Past
Grantees

Jerome Foundation Directors authorized $22,000 for NO NAME EXHIBITIONS @ THE SOAP FACTORY, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the participation of emerging Minnesota and New York City artists in the 2004 exhibition program. No Name Exhibitions @ The Soap Factory supports and exhibits the work of emerging visual artists; enhances the public's understanding of and appreciation for artistic expression; and fosters strength and vitality in the arts, cultural and educational communities of the Twin Cities. In the last six years, the Center has presented nearly 400 artists and welcomed over 20,000 visitors. It is housed in an historic 48,000 sq. ft. wooden and brick warehouse, which affords large-scale and raw space to artists. In 2004, No Name will present four group exhibitions and several solo shows. The 2004 season includes a show of works by the artist volunteers who worked on behalf of the organization in 2003; Your Heart is No Match for My Love, a group show of 14 artists; a group exhibition of 12 artists who develop and exhibit their work in alternative venues such as zines, billboards, video vans and the web; and a show of works by 50 Twin Cities art students and recent graduates of the University of Minnesota, the College of Visual Arts, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, St. Olaf and Macalester, coinciding with the conference of the Mid-America College Art Association. Twelve solo Project Room exhibitions will also be presented.

SOCRATES SCULPTURE PARK, Long Island City, New York, received $20,000 in support of the 2005 Emerging Artist Fellowship Program. Socrates, an outdoor museum and artist residency program, is based on the belief that reclamation, revitalization, and creative expression are essential to the survival, humanity, and improvement of the urban environment. The Emerging Artist Fellowship Program provides artists with opportunities to create and exhibit large-scale sculpture and multimedia installations in an environment that encourages interaction among artists, art works, and the public. Competitively selected Fellowship artists are granted financial support; a residency of up to six months in an outdoor studio; and access to space, materials, equipment and technical assistance.

SAM SPICZKA, a sculptor from Sartell, will spend three weeks visiting large-scale outdoor sculpture venues and artists on a road trip exploring the nature of large-scale outdoor sculpture in America today. He'll visit and document through photography and writing major sculpture venues between Minnesota and the East Coast, and will meet with sculptors along the way. This information will feed his professional and aesthetic development, enable him to critically assess his strengths and weaknesses, and assist him in understanding the place of his own work within a broader context.

SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS, Saint Paul, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $54,000 in support of the services and programs that it offers to artists. Subsidy will enable the organization to provide individual consultations on career, organizational and financial planning at a discounted rate; offer telephone consultations on a broad array of business and professional issues; offer workshops on topics ranging from finances and taxes to portfolio reviews; support a legal referral service; sponsor speaking engagements for staff; and support a wide variety of technical assistance activities. Many emerging artists seek and receive assistance from Springboard for the Arts.

THEA ST. OMER received a grant for Lovers, a feature-length experimental documentary that celebrates the diversity of New York City couples, and elevates the meaning of "couple" to that which transcends gender. Using art and the beauty of naked bodies as its rhetoric and discourse, not a single word is spoken. The film celebrates all couples whether straight, gay, lesbian or transgender and shows, ultimately, that each couple, comprised of two singular and distinct bodies, merits artistic study and appreciation.

MELISSA STANG, a painter, installation artist and object maker in Minneapolis, will visit the Sea Turtle Conservancy Field Station in a remote part of the Osa Peninsula in Carete, Costa Rica. This is one of the world's most important nesting beaches for green sea turtles, which travel tremendous distances to reproduce there. Stang will draw, write, document and participate in efforts to protect and study nesting green turtles and the release of hatchlings. This is the logical next step of her current project to research grassroots efforts to protect sea turtles. The results of this travel will be a series of essays, drawings, paintings and an installation in progress tentatively titled Marine Ecosystem, designed to read as a Natural History Museum display. She expects to return from this trip with renewed enthusiasm and the raw materials necessary to advance her work.

THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM, New York City, received $11,000 in support of the 2004-05 Artists-in-Residence Program. The Museum is dedicated to advancing the work of visual artists of African descent through exhibitions, education and public programming; the Artists-in-Residence Program; and the presentation of work that has been inspired by African cultures worldwide. The Artists-in-Residence Program offers 12-month studio residencies to three emerging artists each year. The artists have free access to non-living studio spaces, receive monetary fellowships, and are given stipends for materials. A culminating exhibition of the artists' work is presented in the Museum's galleries. An open application process and jury review results in the selection of emerging African-American artists and artists of African descent based on artistic potential and quality, and the likelihood that they will work productively within the program. Various services and professional opportunities enhance the program.

JOKO SUTRISNO, puppeteer, musician and educator, St. Paul, will spend four weeks in Surakarta, Indonesia, where he will update and expand his knowledge and skills in Javanese wayang kulit (shadow puppet theater). Sutrisno intends to develop a production that infuses a traditional wayang story and performance with elements of Islamic tradition.

Arts administrator THERESA SWEETLAND, Minneapolis, will spend two weeks in New Zealand investigating model legal graffiti arts programs. This will inform the design of a youth mentoring program that she is developing in collaboration with the Minneapolis Graffiti Task Force. Sweetland's investigative travel supports her belief that Minneapolis is ripe for creative solutions because young people will continue to tag, and more ambitious youth will want to make large-scale graffiti art works. New Zealand contains a number of excellent working models including the Creation Youth Center in Christchurch, the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology's Street Arts Program, Arts Across Aotearoa in Wellington, the Respect Festival and the Phonic Youth Center in Lower Hutt, and the Youth Communications Program of the Wellington City Council.

MARJAN TEHRANI received a grant in support of ARUSI (Iranian Wedding), a documentary that follows Alex Tehrani, an Iranian-American and his soon to be American bride on their journey to Iran in the summer of 2003. The two embark on their journey and witness Iran as a couple. The film will examine their different perspectives of the country, insisting on the complicated cultural and political exchange at a time of heightened tension as the couple is forced to deal with their differences in the face of a simple and traditional act, a wedding.

The TEXTILE CENTER OF MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $15,000 in support of programs and services for emerging artists in the 2004-05 program year. The Center's mission is to promote excellence in fiber arts and preserve textile traditions. Incorporated in 1994 by a group of fiber artists and patrons, it supports textile work in all forms. A critical part of its purpose is to bring validation and visibility to the textile arts, which arise from all cultures. Its new facility has dramatically expanded opportunities for artists to advance their artistic skills, show and sell their work, and build connections within the broader fiber arts communities. Jerome dollars are directed toward the exhibition program, workshops for artists, intensive seminars for artists and the Mentor Program.

THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP (TCG), New York City, received a two-year grant of $38,000 in support of Rounds 16 and 17 of the National Theatre Criticism/Affiliated Writers Program for American Theatre magazine. TCG strengthens, nurtures and promotes the professional nonprofit American theater. It serves over 430 member theaters and over 17,000 individual members. The Affiliated Writers Program is designed to develop a high level of arts writing/cultural journalism for American Theatre magazine. Through an open application and competitive review process, TCG identifies three cultural writers from New York City and Minnesota each year and offers them stipends, travel assistance, and other services to write for American Theatre. The program not only enables the magazine to greatly expand its coverage of the national theater scene, it simultaneously encourages a new generation of cultural reporters and critics. The program aims to develop a pool of theater writers who have the depth of experience and breadth of perspective to stimulate critical thought and lively debate on the contemporary American theater; and to relate that theater to its historical, social, and cultural surroundings.

