2026
Grantees
ALIANA GRACE BAILEY
Through her socially engaged art practice, Soft Gather™, fiber artist Aliana Grace Bailey transforms textiles, color, and care into immersive spaces where Black communities can gather, rest, heal, and connect.
Her work celebrates quiet strength, communal tenderness, and the radical possibility of simply being yourself.
KRISTEN TOEDMAN
Kristen has been awarded a $1,500 grant toward the release and performance of her new record: La Nieta CREADORA, Songs as Prayer in English & Spanish.
Kristen is preparing to re-emerge on the performance scene as La Nieta, presenting her new songs with a choir of women in Baltimore and Los Angeles.
Support from Making Her Mark will go directly to the women singers whom Kristen contracts for these performances.
JULIANNA DAIL
Julianna has been awarded a $1,500 grant toward her new multidisciplinary series: WHAT WE CHOOSE TO KEEP, Wall hangings, sculpture & photography exploring the overlooked objects kept by immigrant families.
Through conversations with Baltimore-connected artists raised by immigrant parents, Julianna explores the everyday objects they chose to save: twist ties, rubber bands, buttons and other seemingly insignificant things kept for a future purpose.
These stories become the materials and inspiration for new sculptures, wall hangings and photographic portraits, asking what we choose to carry forward, and why.
SHELLÉE M. Haynesworth
Shellée has been Awarded a $1,500 grant toward her feature documentary film: MOTHER OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE: THE LEGACY OF GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON.
Through archival materials, interviews, reenactments, cinéma vérité, and music, Shellée M. Haynesworth is bringing Johnson’s creative world—and the extraordinary community surrounding her—back into view.
2025
Grantees
Melissa sutherland moss
Crossing Point examines transformation at the threshold—those moments and sites where body and place meet and boundaries blur. Through embodied gestures, site-specific garments, and intimate staging, Melissa explores how the self merges with the landscape, and how two become one. Melissa tells us:In making this work, I honor those who came before me while clearing ground for others to claim and expand. My aim is to bring into the world a visual language that invites reflection on how we are shaped by the terrains we cross—and how we, in turn, shape them. In doing so, I insist that our stories, bodies, and expressions are seen, felt, and remembered—standing as living thresholds between past, present, and what’s yet to come.
Sahffi Lynne
TWO BIRDS is a cross-continental collaboration between Sahffi Lynne (USA) and Alberto Salgado (Brazil), two artists brought together by a shared vision of unity and healing. Inspired by an ancient Andean prophecy about the eagle and condor flying together again, the song blends North and South American musical traditions into a message of peace, connection, and hope. Sahffi shares:This funding is helping us bring a heartfelt international project to life—one that honors culture, collaboration, and spirit. We’re excited to finish the production of the song and create a video that carries this message around the world. As a nonbinary woman, it’s also deeply meaningful to be visible in this work and share space for others to feel seen. We believe TWO BIRDS can remind us all what’s possible when we lead with heart.
Grace Ward
BL!NK is a fast-paced, femme-powered musical about two brilliant best friends who create a revolutionary dating app. Sadie, shy and uncertain about the future, contrasts with Natalie, bold and determined to change the world. When their app goes viral, they're catapulted into unexpected fame-and conflict. Grace tells us:This funding from the Making Her Mark Foundation is helping us take a scrappy, heartfelt little musical from two Boise artists and shape it into a show with national reach. We are working hard to bring a musical into the world that feels joyful, empowering, and bold, one that centers women’s voices in every part of the process.
KATIE PUMPHREY
Baltimore-based artist and ultramarathon open-water swimmer, Katie Pumphrey, brings her experiences in the water to the canvas in her new solo exhibition, Swimming Pool. Through playful colors, historical references, and images of swimmers and sea life, Katie dives into the repetition of our anxieties and fears — and the humor that helps us swim through it all. Swimming Pool is both a reflection and a declaration: that our deepest fears can become profound teachers, and that art can connect us in community like ripples across the water. Katie tells us:With the support of the Making Her Mark Foundation, Swimming Pool comes to life at the Creative Alliance, through community partnerships, playful performances, and artist talks that transform art into shared experience.