Denver, CO – April 2, 2026 – A committee selected six Fellows from different study areas to engage with the Museum and its collections from July 1 to 31, 2026, as the third cohort of the Clyfford Still Museum Institute Residential Fellowship Program in Denver, CO. The program focuses on three pillars of study: art, education, and social enterprise. The 2026 Fellows include: Lamees Rahman and Martha Tuttle in Studio Art; Paul E. Nelson in Art Writing; Jon M. Wargo, PhD, in Early Childhood Education; and Kathryn Graddy and Michael White in Social Enterprise.
The Institute Residential Fellowship serves as the research arm of the Museum, encouraging innovation that draws on Clyfford Still’s work and legacy in art, scholarship, and practice. The Program invites exceptional individuals to Denver to pursue independent projects that benefit from deep study of the Museum’s collection, staff expertise, and engagement with Still’s vibrant creative ecosystem.
“As we approach the third year of the Institute Residential Fellowship Program at the Clyfford Still Museum, we asked ourselves how we could crystallize the Institute and continue to grow the program over the next few years,” said Joyce Tsai, Clyfford Still Museum director. “In February, we launched the new Strategic Plan – Vision 2030 for the Still, and within the plan, we also adopted a new mission, vision, and impact statement for the Institute. Our vision for the Institute is to make Denver a destination for innovation in art, research, and practice. The mission invites thought leaders and innovators to reimagine the Museum and its role in community life by engaging with Clyfford Still’s work to shape our collective future. Our resident Fellows, research initiatives, publications, and events encourage free thought and practice anchored in and inspired by Still’s renegade legacy; their engagement helps to catalyze our Museum’s impact in the world.”
Each Fellow will receive an honorarium, round-trip economy class travel to and from Denver, housing in Denver during the program, and workspace appropriate to the proposed project. The Fellows will also participate in a public symposium on July 27. For more information, visit clyffordstillmuseum.org/institute.
About the Fellows
Lamees Rahman is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Her work explores transitional states between physical and virtual realms, using abstraction as a method to fragment, decontextualize, and reassemble visual languages across media. Working experimentally across monotype printing, relief printing, digital imaging processes, and scanography, her work investigates how material and technological systems can generate new forms of perception. Rahman holds a BA in Media Arts and Sciences from Wellesley College and is pursuing an Ed.M in Learning Design, Innovation, and Technology from Harvard University. Alongside her studio practice, she has worked in programming and education at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the Museum of Science, and the MIT Museum. She believes in using culturally-responsive pedagogies in museum settings and is an advocate for equity across arts and cultural institutions.
Martha Tuttle (b. 1989, Santa Fe, NM) is an artist working between painting, textile, and sculpture. She is interested in the intimacies possible between entities of varying scales and time frames, such as the human and the mineral, or the pebble and the interplanetary. She received her BA from Bard College in 2011 and her MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2015. Fellowships and residencies include those from Atelier Calder, The Pollock-Krasner, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and The Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program. Her work has been shown throughout the U.S. and internationally and is in the collections of, among others, The National Gallery, MoMA, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Poet and interviewer Paul E. Nelson is the son of a labor activist father and a Cuban immigrant mother. Born on Chicago’s west side in 1961, he’s lived in King County since 1988. He founded the Cascadia Poetics Lab, the Cascadia Poetry Festival & co-founded the Poetry Postcard Fest. Books include DaySong Miracle (Past 62) (2024); Cascadian Prophets (Interviews 1999–2023) (2024); Haibun de la Serna (2022); A Time Before Slaughter/Pig War: & Other Songs of Cascadia (2020); American Prophets (interviews 1994–2012) (2018); American Sentences (2015, 2021); and A Time Before Slaughter (2009). He’s co-editor of several anthologies. Shortlisted for a Genius Award in Literature by The Stranger in 2010, he was awarded a residency at The Lake by the Morris Graves Foundation in 2012 and, in 2026, a Fellowship at the Clyfford Still Museum Institute. He’s Literary Executor for the late poet Sam Hamill and lives in Rainier Beach, alongside dxʷwuqʷeb Creek.
Dr. Jon M. Wargo is a literacy researcher, teacher educator, and learning scientist. An associate professor at the University of Michigan, his research reconceptualizes the role of media and technology intersecting with children’s critical literacy learning. Leveraging young people’s ingenuity as signs and sights for learning, his teaching and scholarship focus on understanding and sustaining the heterogeneity of human sensemaking in the contexts of creative inquiry, participatory design, and the arts. An award-winning researcher and nationally recognized scholar, Wargo won career achievement awards from the Literacy Research Association and the National Council for Teachers of English. He is a former NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow and, most recently, received the 2025 AERA Division K Exemplary Research in Teaching and Teacher Education Award. A former early childhood educator, Wargo earned a PhD in curriculum, instruction, and teacher education from Michigan State University and a B.A. in English and Gender Studies from Indiana University-Bloomington.
Kathryn Graddy holds the Fred and Rita Richman Distinguished Professorship in Economics at Brandeis University. Her research primarily explores the economics of art and culture and industrial organization. She has an extensive publication record in the economics of the arts, with articles featured in prestigious international journals. A primary focus of many of these papers is the pricing of art and art auctions. Additionally, she has authored policy papers on Artist Resale Rights for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the UK Patent Office. Kathryn is a former Editor of the Journal of Cultural Economics and has also conducted a well-known series of studies on the Fulton fish market. In 2018, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Copenhagen Business School.
Michael White is a PhD Candidate in Organizational Behavior at Columbia Business School. His research investigates the psychological and behavioral processes that enable people and organizations to thrive, often through the lens of how emotions, such as awe, shape how people engage with their work and with one another. Prior to joining Columbia Business School, he managed a behavioral science laboratory at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and graduated summa cum laude from Elmhurst University with a BS in Psychology and Philosophy and a minor in Biology.
About the Advisory Board
The Institute Advisory Board includes experts in art, education, and enterprise. The members include Harry Cooper, Bunny Mellon Curator of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art; Dr. Bridget Cooks, Professor of African American Studies and Art History, UC Irvine; Odili Odita, Artist and Professor of Painting at the Tyler School of Art and Art History, Temple University; Cristina Gillanders, Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education, School of Education and Human Development, University of Colorado, Denver; Sharon Shaffer, Founding Director, Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center, Routledge series editor, Global Perspectives on Children in Museums; Aaron Duke, Product Leader & Advisor; Claude Grunitzky, CEO and Managing Partner, Equity Alliance; and Dan Wang, Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise and Sociology at Columbia Business School and Co-Director of the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change.
About the Clyfford Still Museum
Home to the art and legacy of the American painter Clyfford Still, we invite all to explore the potential of individual creative endeavor. Designed specifically to display Clyfford Still’s art, the award-winning Clyfford Still Museum is home to nearly everything he created, approximately 3,125 pieces representing 93% of his lifetime of work. The Museum supports new artistic endeavors, inviting visitors to draw strength from Still’s art and life. At the Still, visitors will find a world-class collection gifted to the City and County of Denver, award-winning architecture, cross-disciplinary programs for all ages, and opportunities to explore their own creativity. Exhibitions stimulate curiosity, arouse emotions, and explore multiple perspectives. The Still invites visitors to refresh, recharge, and reconnect with joy. Connect with the Clyfford Still Museum on Facebook, Threads, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, or at clyffordstillmuseum.org.
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