The Jerome Foundation Board authorized support for a television series presenting the work of independent film and video artists. A grant of $25,000 was made to THIRTEEN/WNET NEW YORK in support of Reel New York. Now approaching its ninth season, Reel New York is on the cutting edge of the creative media arts scene, providing a forum for narrative shorts, documentaries, experimental films, animation, and projects that defy categorization. These works by New York based independent media artists reflect an array of perspectives that cross racial, religious, social and cultural boundaries to illuminate the lives of New Yorkers. Featured artists receive critical media exposure and access to audiences. Artists introduce their works on camera, which adds a personal dimension to each presentation. The series has presented over 140 independent productions. A companion web site highlights the broadcasted works and houses interviews, a festival calendar, and a list of resources.

ANNA THOMPSON, an arts presenter at the College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, will attend the CINARS (Commerce Internationale des arts de la Scene) Forum in Montreal, Canada, to see dance performances by international companies. Over 1,000 artists, agents, presenters and observers from 60 countries attend CINARS. Thompson will have the opportunity to select from over 150 international performances. The College of Saint Benedict plays a significant role in the artistic life of its regional community and has a long history of presenting dance.

MORGAN THORSON, Minneapolis choreographer, will travel to Las Vegas for three days and then to the Djerassi Artist Residency Program in Woodside, California, for five weeks. She will research the areas of obsession and impersonation for the development of new choreographic material. Thorson is investigating obsession in the areas of impersonation, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and ritualistic behavior. Physical exploration will occupy most of her time at Djerassi, with short periodic side trips for research and interviews.

AMY TOSCANI, a sculptor in Minneapolis, will spend two months in Utica, New York, in a residency at Sculpture Space. Sculpture Space presents an environment that fosters risk-taking, exploration and innovation. Toscani will work alongside other sculptors and technicians, learn from her interaction with them, and develop new approaches to her work. The residency will give her precious time to develop and push her ideas into physical reality. She'll participate in the creative community onsite, and take field trips to visit major museums and sculpture parks in the area.

THE SOUTHERN THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for SPACE-T.U.-EMBRACE, received a two-year grant of $22,000 in support of 2004 and 2005 concerts. Founded in 2003 by Co-Artistic Directors Uri Sands and Toni Pierce Sands, Space-T.U.-Embrace brings people together through dance, creating concerts in which music, thought and movement are drawn from a variety of genres and cultures. In 2004, the company will present revised and repertory work by choreographer Uri Sands at The Southern Theater. In 2005, the company will mount an entirely new season and launch a community outreach program.

VOCALESSENCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $22,000 in support of the 2004 Essentially Choral program. The program is conducted in collaboration with the American Composers Forum. VocalEssence presents six to eight subscription concerts each season of multifaceted repertoire, newly commissioned and seldom heard classical and contemporary works. It offers education programs, tours nationally and internationally, records, broadcasts provides training, and commissions new works. Jerome Foundation support is directed toward an educational and professional development opportunity for emerging composers. Essentially Choral enables five competitively selected emerging composers, the majority of whom are residents of New York City and/or Minnesota, to hear their choral works rehearsed and then performed in a reading session. The reading engages the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers and up to 15 professional orchestral musicians under the direction of conductor and Artistic Director Philip Brunelle. The program includes individual mentoring/coaching sessions with Brunelle and composer Sven-David Sandstrm.

VSA ARTS OF MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $35,000 in support of the Artist Recognition Grant Program and services to artists. VSA arts of Minnesota promotes quality, accessible arts experiences for people with all types of disabilities throughout the state. Jerome support is directed to program opportunities for artists with disabilities. Through an open application process and competitive panel review, six emerging artists are annually awarded Recognition Grants to continue their work in the visual, literary and performing arts. The Program's goals are to recognize excellence, provide financial support and tangible encouragement, and identify artists who are dedicated to making arts production a central part of their lives.

Minneapolis choreographer, dancer and dance instructor ROXANE WALLACE will spend one month in Toronto attending a summer intensive at Ballet Creole. She will investigate the philosophy and methodology used in the choreographic fusion of Ballet Creole through study with Artistic Director, choreographer and scholar Patrick Parson.