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In April 2019, the Maine Women Writers Collection awarded its first Creative Fellowship to Devon Kelley-Yurdin, an interdisciplinary artist, educator and cultural organizer. The fellowship enables Kelley-Yurdin to access the collections holdings.

Grounded in the belief that creativity can be found everywhere and is vital to holistic community care, Kelley-Yurdin’s practice spans traditional media (printmaking, cut-paper, installation), design/illustration/art direction, event production, arts administration and community organizing, and it explores ideas of home, collectivity, celebration and queerness.

Kelley-Yurdin holds a B.F.A. in Communications Design and Cultural Studies from Pratt Institute and has spent more than a decade working in the fields of community arts and cultural development, community-based education and cooperative/collective/alternative models. A member of Pickwick Independent Press, a fine art community print shop, Kelley-Yurdin co-organizes partnerships that bridge printmaking and social justice work.

Kelley-Yurdin also hosts a series of experimental living room performances and co-facilitates a bi-weekly movement class.

As the inaugural MWWC Creative Fellow, Kelley-Yurdin will be continuing ongoing visual and written explorations of the relationship between queerness and nature, inspired and informed by the work, journals and ephemera of poet May Sarton.