Past
Grantees

A GATHERING OF THE TRIBES, New York City, was founded in 1991 as a venue for underexposed literary artists, a networking center, and a locus for the development of new talent. Jerome funding of $15,000 will be allocated toward a writers-in-residence program and writers' fees for the publication of A Gathering of the Tribes magazine, an exciting combination of poetry, fiction, reviews, essays, interviews and visual arts. The writers-in-residence program is a natural outgrowth of Tribes' relationship with two small presses. There will be eight writers' residencies featuring four writers each from Hanging Loose and Coffee House Presses. Each residency consists of a public reading, a visit to a school in Bronx District 10 and a taped radio and/or television interview.

ME K. AHN is a memoir writer and filmmaker who was awarded a grant to travel for three months in Seoul, Korea, the place of her birth. As a baby, Ahn was adopted by a Minnesota family. She will interview her Korean biological family for the purpose of constructing an autobiographical novel.

Through a bequest from George and Gisela Amberg, the Jerome Foundation provides funding to the Department of Cinema Studies at New York University in the form of a dissertation fellowship named after the Ambergs. A grant of $5,850 was made to NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, New York City, to support the AMBERG FELLOWSHIP AWARD, for Bruce Brasell, whose dissertation is titled Imagining the American South in Documentary Film and Video. It is an exploration of the South as a site of ethnographic and documentary filmmaking. It is Brasell's contention that the history of filmmaking about the South in the 20th century is one of "salvage ethnography" that seeks to capture and preserve on film a disappearing culture, and to redeem, in an evangelical tone specific to the region, the value and salience of Southern culture to American life.

Novelist DALE GREGORY ANDERSON received funding to spend a week at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center in Massachusetts to attend Michael Cunninghams writing workshop in order to further develop the craft of characterization.

A grant was awarded to fiction writer CHERYL ANTHONY to attend a one-week workshop at the Rappahannock Fiction Writers Workshop in Virginia to study the short story form with Lee K. Abbott.

The Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a two-year grant of $24,000 to THE SOUTHERN THEATER FOUNDATION, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal agent for ARENA DANCES BY MATHEW JANCZEWSKI. Currently in development is Scouts Honor, a new mens trio that comments on a gay culture that places beautiful youth and body imagery above all else. Janczewski is also developing a new sextet titled Bankrupt City, depicting the very real situations of everyday life in which we present ourselves, make money and search for an understanding of who we are and how we strive to better ourselves.

ART IN GENERAL, New York City, received a grant of $17,300 to support a Minnesota Artist Residency. Art in General supports and stimulates the creation of contemporary artwork. It provides various exhibition and public programs, responding to diverse communities and broadening the context in which contemporary art is viewed and presented. An eight-week residency and installation opportunity for an emerging Minnesota artist has been offered annually since 1996, funded by the Jerome Foundation. Art in General provides support ranging from travel, room and board and materials to technical expertise and networking. The gallery hosts a reception, works with the artist in planning public programs, and sets appointments for the artists to meet critics, dealers, curators, writers and other artists.

ARTISTS SPACE, New York City, is a center for contemporary art and a service organization for artists. Seeking to broaden the visibility of emerging artists and to increase public awareness of their work, Artists Space presents an 11 month-long exhibition season, which features work in architecture, drawing, film, video, painting, performance, photography, literature, sculpture and multimedia. Jerome Foundation funding of $36,000, over two years, will support the participation of emerging artists in the exhibition program.

Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a grant of $25,000 to ASIAN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, St. Paul, Minnesota, in support of the Artist Career Development Grant Program, and additional programs and services provided to emerging creative artists. The Renaissance is a Pan-Asian arts organization that uses the arts to bring communities and cultures together. Jerome funding was allocated, in part, to satisfy outstanding obligations due to artists who were awarded subsidies in the 1999-2000 Artist Career Development Grant Program. This involved 12 Asian American artists selected from a highly competitive group of applications. In addition, Jerome funding will be used for programs and services earmarked for emerging creative artists, including the publication of a journal of literary work and artist workshops.

The ASIAN AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, St. Paul, Minnesota, is a Pan-Asian organization that uses the arts to bring communities and cultures together. Programs include cabarets showcasing original new works, an annual Asian American Festival, residencies of nationally recognized artists interacting with local artists, fireside chats, a journal of literary works and a public readings program. Jerome support of $35,000 was authorized for the Artist Career Development Grant Program. This program selects artists from a competitive applicant pool and provides them with financial resources to undertake artistic projects. The program is open to artists working in any media; a multidisciplinary review panel determines recipients.

