- 2023 Chelsea International Fine Art Competition juried show participant, New York, NY
- 2023 Mott Warsh Collection Crosscurrents Exhibition, Flint, MI. Other artists included Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Kahinde Wiley, Beauford Delaney, Omar Victor Dion, Awol Erizku, Jacob Lawrence, Christopher Myers, Ebony G Patterson, Howardena Pindell, Alison Saar, Yinka Shonibare, and Mildred Thompson, among others.
- 2022 Cameron Museum, Wilmington, NC
- 2002: North Carolina Fellowship recipient, North Carolina Arts Council
- 2001: Work shown in The Shattered Gourd, Yoruba Forms in Twentieth Century American Art. Written by Moyo Okediji, curator of African, African American, and Oceanic Arts at the Denver Art Museum; book features artists, Elizabeth Catlett, Howardena Pindell and Ademola Olugebefola
- 2000: Awarded a one month residency by the McColl Center for Visual Art to study printmaking at the Caversham Centre in South Africa. The Caversham printing project allowed me the time to re-discover design and color on the two-dimensional surface using the screen printing process. This process compliments the work I’ve done on gourds because of the simple yet complex build-up of shapes and color.
- 1995-96: North Carolina Fellowship recipient, North Carolina Arts Council.
- 1993: Arts International Travel Grant, to study directly under the elder gourd artists in Nigeria, Africa. This project took place in Nigeria to connect me to a culture I’ve studied and represented in my own work in this country. I traveled to the town of Kano to study Islamic techniques and design, and to the town of Oyo which is the seat of Yoruba culture to learn traditional styles and religious functions of the gourd.
- 1991-92: Folklife Project Grant, North Carolina Arts Council, project was to carve a series of gourds documenting African stories on the Ancient Warriors of Ile-Ife, which focused on the Yoruba thought on power.
with gourd artist, Musa Zabo
Michele Tejuola Spindle 