Artist Trust has announced the 61 recipients of its 2017 Grants for Artist Projects GAP) award. First presented in 1988, GAP is one of Artist Trust’s flagship awards and supports projects by emerging to established artists of all disciplines across Washington State.

This year, a total of $92,000 will be directly invested in Washington artists. Fifty-nine of the 61 artists received project-based grants in the amount of $1,500 each. Journal of the San Juans General Manager Cali Bagby was one of the recipients. She is working on a book about her time in Iraq and Afghanistan as an embedded journalist.

“Receiving this grant will help me to complete a difficult chapter in my memoir. I believe that when we express our emotions in an art form, from writing to dance to painting, we channel ugliness into something useful. This grant not only gives me a personal boost, but it lifts my spirits that organizations like Artist Trust are supporting art in a time where hate is everywhere,” said Bagby. “We have to fight and writing this book is my small part of a larger movement towards compassion, nuance, and honesty. We have to learn to understand and communicate with those who are different from us.”

Writer Sally Green of San Juan Island and visual artist Janis Miltenberger of Lopez Island also received GAP grants.