Past
Grantees

PATRICE CLARK KOELSCH, a writer and educator, will take a one-month trip to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to conduct research and continue writing a book about the personal and philosophical cultivation of compassion in open-ended situations. Koelsch is examining what it means to let go of the outcome, especially in circumstances where outcomes, at best, are provisional and ambiguous. Koelsch is an HIV educator and Chiang Mai is the site of a number of particularly innovative efforts to address HIV.

CORNUCOPIA ART CENTER, Lanesboro, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $30,000 in support of a residency program for emerging artists. The Art Center provides opportunities for artists to create, refine, explore and sell their work in the Lanesboro area. The residency program is based upon an open application process in which artists proposals are judged by a selection committee. Artists receive residencies of varying lengths during which they create work and provide a defined amount of community service.

Poet, spoken word artist, playwright and educator ED BOK LEE will attend the second national Asian Pacific Islander American Spoken Word and Poetry Summit in Chicago, Illinois. Over five days, Lee will participate in creative and professional development workshops. Hell further develop and learn from a network of spoken word artists from around the nation, who will take part in the Summit and the 2003 National Poetry Slam immediately following it.

KEITH ROLLINS LOCKWOOD, Minneapolis, MN, was awarded funding for Radio Documentary, a documentary that will explore the vanishing culture of American radio. It will examine the large corporate dominance of radio, the disappearance of DJs, and the struggle of non-profit radio stations, through the microcosm of Bozeman, Montana, and the small non-profit community-owned radio station KGLT.

THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $90,000 in continued support of the Minnesota Writers Career Initiative. The Loft provides meeting space and facilities for use by creative writers; public access to contemporary literary publications, collections and resource materials; readings; performances; exhibits; a regular program of residencies and workshops; and technical and professional assistance to writers, editors, publishers and other literary organizations. The Minnesota Writers Career Initiative leverages the potential of Minnesota writers to expand their level of recognition regionally and/or nationally, and their audiences. The Initiative serves competitively selected writers through a two-step process of logistical and strategic planning with a consultant, resulting in the creation of a career plan and the implementation of that plan. The program is open to writers of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, childrens literature, and performance-oriented and spoken word work.

JERRY R. LOPEZ, a lead drummer/artist in The Circle of Danza Mexica Cuauhtemoc will travel for 45 days through California, Arizona, and Mexico. Lopez will meet with artists and master artists trained in the discipline of percussion drumming and song. In Arizona, he will study drumming and attend festivals at the Mexicayotl Academy. In California, he will attend the Xilone Ceremony in Los Angeles. Finally, Lopez will spend three weeks with master artists in drummer circles in Mexico City. Specifically, Lopez will explore the culture of the Aztec/Mexica.

Media artist XENG LOR will travel to Fresno, California and Green Bay, Wisconsin to learn more about gay, lesbian and bisexual people in the Hmong community. This trip is part of an ongoing process of understanding his own identity as a young gay man and exploring that identity in his documentary work. Lor will incorporate what he learns through his travels into his highly personal documentaries. In Green Bay, Lor will attend Hmong New Year during Labor Day weekend, and will then go to Hmong New Year celebrations in Fresno, California in December.

The LOWER EAST SIDE PRINTSHOP, New York City, received a two-year grant of $29,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in the Artist Workspace Program. The Printshop promotes and advances the art of printmaking by providing a stimulating workspace in which artists create new works through residencies of varying lengths. The Artist Workspace Program provides practical support to artists of all backgrounds and levels of accomplishment through Keyholder Residencies, Special Editions Fellowships, Invitational Residencies, technical assistance, a Speaker Series, professional internships and printmaking classes. Emerging artists receive financial and technical assistance, and an opportunity to collaborate closely with master printers and assistants.

MABOU MINES, New York City, received a two-year grant of $58,000 in support of the Suite Resident Artist Program. Mabou Mines is a collective of artists who believe that life is a performance and that the study and practice of one is the study and practice of the other. This company has a distinguished production history. Its core members have evidenced, over time, their commitment to nurturing and developing emerging performance artists. The Suite program was established in 1991 to meet the needs of emerging performance artists searching for mentors and a professional arena in which to develop new work. Every other year, Mabou Mines issues an invitation to creative directors, writers, choreographers, playwrights, designers, composers, film and video makers, performance artists, and visual artists to apply for participation in the Suite program. In year one, the focus is on establishing a professional community and the development of new work. Year two engages a smaller number of artists, and emphasizes readying works for production and self-direction. In 2003-04, Jerome dollars will help Mabou Mines assist 12 emerging artists engaged in nine projects.

