Past
Grantees

Support was awarded to JACQUIE JONES for Diagnosis: Babies, Breast Cancer and the Lives of Modern Women an impressionistic, hour-long autobiographical documentary about a pivotal year in one womans life following a diagnosis of breast cancer. The story focuses on the womans struggle against cancer and desire to preserve her fertility. The film will be a poetic meditation on the meaning of choices in life.

THE JUNGLE THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $23,500 in support of its Play Reading Series, literary management and developmental support for emerging playwrights. The Jungle Theater strives to maintain a high standard of artistic excellence, to present works that preserve and build on our theatrical heritage, to encourage and support artists in all areas of theater production, to broaden access to theater through education and outreach activities, and to contribute to the vitality of its neighborhood and community. Jerome support is directed toward activities that encourage the creation, development and production of new work by emerging playwrights. Funding will allow the Jungle to continue the annual Play Reading Series, hold readings of other new scripts throughout the year, mount workshops of new scripts in development, and support the work of the Theater's literary manager. In the Play Reading Series, six new plays by emerging playwrights are read by professional actors over the course of four days. The series informs the Theater's decisions about further development of the pieces and the commitment to producing select works on the mainstage.

PATRICK KELLEY, a web artist based in Northfield, will spend ten days at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado. Kelley does research dealing with philosophies of imaging and notions of language and visualization, while at the same time undertaking a practical examination of digital imaging tools in light of photography's and image-making's history. He'll participate in a workshop titled Web Animation for Artists, taught by new media artists Joshua Davis and Mark Tribe, and focusing on the web as an artistic medium. He'll also spend some time making new images while in the east Snowmass wilderness area.

SHIN IL KIM was awarded funding for The Invisible Masterpiece, a video and drawing installation based on the ideas in the book of the same name by Hans Belting. The idea is to investigate the status and meaning of the masterpiece, with the goal of getting closer to the idea of nothingness, but also showing something with nothingness. Working from videotaped clips of people looking at art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Kim will transfer the images to pressed line drawing animation on paper, eliminating the masterpieces. The drawings will be looped together and projected onto large walls.

Arts administrator and arts educator KAREN KRAUSE, New Richland, Minnesota, will spend three weeks in central Europe meeting with other arts administrators, taking classes designed to develop her own work, and creating a pilot international art exchange program for elementary children. This will likely take the form of two communities collaborating via artist teacher exchange and exhibitions of student work, sponsored by the Waseca Art Center.

Support was awarded to CHRIS LARSON, St. Paul, for Three Story Shack, a highly idiosyncratic film that presents the activities of a futuristic wooden capsule, a one-legged woman, and two farm hands operating a mechanical top-loaded vehicle inside a three story shack on a Midwestern landscape.

A grant of $10,000 was awarded to HARVESTWORKS, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for the LEAGUE OF ELECTRONIC MUSICAL URBAN ROBOTS (LEMUR), in support of the creation of new robotic musical instruments and compositions for those instruments by LEMUR core artists. LEMUR is a group of composers, musicians, artists and technologists dedicated to producing robotic musical instruments that offer new creative opportunities to composers and performers, and ultimately, new musical experiences for audiences. Founded in 2000, its members have a wide range of skills. Thus far, LEMUR has produced eight new instruments and conceived of numerous electro-mechanical sound production techniques for incorporation into instrument designs. With Jerome support, four new robotic musical instruments will be added to a growing chamber orchestra of instruments. The goal is to produce diverse robotic instruments that produce high quality sound, visually exciting design, and interfaces that are comfortable and intuitive for the composer and performer. Included among the new instruments will be Tromb Organ, HydroBot and Gam-e-tron.

The FOUNDATION FOR INDEPENDENT ARTISTS, New York City, as fiscal agent for NICHOLASLEICHTERDANCE, received $10,000 in support of the creation and production of two new works. nicholasleichterdance is committed to the development of innovative and exciting dance performance, breaking down the barriers between audience and performer, seeking to create a kinetic journey in which emotion itself is the story. The first work, Never End, deals with individuals who are messengers of hope, who continue to light the flame in order to pass the torch to the next disciple. It will feature seven dancers and will be set to original music. The second work, Skin Diving, explores how race influences the way people watch other people move. It examines whether differences and similarities be understood through; as well as the emotional and conceptual complexities of touch in interracial relationships. The centerpiece is two duets, framed by two solos.

JEANNE LIOTTA received funding for observando el cielo, a 16mm experimental color sound film, documenting and imagining the human relationship to the cosmos by collecting starlight in the night sky, a civilian act of scientific observation available to anyone.

THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $48,000 in support of the Mentor Series, a vehicle for emerging Minnesota writers to work in small group settings with nationally recognized writers, and to be mentored by them in ways ranging from review of their work to providing inspiration and examples for the writing life. The Mentor program offers advanced criticism and professional development opportunities to 12 emerging Minnesota writers each year: four each in the genres of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Participants are competitively selected via an open call. Mentors are chosen through an involved process of community input, careful research and screening by The Loft. The Loft Literary Center is the nation's largest independent literary arts center, annually serving more than 600,000 writers and readers of all ages throughout the region. Jerome has been supporting the Mentor Series since 1979. Its key components have remained constant since 1980 and include an anonymous application process based on writing samples, four to five nationally recognized mentors in residence for several days, small group and private sessions with participants or "mentees", public readings featuring mentors and mentees, and master classes, workshops and public forums.

THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $55,000 in support of the Mentor Series. The Loft's mission is to foster a writing community, the artistic development of individual writers, and an audience for literature. As a nonprofit literary center housed in the Open Book, it provides facilities for writers, access to contemporary literature in all of its forms, readings, and performances, residencies, workshops, audience expansion initiatives, and technical and professional assistance to writers. The Mentor Series is an intensive program that matches emerging developing writers with nationally recognized mentors in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, with the aim of creating strong and meaningful relationships. The program includes small group and private sessions, public readings, master classes, workshops, and public forums. Jerome Foundation has supported this program since 1979.

A grant of $20,000 was awarded to the LOWER MANHATTAN CULTURAL COUNCIL, New York City, in support of artists' stipends in the 2004-05 Artists Workspace Program. The Council supports programs in the visual, performing and new media arts; provides leadership in cultural planning; and is a primary source of support services for artists and arts groups. The Artists Workspace Program supports five to six-month studio residencies for artists working in various media including video, photography, painting, new media, sculpture, and installation. It provides studio spaces through partnerships with local real estate owners who donate unleased floors as temporary workspaces for artists. Artists have 24-hour a day, seven-day a week access to their studios. Various support services, partnerships and an Open Studios event enrich the residencies. Artists are competitively selected by a jury that reviews proposals submitted in response to an open call. Preference in selection is given to artists, with flexible and active practices, who are currently without studios.

The Jerome Foundation Board awarded a grant of $10,000 to MA-YI THEATER COMPANY, New York City, in support of the commissioning of three new works for the Performing Ethnicity conference and Performance Series. Ma-Yi produces new work and innovative plays about the Asian American experience. It is committed to the development of new Pan Asian-American texts that push the country's racial dialectics between the immediately obvious into a more nuanced examination of the human condition and the practical politics of ethnicity. Performing Ethnicity will commemorate the centennial anniversary of the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. The three commissioned emerging playwrights will explore how notions of display, parade, spectacle, exposition, and exhibition inform issues of representation in culturally-specific performances, contemporary media, and politics. The explorations are based upon the methods by which racial and ethic categories were represented and exploited in the 1904 World's Fair.

CYNTHIA MADANSKY received a grant for Presence, an experimental film that will explore two distinct forms of diary writing, namely an intimate diary of a teenage girl from Chinatown, New York and an online community based web log that addresses the suicide of Hong Kong based actor Leslie Cheung.

TRICIA McLAUGHLIN received funding to support See World, an installation of two animations back projected from inside a corner to make an aquarium. It will be an aquarium full of people where viewers can look at themselves behaving as themselves, revealing their adherence to structure, both natural and invented.

Directors authorized a two-year grant of $40,000 to MEET THE COMPOSER, New York City, in support of the participation of emerging composers from Minnesota and New York City in the Meet The Composer Fund. Meet the Composer fosters the creation, performance and recording of music by American composers, and develops new audiences for their work. In four cycles per year, sponsoring nonprofit organizations apply for funds to engage composers in the performances of their work. The Fund enables composers to participate in performances of their own work, build relationships between composers and artistic decision makers, supports the creation of new work, and helps composers interpret their work for audiences.

The NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, as fiscal agent for YIN MEI DANCE, received $10,000 in support of the development and production of Nomad: The River. Yin Mei Dance supports the aesthetic vision of choreographer and director Yin Mei in the research, creation and presentation of new performance works. Her choreography blends training in traditional Chinese dance, Western modern dance, Tai Chi and Chinese contemplative practice, to explore themes of artistic and spiritual significance. Nomad: The River draws its context from the Yellow River in China and the Ganges in India. The duality represented in these two fabled riversthe sacred and the profanedrives the choreography and visual environment for the work. The piece will be developed through creative residencies in 2004, and will be premiered in 2005.

MOVEMENT RESEARCH, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for choreographer SARAH MICHELSON, received $9,000 in support of the creation and development of new work. Michelson works as a site-specific choreographer, temporarily manipulating performance spaces for each work. Jerome support will assist her in making the first three of five separate evening-length group works over a two-year period. The working title is Gold Parts 1 through 5. In this project, the social implications of the implicit direction of vision of an audience in relationship to theatrical experience is central. Gold will become a moveable module in sequential city sites. The dance will be based on the structure of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice.

Since 1976, the Jerome Foundation has offered support for the participation of emerging artists in the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program at THE MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS, a comprehensive fine arts museum dedicated to bringing art and people together to discover, enjoy and understand the world's diverse artistic heritage. A two-year grant commitment of $39,000 was authorized for a program that was conceived 29 years ago by Minnesota artists who advocated for a professional exhibition program. Today, 154 exhibitions later, the MAEP continues to represent the Institute's commitment to the artists of this time and place. The objectives of the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program are to exhibit Minnesota artists' work on a regular basis; foster the exchange of ideas among artists; stimulate interaction among artists, the museum and the public; and facilitate the creation and production of work in a context that is not inhibited by aesthetic fashion or commercial demand. The MAEP is a program conceived and operated by artists, using a democratically elected artist panel and a program staff employed by the Institute.

The MINNESOTA CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $25,000 in support of the participation of emerging photographers in its 2004 exhibitions. The Center's mission is to develop compelling programming to build and engage an informed community that supports excellence in photography and creative imaging. It accomplishes this through exhibitions, an artist development program, education and community outreach, and informational materials. The Center has presented over 120 exhibitions by 1,350 artists to over 100,000 participants and gallery visitors since its founding in 1990. Jerome Foundation support is restricted to emerging artists. In 2004, those artists include Justin Newhall, Tema Stauffer, Richard Copley, Vincent Cianni, Kermit Graber, Laura Hoyt, Dona Schwartz and Simon Martinez.