Home
Focus Areas
About Us
Mary Holiday Black, the first citizen of the Navajo Nation and the first Utahn to receive the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, has died at the age of 80.
She was born on the northern side of the Navajo reservation in Utah, reports the Salt Lake Tribune.
Her mother was a rug weaver and her father was a medicine man, and she learned basketweaving at a young age.
"She learned not only the techniques of gathering, dyeing, and weaving the willow (sumac), but also the rich store of meaning associated with baskets," the NEA says in a statement.
"Women in the community maintained the tradition of weaving ceremonial baskets at the same time they wove rugs to sell to trading posts.
Black remained active at basketweaving by passing her skills along to her children."
She introduced several innovations during the 1970s that proved critical to its survival, sparking a renaissance of Navajo basketry.
She stretched the traditional limitations of design, keeping the black-white-and-red color scheme but expanding the baskets beyond the size appropriate for ceremonial use.
Some of her coiled-tray wedding baskets, used in a number of ceremonial rituals, reached five feet in diameter. Read the Entire Article
Selected Grant News Headlines
A customized collection of grant news from foundations and the federal government from around the Web.
Badari Ambatti and his wife, Roopa Hhaprakash, moved from Bengaluru, India, to Garden City Park in New York about 10 years ago, and since then, they've made a home for themselves and their daughter,...more
"People used to go swimming in it, and then how grateful [they] are for the work that we're doing in conjunction with the government and other organizations," Mike Smith tells This Week in...more
Devin Booker is making good on his promise to give $2.5 million to Arizona nonprofits over the next five years. The NBA player and the Phoenix Suns have announced the recipients of the 2023-24...more
It's not every day that a group of senior citizens wins a big prize, but that's exactly what happened to seniors in Kingsford, ND, last week. The Dickinson Area Community Foundation's Golden K...more
"Don't be afraid to be magnificent." That's the advice of the late Bruce Montgomery, who founded the Bruce Montgomery Foundation for the Arts in Philadelphia more than 50 years ago. Now, an...more
Foundation: Bloomberg Philanthropies
A small Canadian town is getting $50,000 to help its youth fight climate change, the CBC reports. "We are super excited about this, because we are one out of 100 municipalities in the world that...more
Foundation: Central Valley Community Foundation
"California has a unique opportunity to further its efforts to build a'regions' approach to development that brings together goals surrounding economy, equity, and environment," says Ashley...more
"We want to celebrate and lift everyone's heritage and we indeed have many stories literally from most of the corners of the world," Pablo Obregon tells the West Central Tribune. Obregon is the...more
The Starved Rock Country Community Foundation is asking for donations for its 2024 Spring Appeal, which will fund education, mental health, local history, fine arts, entrepreneurship revitalization,...more
On Thanksgiving Day in 1937, the Carroll Theatre in Westminster, Md., opened its doors to the public for the first time. Today, it's the home of the Carroll County Arts Council. The nonprofit...more
Art News from...
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Central Valley Community Foundation
Rhode Island Foundation
Porter County Community Foundation
Community Foundation of Jackson Hole
Changemakers
California Community Foundation
San Diego Foundation
Gates Foundation
Hewlett Foundation
United Nations Foundation
Social Entrepreneurship
Spotlight
This Social Innovation Helps Prevent Bed Sores in Wheelchair Users
Co-founders William Mann and David Mravyan devised the Sensimat during a mandatory project for their MBA at the Richard Ivey School of Business in Canada. Sensimat is a device that helps manage and assess pressure among wheelchair users.
