The Grilled
Cheese Grant

An annual community-funded emerging artist grant based in Milwaukee, WI

By artists, for artists

TENTH ANNUAL GRILLED CHEESE GRANT: SATURDAY, MARCH 15TH 2025, 3-8PM

FINALISTs ANNOUNCED:  
Week of Feb 10th

FUNDRAISER SHOW:  
February 13th, 6PM
World In Action / Misprints / Spoy / Buena Cara
6PM @ Cactus Club
 

tENTH ANNUAL GCG:
March 15th, 3-8PM
Voting ends at 6:30PM
@ Vanguard Sculpture Services
3374 W Hopkins St, Milwaukee, WI 53216

 


















Meet our 
2025 Jurors


Phoenix Brown

Phoenix S. Brown is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Milwaukee, WI. Originally from Cincinnati, OH, she earned her BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design with a minor in art history. Her work explores themes of empowerment, self-healing, and transformation through mystical imagery, symbolic language, and environments influenced by her upbringing on the cusp of the Midwest and Appalachia. 
Brown is a recipient of the 2024 Wisconsin Emerging Artist Achievement Award and has participated in residencies at the Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, OH), Yale Norfolk School of Art (Norfolk, CT), and the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT). 

Her work has been exhibited throughout the Midwest and beyond, including solo exhibitions at the Wright Museum of Art (Beloit, WI) and Trout Museum of Art (Appleton, WI), as well as group presentations at NADA Miami Art Fair, Other Art Fair (Chicago, IL), and Untitled Art Fair (Miami Beach, FL).

Alec Regan

Alec Regan is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and fabricator based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He earned a BFA in Integrated Studio Arts from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Regan is the co-founder of the collaborative artist project American Fantasy Classics, a volunteer staff member at ACRE Residency, and a recipient of the Mary Nohl Fellowship in the Emerging category. 

Some of his recent exhibitions and projects have been presented at Bahamas Biennale (Detroit, MI), Enclave Lab (London, UK), Basketshop Gallery (Cincinnati, OH), Arturo Bandini (Los Angeles, CA), Usable Space (Milwaukee, WI), and The Green Gallery (Milwaukee, WI). 

As a fabricator, Regan has worked with Milwaukee based design-build firm, Current Projects, and had been involved in projects at institutions such as the the Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee Art Museum, Toledo Museum of Art, Elmhurst art museum, Boston Athenaeum, Wrightwood 659, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and the Whitney Biennial.

Nick Wylie


Nick Wylie is an artist, organizer, and educator based in Chicago who’s been managing director of Public Media Institute since 2018. Before that he served as Associate Director of Southern Exposure, a 45-year-old artist-run nonprofit Southern Exposure in San Francisco. Wylie received his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, did post-baccalaureate work in Art History at Northwestern University, and went to University of Illinois at Chicago for his MFA. In 2006 he co-founded Harold Arts, a Chicago-based non-profit arts organization with a residency in Ohio, and was its co-director until early 2010. He then co-founded ACRE (Artists' Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions), a 501(c)3 with residency in rural Wisconsin and an extensive exhibitions program in Chicago. Wylie served as co-director of ACRE until moving to San Francisco and joining its Board of Directors in 2015-2022. He has taught artmaking and arts administration courses at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago, and University of St Francis. 

Wylie's art practice, which incorporates video technology, performance, drawing, and queer futurity, has haunted galleries in Chicago and beyond for the past fifteen years. His work recently focuses on Elmer Ellsworth, dandy abolitionist and purported lover of Lincoln, who was first to die in the Civil War after taking down a giant Confederate flag and more recently he’s focusing on around about queer mystery cults, mother goddesses, and the space rocks they lived in.








See the 
2024 Winners:




   

FIRST PLACE:
MAKENNA SCHIBLER



“These works support my early and current exploration of 2D fiber paintings. In my work, I navigate the intersection of freeform crochet, and the visual depth of painting by blocking. By recognizing the patterns of color in visuals, I am able to provide translation through this unconventional medium. Each piece relies on color, texture, and form to build their narrative. Through fibrous media, I challenge preconcieved notions of both crochet and painting.”




Image: Ducat, yarn, 2020






SECOND PLACE: 
STELLA KOSLOWSKI



“When I sleep I have very vivid and bizarre dreams. Sometimes they form a story, but mostly they are clips from a longer movie that I forget once I wake up, leaving these snapshots or segments in my mind. The feeling of falling asleep and into a dream feels like being pulled through a soft void, which is sometimes unsettling because of the lack of control.”






IMAGE: Untitled, oil paint and textiles on canvas, 2023



THIRD PLACE:
MADELINE CAWKINS

“Life has a way of coming back from the edge of destruction. But what happens if it doesn’t? Humans are at a point where every move taken is to the benefit of humans. The consequences are seldom looked at. One of these consequences is the destruction of natural land. The earth is the home to every human on it and yet it is being treated like a thing and not a living, breathing organism. One of the topics this work addresses is the destruction of land being burned by the train derailments that have happened in the past year.”





IMAGE: Pedere Anima, Digital print of mordancage and silver gelatin print, 2023







FOURTH PLACE: 
TJ BLANCO


“By taking the knowledge of gender as a performed thing to its most literal representation, my work examines the ways in which queer, femme and women identified individuals perform their senses of self through their objects. In positioning the home as a sort of refuge from the oppressive forces of our time, it acts as a judgment free haven, away from the violence and scrutiny of cis-heteropatriarchy. My film situates itself as a respite from the pervading white, cis, hetero logic, offering forth a place of liberated potentiality in its place.”






IMAGE: Mollie, digital print, 2023



 

FIFTH PLACE:
JESSICA GASKEY



“My work is inspired by  my background in journalism with a concentration in documentary filmmaking. I am interested in exploring personal relationships as well as meeting new people and listening to their stories. As a storyteller, filmmaking is my expression of these personal experiences, and how I relate to others and find meaning in my daily life.”






IMAGE: screen test for ring exchange in past, nikon Z5, 2023






Our 2024 
Sponsors:




The Grilled Cheese Grantgrilledcheesegrant@gmail.com Mailing List