The DAG Foundation provides support to early- and mid-career artists in visual art, music, and literature, helping them to create the art of the 21st century.
Our Founders
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. 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.
Alyssa and Douglas
Graham
Literature Advisors
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.
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.
Visual Art Advisors
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.
Laurence
Lafforgue
New York-based Laurence Lafforgue is the Executive Director of the Onera Foundation, where she leads educational and advocacy initiatives focused on creative, experimental approaches to architectural preservation. The Foundation supports artists, architects, scholars, and preservationists who think critically, sustainably, and poetically about the built environment. Laurence works across contemporary art, architecture, preservation, and public engagement. For over two decades she has developed and produced exhibitions, publications, films, digital content, and public programs that translate complex ideas for broad audiences. Laurence holds an MBA from Paris Dauphine University, a certification by the Aspen Institute’s Artist-Endowed Foundation Initiatives, and is fluent in French and Spanish.
Music Advisors
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.
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.
Executive Director
Melanie Ulle
Melanie views philanthropy as a true vocation. Her many years of professional experience include philanthropic development, political fundraising, donor advising and nonprofit management. Throughout her career she has raised tens of millions of dollars, resulting in a significant impact for a broad range of organizations and has advised donors to distribute over $20 million in philanthropic donations. She has been featured on the Today Show, the Associated Press, the Denver Post, the Wall Street Journal, Martha Stewart, and dozens of other national and international news outlets. Melanie received her Bachelor's of Art in international political economy from Colorado College. She has received generous recognition for her work and volunteerism including Philanthropic Leader of the Year by the Denver Foundation, and Colorado’s 25 Most Powerful Women by the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce.
Director of Special Projects
Isabella Oriente
Originally from New Jersey, Isabella Oriente moved to Colorado to attend the University of Colorado Boulder, where she graduated in Spring 2025 with degrees in Psychology and Business. In her role at the DAG Foundation, Isabella oversees artist relations, event planning and website management.