The CopperDog Featured Artist Program
The Featured Artist program started in 2022 with an invitation to Caiana to be our first featured artist (see the story below). In 2023 the program was extended to invite students from area schools to submit posters.
Our 2026 Featured Artist - Miss Lindsey Jukkala
CopperDog is proud to congratulate Lindsey Jukkala on being selected as the 2026 Featured Artist! We are excited to showcase Lindsey’s work as part of the CopperDog experience and celebrate the creativity and talent that help make this event so special.
Lindsey’s work is featured below, highlighting the artistic vision and craftsmanship that earned her this well-deserved recognition.
About Lindsey
My name is Lindsey Jukkala and I am 13 years old. I live in Atlantic Mine with my family. Some things I enjoy doing are drawing, hanging out with friends, swimming, snowmobiling and skiing. I have always liked art. Some of my favorites are paints, oil pastels and sketching.
Our 2025 Featured Artist - Miss Elise Grentz
Our 2024 Featured Artist - Miss Jailyn Poshak
Our 2023 Featured Artist - Miss Trista Berryman
The CopperDog mission is to develop charitable, educational, and benevolent activities dedicated to the enrichment, development, and vitality of communities, natural resources, and trail systems in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula through world-class events, creating informational and educational opportunities, encouraging national recognition, specifically with respect to advancing national and international sled dog sports including sled dog racing and an understanding of the historic role of sled dogs in a natural environment.
Our ‘Featured Artist Program’ (FAP) goes right along with our mission! The 2023 FAP was open to all Houghton and Keweenaw County High School Students including homeschoolers. With this in mind, the CopperDog Board of Directors is pleased to announce winner of the 2023 FAP;
Trista Berryman from The Official Calumet High School!!! And in her own words;
“Hello, My name is Trista Berryman, a 10th grader at Calumet High School. My piece is titled, “Racing On Orange Gold”, which is a reference to the copper found in the Copper Country. Throughout the piece, I tried to incorporate the colors mint and orange, to represent copper during oxidation, and in its original state. The medium I used was digital.”
The Featured Art will be on the 2023 official race poster, which will be visible throughout the Keweenaw and surrounding areas, as advertising for this year’s race. Each official in the race will also be wearing Trista’s artwork on a badge. In addition, CopperDog may sell the poster to the public as part of our 2023 merchandising efforts, which provides support for this premier community event. The artwork could also be featured on CopperDog merchandise.
The Featured Artist will also be present at the start ceremony in downtown Calumet on Friday night. All monies raised from the Featured Artist sales are considered part of the overall fundraising efforts, which support the annual CopperDog events.
Did we tell you how hard it was to pick a winner from all of our submissions??? It was extremely hard…
We are incredibly proud of our area youth and are also happy to display in this post the two runners up to the FAP – which are no less incredible! Thank you Vanessa and Rain!!
We already can’t wait for 2024!!!
Our 2022 Featured Artist - Miss Caiana May Silvelet
We would like to introduce the CopperDog 2022 Featured Artist, Caiana Silvelet! Caiana is a 9th grader at Calumet High School. Her work will be featured on the Official 2022 CopperDog 150 race poster. In addition to the poster all race officials will be wearing her art on our badges. Congratulations, Caiana!
Fans will be able to buy a copy of the souvenir poster, both with this year’s CopperDog 2022 designation and also as a separate poster and a t-shirt as part of our official CopperDog merchandise, proceeds from which support the operation of the CopperDog.
The Invited Artist program was started two years ago. Our first Invited Artist was famed local artist Chris Schmidt of Studio 13, We hope to continue this program going forward to feature our local artists, especially our talented young folks in the area school systems.
Caiana’s biography
Caiana born in Michigan’s Keweenaw, is 14 years old. She lives in Calumet, MI. She is bilingual in her dad’s native language, Brazilian Portuguese, and has been homeschooled (Unschooling Philosophy) until 5th grade when she attended a few years in the Indianapolis Public School District, (Butler University Lab School 55). She is now a freshman at Calumet High School.
She is a self-taught musician and artist ranging in areas from singing/songwriting, playing piano and ukulele. She enjoys dance, painting, photography, drawing, and most recently, digital art. The piece being showcased this year is called, “The Copper Dog”.
