DAG Foundation

At the DAG Foundation, we believe that music, visual arts, and literature are the pillars of the U.S. art community. Supporting individual artists in each of these genres contributes to the health and diversity of that community as a whole.

Alyssa and Douglas Graham’s longtime desire to establish the DAG Foundation stems from a deep-rooted belief in the transformational power of the arts. Having navigated the challenges of the music industry themselves, they understand the financial and creative struggles that artists face. The DAG Foundation provides grants to early-career artists in the visual arts, music, and literature in the hopes of providing the resources and freedom they require to navigate those challenges and create the art of the 21st century.

Founders

IMG_2359

Alyssa and Doug Graham

Alyssa and Doug Graham have lived a life together as childhood friends, lovers, and artistic partners.

After starting as kids making music together in New Jersey in the 1990s, Alyssa and Doug saw their career take off in the New York City club scene under the moniker “The Grahams.” Their experiences in the music industry – from touring around the world, to recording and collaborating with other artists, to the founding of the artist-friendly record label, 3Sirens Music Group, in Nashville – and the birth of their daughter, Georgette, in 2019 have all strengthened their desire to build community among artists, and shaped the artistic mission of the DAG Foundation.

Literature Advisors

Andrew Altschul

Vauhini Vara

Music Advisors

Bryce Merrill

Kyle James Hauser

Visual Art Advisors

Laurence Lafforgue

Kat Hodges

Contact Us

© 2024 Copyright DAG Foundation.

Facebook Twitter Youtube

Alyssa and Doug Graham

Alyssa and Doug Graham, have lived a life together as childhood friends, lovers, and artists for over three decades. Starting as kids making music together in New Jersey, their career took off in the New York City club scene, and ultimately their success was solidified under the moniker “The Grahams.” Their experience in the music industry, from extensive touring around the world to recording albums and collaborating with other artists, coupled with the evolution of their personal lives (the birth of their daughter), the founding of an artist friendly record label (3Sirens Music Group) in Nashville, TN, and the desire to create a community that supports emerging musicians and artists – has all shaped the artistic mission of their foundation, DAG.

The Grahams’ longtime desire to establish the DAG Foundation stems from a deep-rooted belief in the transformational power of the arts. Having navigated the challenges and triumphs of the music industry firsthand, they understand the financial and creative struggles that most artists face today. The DAG Foundation aims to provide grants to artists in visual arts, music, and literature. Doug and Alyssa Graham hope that these individual prizes will offer early career artists the resources and freedom they most require to pursue their passions and contribute to the ever expanding definition of art. 

Andrew Altschul

Andrew Altschul is the author of the novels The Gringa, Deus Ex Machina, and Lady Lazarus, and of short fiction and essays that have appeared in journals and anthologies including Esquire, McSweeney’s, Ploughshares, ZYZZYVA, Best New American Voices and O. Henry Prize Stories. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford, he now teaches at Colorado State University.

Vauhini Vara

Vauhini Vara is the author of This is Salvaged, which was longlisted for the Story Prize and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and The Immortal King Rao, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her third book, a work of nonfiction called Searches, will be published in 2025.

She is also a journalist, currently working as a contributing writer for Businessweek, and an editor, most recently at The New York Times Magazine. She teaches at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Book Project and is the secretary of Periplus, a mentorship collective serving writers of color.

Bryce Merrill

Dr. Bryce Merrill is Director of Music Programs at Bohemian Foundation in Northern Colorado. Bryce is an expert on public sector support of music and has helped public and private entities build sustainable music ecosystems. He has a doctorate in sociology from the University of Colorado Boulder. Bryce is co-author of Understanding Society through Popular Music (Routledge) and Interactionist Takes on Popular Music (Emerald), among other books and scholarly articles. He is on the boards of Take Note Colorado, an initiative to provide equitable access to music to all students in Colorado, and the Center for Music Ecosystems, a global organization advancing the power of music to create sustainable, just, and healthy communities. He used to be a Florida punk.

Kyle James Hauser

The first year of Kyle James Hauser’s music career began auspiciously: he performed at CMJ, SXSW and the Toronto Int’l Film festivals; was a competitive finalist at Telluride Bluegrass and Rocky Mountain Folk festivals; and released his first record “Oh Oh” on sonaBLAST! Records. 

