for 12 Tony Awards

“The Outsiders,” the musical theater version of Oklahoma novelist S.E. Hinton’s landmark 1967 coming-of-age book and Oscar-winning director Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic 1983 movie adaptation, earned 12 Tony nominations, including best musical.

The show’s dozen Tony nods comes in second only to the 13 nominations for “Hell’s Kitchen,” a new musical featuring the songs of Grammy winner Alicia Keys, and “Stereophonic,” a play about a feuding 1970s band set entirely in a recording studio.

Inspired by her experiences at Will Rogers High School, Susan “Susie” Eloise Hinton penned the tale of two rival Tulsa gangs — the poor Greasers and the privileged Socs (pronounced Soshs) — when she was still a teenager. “The Outsiders” musical is set in Tulsa in the 1960s and focuses on young Greaser Ponyboy Curtis (Brody Grant), his two older brothers and their chosen family of “outsiders” struggling to survive in a world of haves and have-nots.

Along with best musical, the show is nominated for Tonys for best book of a musical for Adam Rapp and Justin Levine; best original score (music and/or lyrics) for Jamestown Revival and Levine; best orchestrations for Levine, Matt Hinkley and Jamestown Revival; best direction of a musical for Danya Taymor; best choreography for Rick Kuperman and Jeff Kuperman; best scenic design of a musical for AMP featuring Tatiana Kahvegian; best lighting design of a musical for Brian MacDevitt and Hana S. Kim; and best sound design of a musical for Cody Spencer.

In the acting categories, Grant is nominated for best performance by an actor in a leading role in a musical, and two “The Outsiders” cast members are nominees for best performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical: Sky Lakota-Lynch, who plays Ponyboy’s best friend Johnny Cade, and Joshua Boone, who portrays tough Greaser Dallas “Dally” Winston.

“It has been such a joy to watch this reimagination of Susie Hinton’s beloved Oklahoma narrative develop and launch on Broadway,” said Oklahoma City native Laura Galt, who is a co-producer on the show and has been involved in its development since 2018.

“I am grateful the cast, creative, and production teams’ heart and hard work have been recognized.”

‘The Outsiders’ is nominated three more times for top musical award

“The Outsiders,” which counts Oscar winner Angelina Jolie as a lead producer, also received nine Drama Desk Awards nominations, including outstanding musical, outstanding lead performance in a musical, outstanding direction of a musical, outstanding choreography, outstanding music, outstanding lyrics, outstanding scenic design of a musical, outstanding lighting design of a musical and outstanding sound design of a musical.

The Drama Desk Awards, which are voted on by theater critics, journalists, editors and publishers, will be handed out June 10 in a NYC ceremony.

“The Outsiders” garnered three nominations — for outstanding new Broadway musical, outstanding choreography and outstanding lighting design — for the Outer Critics Circle Awards.

The Outer Critics Circle, whose membership includes writers working for 90-plus newspapers, magazines, broadcast stations and online news organizations worldwide, will announce its annual winners May 13.

For the Drama League Awards, “The Outsiders” is nominated for outstanding production of a musical, while Grant and Boone are among the nominees for distinguished performance. The Drama League, a NYC-based theatrical association, will name its victors at a May 17 event.

“The musical is a love letter to Susie Hinton’s legacy. Its universal themes of identity, found family, reaching for dreams and staying gold through challenging times resonate deeply with audiences, allowing everyone to see a part of themselves reflected in the characters, music, and story. Thank you to all of the organizations for these incredible recognitions,” Galt said.

“The Outsiders” began its Broadway run with previews on March 16 ahead of the official opening night on April 11 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, where performances continue.

‘Dead Outlaw’ leads Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations

Based on the twisty tale of Oklahoma outlaw-turned-mummy Elmer McCurdy, the Off-Broadway musical “Dead Outlaw” played a limited engagement at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre that ended April 14. But that didn’t stop the musical from leading both the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards nominations.

Shot and killed by a posse in the Osage Hills in 1911, McCurdy, an ill-fated bank and train robber, had his body embalmed by a Pawhuska undertaker, but his remains went unclaimed, eventually drying up and mummifying. His corpse spent six decades traveling the country as a macabre attraction in sideshows, wax museums and low-budget movies, until the cast and crew of the television show “The Six Million Dollar Man” discovered it while filming in a California amusement park funhouse in 1976. McCurdy’s body was buried the following year in Guthrie.