TRAVIS MADOLE will spend six months in Havana, Cuba to study the ceremonial Bata Drum under the supervision of Pancho Quinto, while also working with members of Rumba/Bata group Yoruba Andabo. Madole is an emerging drummer in the Twin Cities who plays with Latin groups on a regular basis. Pancho Quinto will spend the time with Madole focusing on the Bata.

BRIAN MALLOY, a fiction writer and arts administrator, will spend 12 days in the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota. Traveling alone, he will keep a journal that is designed to inform his novel in progress, whose title character flees to this area. Several chapters deal with the characters daily life in the wilderness. Malloy will write create prose that truly draws its inspiration from the specific natural setting.

PANGEA WORLD THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for the experimental theater ensemble MAMA MOSAIC, received $9,000 to support the development of BRIDEPRICE. The mission of this theater collective is to evoke positive social change through female-centered theater that is empowering and entertaining. BRIDEPRICE is being developed by the core members of MaMa mOsAiC in dialogue with collaborating artists and members of the broader community. MaMa mOsAiC will explore institutionalized misogyny, and how we collectively take responsibility for our roles in its practices. BRIDEPRICE will incorporate text (poetry and prose), movement, music, and multimedia.

A grant was awarded to STEPHEN MARSHALL AND JOSH SHORE, in support of True Lies, a documentary that seeks to inform people about the way in which media is used to obscure the true intent of its disseminationnamely to target people with coercive techniques to make better consumers out of them.

Poet and editor MICHELLE MATHEES, Duluth, will travel for four months in three areas of Poland to continue research on the historical, geographic, and social settings of the communities her grandmother's people left shortly after the turn of the century. She'll travel to Gadansk, Sejny, Bialystok and several small hamlets fishing villages. She will examine how the formation of national identities are made, broken and made once again, and how that may affect the interpersonal dynamics between people including nuclear familial relationships. From this experience, she will write new poems. Matthees's poetry reflects an ongoing examination of these concerns through the lens of her relationship to her grandmother, and her grandmother's unease in America.

A grant of $20,000 was authorized for MEET THE COMPOSER, New York City, in support of the participation of New York City and Minnesota emerging composers in the Meet The Composer Fund. Founded in 1974, Meet The Composer fosters the creation, performance and recording of music by American composers and develops new audiences for their work. There are many program activities at Meet The Composer, of which Jerome Foundation has supported, since 1984, the Meet The Composer Fund. Through small grants, it enables composers to rehearse and coach performers, participate in and attend performances of their works, build their relationships with artistic decision makers, and interpret their works for audiences. Jerome dollars are earmarked for New York City and Minnesota emerging composers. This Fund has made grants totaling over $6.3 million to over 40,000 composers, who write in all styles of music. Awards range from $250 to $1,000 based on the scale of the project and availability of funds.

LISELLE MEI was awarded a grant for Lower East Side Stories, a dramatic short presented in a series of four sequential portraits of women living in the Lower East Side of New York City. This film is designed to be a cultural homage to evoke color, culture and history of the neighborhood.

MIDWAY CONTEMPORARY ART, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a grant of $5,000 for the participation of emerging Minnesota and New York City artists in the 2003-04 exhibition program. The mission of the gallery is to present the work of emerging artists and create a dialogue between Twin Cities and national artists. Operating for three years, the gallery mounts exhibitions from the early fall through mid-summer, ranging from two-person shows to larger group thematic shows. They cover a wide range of ideas and concepts, from explorations into the relationship of abstraction and representation to the influence of technology on architecture. The intent is to provide an open forum for the public to encounter new ideas and ways of working in the visual arts.

The MINNEAPOLIS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $146,000 in support of the MCAD/Jerome Fellowship Program. The Colleges mission is to educate individuals to be professional artists and designers, effective leaders, and active citizens. In 1981, the Foundation and the College crafted a fellowship program for emerging Twin Cities visual artists. The purpose of the program is to advance significantly the work of those artists. The College issues an open call for applications and convenes an independent panel to select fellows. Eligible artists are those working in painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography and multimedia. Artists receive stipends of $9,000 each. Three visiting critics/curators are invited to meet with the fellows to respond to their work and provide information on professional opportunities. There is an exhibition at the conclusion of the fellowship year, with a catalog containing a critical essay and biographical information on the artists.

Finally, the Foundation made a grant of up to $1,500 to the MINNESOTA COUNCIL ON FOUNDATIONS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, to support scholarships for individual artists and small arts organizations to attend the first annual joint conference of the Minnesota Council on Foundations and the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits in October of 2003. There is a multi-part conference track for the arts within this conference, which will allow the arts community to convene to address important critical issues it now faces.

Jerome Foundation renewed its annual membership in and general support for the MINNESOTA COUNCIL ON FOUNDATIONS, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1969, the council is a regional association of grantmakers whose mission is to strengthen and increase participation in organized philanthropy.