Ponyride, a Detroit-based residency program that provides an opportunity for artists to dedicate themselves to their craft, along with the Applebaum Family Compass Fund, and the Knight Foundation, have announced the winning artists for this years emerging and established artist residencies in Detroit.
The winners are:
Jonathan Meyer, of Detroit, a blacksmith and a graduate of the College for Creative Studies with a degree in furniture design. Through his work Meyer says he endeavors to push the limits of what steel, a cold, hard material, can convey. He says he is inspired by organic symmetry found in nature and historical craftsmanship. Meyer say he uses clean lines and meticulous details in the steel vessels that he designs and creates.
Eleanor Oakes, right, a photographer and videographer, has been featured in numerous exhibitions and publications, including a recent solo show at Tyler Wood Gallery
in San Francisco, and in “25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers” curated by Sylvia Plachy. She received an Honorable Mention in the Camera Club of New York’s 2015 Annual Juried Competition, received a Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Award from the San Francisco Foundation, and was a winner of the Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward Emerging Photographers Competition.
She received her Master of Fine Arts in art practice from Stanford University and her Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University. Oakes lives and teaches in Detroit.
Erika “Red” Stowall, a choregrapher, says her work embodies the principles of African (mostly West African), modern, Hip-hop and contemporary. Stowall, left, says she uses these aesthetics to create moments in her work. Stowall is interested in how audiences will comprehend her work. She wants the audience to become knowledgeable of the many injustices, which other races encounter. She says she likes to make the audience uncomfortable and conscious. She says dance and the works which she creates are political statements, as well as a discovery of who she is and her placement in this world.
Lauren Kalman is a visual artist whose practice is invested in contemporary craft, video, photography and performance. Through her work she investigates beauty, adornment, body image, and the built environment. Raised in the Midwest, Kalman completed her Master of Fine Art in art and technology from Ohio State University and earned a Bachelor of Fine Art with a focus in metals from the Massachusetts College of Art.
Kalman, exhibits and lectures internationally. Her work had been featured in exhibitions at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of 
American Art, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Museum of Arts and Design, Cranbrook Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Mint Museum, and deCordova Museum, among others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and other institutions.
She has taught at institutions including Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. Currently she is an assistant professor at Wayne State University.
“My family is very proud to advance our long standing commitment to strengthen the Detroit Arts community,” says Lisa Applebaum, co-president of the Applebaum Family Compass Fund and Ponyride panelist. “Our support of the Ponyride residency program is a wonderful compliment to a core component of our philanthropic mission to help individual artists in Detroit achieve their goals in an environment that creates a positive difference for our city.”