For the Drama Desk Awards, “Dead Outlaw” received 11 nominations, including outstanding musical (opposite “The Outsiders”); outstanding lead performance in a musical for Andrew Durand, who portrayed McCurdy; outstanding featured performance in a musical for Thom Sesma, who played the coroner; outstanding direction of a musical for David Cromer; outstanding book of a musical for Itamar Moses; outstanding scenic design of a musical for Arnulfo Maldonado; outstanding lighting design of a musical for Heather Gilbert; and outstanding sound design of a musical for Kai Harada and Joshua Millican.

Also, the show is nominated for outstanding music and outstanding lyrics for David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna as well as outstanding orchestrations for Penna, Dean Sharenow and Yazbek.

“Frankly, I’m surprised ‘Dead Outlaw’ is getting such high praise,” Penna told The Oklahoman. “Not that I had any doubts about the quality of our work, but that the show is devoid of many contemporary musical theater conventions. I assumed subjects like mortality, America, forensics and the absurdity of the ego would be vibe killers for the theater world.”

“Dead Outlaw” also leads the Outer Critics Circle Awards with nine nods, including outstanding new Off-Broadway musical, outstanding book of a musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway), outstanding score (Broadway or Off-Broadway), outstanding orchestrations (Broadway or Off-Broadway) and outstanding direction of a musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway).

In the acting categories, the show landed four total Outer Critics nominations: two for outstanding lead performer in an Off-Broadway musical, for Durand and Jeb Brown, who plays the narrator/bandleader, and two for outstanding featured performer in an Off-Broadway musical, for Sesma and Julia Knitel, who does double duty playing Elmer’s Oklahoma girlfriend and a filmmaker’s daughter.

For the Drama League Awards, “Dead Outlaw” rounded up nominations for outstanding production of a musical (again pitting it against “The Outsiders) and outstanding direction of a musical.

Oklahoma native Kelli O’Hara receives eighth Tony nomination

Oklahoma native Kelli O’Hara earned her eighth Tony nomination for best leading actress in a musical for the now-closed new show “Days of Wine and Roses,” an adaptation of the Oscar-winning 1962 film directed by Tulsa native Blake Edwards.

An Elk City native who graduated from Deer Creek Public Schools and Oklahoma City University, O’Hara won a Tony for best lead actress in a musical for her turn as Anna Leonowens in the 2015 revival of “The King & I.”

For “Days of Wine and Roses,” she’s also nominated for the Drama Desk award for outstanding lead performance in a musical, the Outer Critics Circle prize for outstanding lead performer in a Broadway musical and the Drama League trophy for distinguished performance.

Cherokee playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle earns Outer Critics Circle nod

An Oklahoma City native and enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, playwright and attorney Mary Kathryn Nagle received an Outer Critics Circle nomination for the John Gassner Award, which goes to a new American play, preferably by a new playwright.

Nagle garnered the nomination for her drama “Manahatta,” which New York’s Public Theater staged late last year.

“Manahatta,” which Nagle showcased as a work-in-progress in OKC during the 2014 Native American New Play Festival, follows Jane Snake, a brilliant Native woman with a Stanford MBA. Jane reconnects with her ancestral Lenape homeland, known as Manahatta, when she moves from Oklahoma to New York for a banking job just before the 2008 financial crisis.

“I am honored to say that my play about the Indigenous Oklahoma experience has been nominated,” Nagle said in an email. “I have so many people to thank, but this nomination would not be possible without the contributions of the Lenape Center and Delaware Tribe citizen Joe Baker. I am also thankful that so many Native and non-Native artists brought this play to life nearly 10 years ago in OKC.”

The Native Art Fellowship is a $5,000 unrestricted award of merit, based on the artist’s portfolio, honoring the work of Native artists based within Wyoming.

Artists working across any artistic discipline or medium (visual, literary, performing, folk & traditional, etc.) may apply. This fellowship is designed to raise the profiles of the highly talented Native artists in Wyoming and celebrate their artistry.

Recipients of the Native Art Fellowship will also be given support to find a venue to showcase their work.

Applications are juried by noted Native artists outside the state. Two fellowships will be given this year. Jurors may also select honorable mentions.

2024 Applications close on May 15, 2024.