For many visual artists, a grant is like a friend who always lets you down--the flake who borrows money and never pays you back; the clown who downs a bottle of Malibu at your wedding then pukes on your mother-in-law. Grants disappoint with similar frequency. Artists spend a lot time applying for them and often get little in return but an extra layer of skin. Even in foundation-heavy Minnesota, the odds of landing one are slim. But just as that defective friend steps up and delivers every once in a while, reminding you why you became pals in the first place, so too does a grant occasionally reach out and sprinkle its selective beneficence on the artist. And when this happens, life, for the grantee, is good.

Just ask Jennifer Danos, Janet Lobberecht, Margaret Pezalla-Granlund and Megan Rye, recipients of the 2008-2009 McKnight Artists Fellowships for Visual Artists. Funded by the McKnight Foundation and administered annually by Minneapolis College of Art and Design, this grant is a life-changer. It awards $25,000, no strings attached, to four established Minnesota artists, buying each recipient a year to create.

Along with a similar Bush Foundation gift, the McKnight grant is the state's most prestigious visual arts award. But that alone doesn't justify a magazine article. This writing was 99.9 percent inspired by this year's fellows themselves; plucked from a group of 172 applicants by a jury of art-world bigwigs (including Bennett Simpson of the L.A. MOCA), this creative quartet is one of the strongest in the grant's 28-year history. From Rye’s provocative paintings of Iraq to Danos’s subtle, playful installations, each of these women elevates and pushes forward the visual arts in Minnesota. What follows is a high-five in print, a look back at their fellowship year, culminating this month with a group show at MCAD as well as the artists’ inevitable realization that the next grant they apply for might not be so friendly. Although, judging from the work on these pages, they may be hogging the foundation cash for years to come.