A graduate in Songwriting from Berklee College of Music, Kyle James Hauser went on to study banjo under Jayme Stone, Noam Pikelny, Chris Pandolfi and others. He’s been involved in over a dozen album releases over his career, and his album “You a Thousand Times” reached #1 on Colorado Public Radio a month after its 2014 release. His songs are featured in film and television including Judd Apatow’s The Big Sick, MTV’s series 16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom, Where Hope Grows and many more.

Kyle James Hauser’s performance credits include performances at the Kentucky Derby, and sharing the stage with Nathaniel Rateliff, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, The Head and the Heart, Brett Dennen, John Hiatt, David Grisman and more. Playing with Colorado band Rapidgrass 2014-2016, Hauser released two albums and toured internationally, most notably headlining La Roche Bluegrass Festival in France and winning 2015’s RockyGrass Competition. In 2015, Hauser also seized the opportunity to co-write a ballet with one of the country’s most highly-regarded regional ballet companies, the Louisville Ballet.

Hauser currently serves as Manager of Artist Development at Bohemian Foundation’s groundbreaking incubator, The Music District. He’s been involved in music nonprofits Louisville Folk School (as co-founder), Think 360 Arts, Colorado Music Collective and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. In addition to a private teaching practice he teaches songwriting at the Berklee College of Music and has given masterclasses at schools all over the country, including Oberlin Conservatory and Swallow Hill.

Laurence Lafforgue

New York-based Laurence Lafforgue is a partner at Otero-Pailos Studio, which she leads with her husband, artist and preservation architect Jorge Otero-Pailos. The studio centers art as a method for preserving and expanding what is valued as cultural heritage. Laurence oversees the development and production of public exhibitions, programming, publications, and digital initiatives. Recent projects include the award-winning restoration of the Saarinen-designed former U.S. Embassy in Oslo and public sculpture exhibitions on Park Avenue in New York and at the National Museum of American Diplomacy in Washington, D.C.

Laurence began her career in digital communications at Ogilvy and Icon Nicholson, advising brands and cultural institutions such as the National Gallery of Art on digital transformation before dedicating herself to supporting artists and advancing their practices. She founded ArtWeLove, a pioneering platform publishing prints by leading and emerging contemporary artists, and directed the U.S. operations of WhiteWall, a premier printing platform for professional photographers.

An advocate for women in the arts, Laurence recently served as co-chair of ArtTable’s New York Chapter where she launched initiatives to recruit members and spotlight underrepresented artists. Certified by the Aspen Institute’s Artist-Endowed Foundation Initiative, she is committed to fostering the next generation of leaders in art philanthropy and serves as an advisor to the DAG Foundation. Laurence holds an MBA from Paris Dauphine University, France, and is fluent in French and Spanish.

Kat Hodges

Kat Hodges is a Colorado-based artist, educator, and designer who works at the intersection of many fields – visual art / arts education, design / build architecture, and interior design. Hodges is a co-curator at Placed, a platform based in Livingston, MT that includes brick- and-mortar galleries and and Placed Chronicle, a digital journal. Hodges’ personal practice centers on abstraction that employs spacial and diagrammatic drawing and in-situ photography to create two-dimensional works that question relationships to built environments and the conventions on which they rest. She makes poetic observations of rooms, spaces, openings, and how these concrete structures affect belief. Hodges has instructed at a number of institutions, most recently at the high school level where she taught fundamental skills in drawing, 2D design, printmaking, and art history and analysis – Art in America since 1945: The Radicals and The Renaissance and The Revolution, The Art History of Mexico. Prior to that, Hodges held a teaching and advising appointment at Colorado College. She has taught and been a visiting critic and teaching assistant at Cooper Union, Pratt, Rhode Island School of Design, and Metropolitan State University. 

Hodges earned a graduate degree in Printmaking from RISD, where she was selected for a post-graduate Award of Excellence by the curator Susan Cross of MASS MoCA. She also attended Muthesius Kunsthochshule in Kiel, Germany and travelled to Berlin, Bonn, and Copenhagen to present work and facilitate critiques. As an independent curator, Hodges developed and executed the group exhibit Feign and Figment at Frontrunner Gallery in Tribeca and co-curated This Is A Show About Rock and Roll at the RISD Museum’s Gelman Gallery. This Is A Show About Rock and Roll was accompanied by a limited edition risograph catalog designed by independent curator Lauren Mackler, of Public Fiction. The catalog included the essay Sonic Measures by the critic Patricia Phillips. After more than a decade in NYC, Canada, and LA, Kat is back in Colorado – inspired to contribute to the visual art prospects of the Intermountain West. She is honored and delighted to serve as a visual arts advisor to the DAG Foundation.