The Maurice Sendak Foundation has announced this year’s Sendak Fellows: Charlotte Ager, Rocío Araya, and Cozbi A. Cabrera.
The four-week fellowship will take place May 13 through June 9 at Milkwood Farm in South Kortright, N.Y., and comes with a prize of $5,000. During the residency, artists will focus on a project of their choosing, meet with visiting artists and professionals in the field, and explore Sendak’s house and archives in Ridgefield, Conn.
Originally from the Isle of Wight, Ager is a freelance illustrator based in London. Her clients have included the New York Times, Google Design, Penguin Random House, and Flying Eye Books. Araya is an illustrator from Bilbao, Spain, currently living in France. Rocío’s first English-language translation of her book Head in the Clouds will be published by Elsewhere Editions in 2024. And Cabrera is the author-illustrator of Me & Mama, which received a Coretta Scott King Honor and Caldecott Honor, and My Hair Is a Garden.
Sendak established the fellowship in 2010—with the help of his long-time assistant Lynn Caponera, alongside photographer and community activist Dona Ann McAdams—as a space for artists to “create work that is not vapid, stupid, or sexy, but original. Work that excites and incites.” Previous fellows include Elisha Cooper, Terry and Eric Fan, Yuyi Morales, Antoinette Portis, Doug Salati, and Sara Varon, among others.