THE ASIAN AMERICAN WRITERS' WORKSHOP, New York City, was founded in 1991 to facilitate the creation, publication and dissemination of Asian American literature and to serve as a center for its growth and maturation. It offers a variety of activities and services including creative writing workshops, reading series, panels and discussions, the Asian Pacific American Journal, a newsletter, the Asian American Bookseller, a publication division, book signings, literary contests, technical assistance to writers and access to facilities. Jerome funding of $40,000 over two years is a contribution toward programs and services for emerging Asian American writers based in New York City and Minnesota.

JEFF BARTLETT, Artistic Director of the Southern Theater, and an active lighting designer, received funding to spend two weeks in New York City to attend Broadway Lighting Master Classes and to spend time with his uncle Paul Wood, painter and stained glass artist. The classes are a series of workshops taught by several of the top names in stage lighting design.

The NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, New York City, acted as fiscal agent for independent artist CONNIE BECKLEY. A grant of $15,000 was authorized to this established, mid-career artist to move from a series of works in the arenas of performance art, visual arts and music, to a major new work that is more theatrical in nature. From is an abstract work for five people about the isolated ruminations of an inventor trying to reconcile his internal and external worlds. It includes original music and an evolving set that has low-tech but clever inventiveness. From becomes a series of variations, in sound and images, on the nature of possessing ones imagination. This work will be self-produced and controlled by Beckley in a site-specific location of her choice.

INTERMEDIA ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent for writer, composer and sound artist ERIK BELGUM, received a two-year grant of $24,000 in support of the development of new works. Belgum works in fiction, nonfiction, radio, performance art, opera and related forms. Support was awarded for the creation and recording of new pieces on compact disc, specifically for experimental radio. BLABBERMOUTH and FAMILY AMPLITUDE sit somewhere between literature and music in a genre that Belgium calls ambient fiction. Each extends the reach of his interdisciplinary approach.

ZOE BELOFF (a previous recipient), received funding for Shadow Land or Light From the Other Side, a black and white stereoscopic 16mm film about Elizabeth d'Eperance, a materializing medium who could conjure up full body apparitions.

The BLACKLOCK NATURE SANCTUARY, Moose Lake, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $44,000 in support of Emerging Artist Residencies. The Sanctuary acquires and holds in perpetuity ecologically significant undeveloped land as a sanctuary for plants and animals indigenous to East Central Minnesota. It provides residencies in which naturalists, artists and writers may study nature and work in a secluded, natural setting. In 1996, with assistance from Jerome Foundation, the Emerging Artist Residency Program was established. It provides one-week to one-month long residencies to individual artists who wish to work alone or study with a mentor or master teacher. In addition, Blacklock offers an Arts Administrator Renewal Opportunity of a week-long stay at the Sanctuary. Visual artists, performing artists from the disciplines of music, dance and theater as well as literary artists may apply for the residencies.

A grant of $10,000 was awarded to THE BRONX MUSEUM OF THE ARTS, Bronx, New York, for the 20th Anniversary of the Artist in the Marketplace Program. The Bronx Museum, one of the City's major arts organizations, pairs community service with artistic excellence. The Jerome Foundation has provided support for the AIM professional development program for emerging artists since 1989. Good Business is the best Art: Twenty Years of the Artist in the Marketplace Program examines and tracks the artistic and professional development of 20 artists who have used the knowledge and skills acquired in AIM, and subsequently achieved critical and/or commercial success. The exhibition opens April 6 and remains on view through September 3, 2000. CD-ROM includes video interviews with the 20 featured artists and arts professionals who have been instrumental in their careers, as well as a sampling of AIM seminars offering valuable career tips.

FRANCOIS BUCHER, received funding for Performance, a two-channel installation that presents a conversation between a married couple. In so doing, the relationship of these two people and their socio/environmental context (over which they have no control) will become a mystery, a fertile ground for analysis.

Choreographer DANNY BURACZESKI received funding to travel to Miami, Florida, and Havana, Cuba to study Afro-Cuban dance and music. Buraczeski will participate in a workshop entitled Ritmos Cubanos, a combination of dance, percussion, and song, and will study with two Afro-Cuban dance companies. The travel and study will culminate in a new work for his company, Jazzdance.

WALLY CARDONA VENTURES, New York City, received $12,000 to support the development and production of Trance Territory, Cardonas first foray into an evening-length format. It also presents the challenge of working with artists of other media, including a visual artist, a lighting designer who will physically alter the space and a live DJ working in a semi-improvisational format. The size and scope of this work is more significant than anything the company has produced to date. The use of music and dance as transcendent and spiritual experience travels beyond cultural and age barriers and has roots in ancient ceremonies. Trance Territory focuses on a new generation that has now claimed its own techno-driven tribal ritual, based on interpretations of trance music and trance dance experience found in underground clubs.