Past
Grantees

ROBERT "EDDIE" ROBINSON, gospel singer and choir director, received funding to attend the 1999 Gospel Music Workshop of America in New Orleans, Louisiana, for the purpose of deepening professional relationships with gospel groups and artists and learning from other gospel choir directors.

Artist KAY RUANE received a grant to study with Vincent Desidario and Betye Saar at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. She will focus on her current work, which places a female figure within a landscape to explore the relationship of ones physical, spiritual and psychological self to ones body and environment.

Xcp is a journal devoted to poetry, poetics, ethnography and cultural and ethnic studies. It is published under the auspices of the COLLEGE OF SAINT CATHERINE, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. Xcp highlights emerging writers and artists with diverse cultural perspectives. It began as a reading series for local and national writers at the College; and soon grew to encompass a journal, community workshops, a major conference, an interactive web site and readings at other local venues. A majority of the authors whose works appear in the journal are emerging. The publication was first supported by the Jerome Foundation in 1998. A second, two-year grant of up to $24,000 was authorized to continue publication and to pay writers' fees.

ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY, Collegeville, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $54,000 to continue the Emerging Artist in Residence Program at the St. John's Pottery Studio. Under the direction of artist Richard Bresnahan, the Pottery Studio educates students and artists in the philosophy and practices of sustainable resource development, involves them in an indigenous artistic environment within an academic setting and assists local communities with the sustainable development of indigenous resources. The Emerging Artist in Residence Program supports three artists annually selected through a competitive application process. Jerome Foundation has supported the Residency Program since 1984. This most recent grant will subsidize six emerging artists' residencies over a two-year period. Each will be in residence for two months, will receive a travel and living stipend, and will have full access to the studio and free materials.

The SONORA HOUSE, New York City, a presenter, producer and multicultural education programmer, provides sponsorship services to independent artists and organizations that do not yet have nonprofit status. Composer and pianist JUDITH SAINTE CROIX, under the auspices of Sonora House, received a grant of $10,000 to support the production, performance, distribution and marketing of a concert version of a new opera. This is the second grant Jerome Foundation has committed to this entrepreneurial composer/performer. She wishes to guide the performance, production, distribution and marketing of her work, with the goal being the implementation of a comprehensive marketing plan to result in increased bookings of Sainte Croix as a composer and performer. The immediate objectives are to create a total marketing package for Sainte Croixs music consisting of press regarding professional performances in New York City, production of the music on CD and marketing through touring and radio play.

JOEL SCHLEMOWITZ received support for Venus in Furs, a feature-length narrative film about the masochistic relationship between a young poet and dilettante named Severin, and Wanda, the free-spirited widow with whom he falls in love.

A grant was awarded to MICHAEL SCHLEMPER of Beltrami to travel to Bemidji, Minnesota; Mandan and Dickenson, North Dakota; Miles City, Livingston and Bozeman, Montana; and Salt Lake City, Utah. Schlemper will attend a Writers at Work conference and will keep a journal on the trip, using the changing physical landscape of the American West as a metaphor for social and cultural differences.

The JAMES SEWELL BALLET, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $15,000 in support of the Ballet Works Project. The mission of the company is to create and perform an engaging repertoire based in the ballet idiom in an effort to broaden audience access to dance and to advance the art form. Funding will support a four-week period in which company dancers work with four choreographers in the creation of new works. Three of those choreographers are members of the company: Penelope Freeh, Jesse Hammel and Benjamin Johnson. A fourth will be selected by the company members from the Twin Cities or New York City choreographic communities.

A grant was awarded to photographer PAUL SHAMBROOM to travel New York; Silicon Valley, California; and various Upper Midwest states to visit small towns and economic centers to make photographs for his project Imagine and Influence: A Photographic Study of Meetings and Power.

ANGEL VELASCO SHAW received a grant for Excuse meAre You Pilipino?, a feature-length documentary, set in New York, San Francisco and Hawaii that examines the unique ways some Filipino Americans create culture and community.

RICK SHIOMI, Theater Mu Artistic Director and Taiko drummer, received a grant to reconnect with the Taiko group community in North America and to study with Grand Master Serichi Thnaha in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

SMACK MELLON STUDIOS, New York City, was conceived in 1995 as a multidisciplinary exchange among visual artists and musicians. It has evolved into an organization with the mission of nurturing and supporting emerging and mid-career artists by providing access to technology, studio space and exhibition space necessary for the realization of ambitious multidisciplinary projects. Some artists participate in a residency program, through which they have access to the facilities for longer periods of time to experiment with ideas and collaborations. Jerome Foundation funding of $12,000 will be directed toward the participation of emerging artists in two exhibitions, Red Square and Natural History.

TARA SPARTZ, Minneapolis, MN, received a grant of $10,000 for I Hate Baby-sitting, a 45-minute narrative that tells the story of the big plan of two teenage girls to escape the frustrations of babysitting for one night, before beginning new lives in senior high school.

THE FIELD, New York City, acting as fiscal agent for ROSEANNE SPRADLIN DANCE, received a two-year grant of $15,000 in support of the development of new work. Empathy will be premiered within the next few months, accompanied by three short solos for company members. It explores themes of intimacy, gender identification and body boundaries. In 2000, Spradlin will begin work on an evening-length mixed media piece, created in collaboration with composer James Lo, entitled !Oklahoma Part Two!. Spradlin and Lo will juxtapose sections of movement and sound with images from the Oklahoma tornadoes and terrorist bombing. Finally, in the 2000-2001 season, Spradlin will create Fetish, exploring themes of chaos and control.

RESOURCES AND COUNSELING FOR THE ARTS, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $40,000 in support of the Artists Services Program and general operations. RCA offers a variety of services to individual artists including workshops and support groups, individual consultations, a loan fund, a legal referral service, arts administration job listings and services, speaking engagements, telephone information and referral, informational booklets, a quarterly newsletter and a resource library. RCA serves the primary constituency of the Jerome Foundationindividual emerging artists

The MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, acting as fiscal agent sponsor for ROBIN STIEHM and the Dancing People Company, received a grant of $12,000 in support of the development and production of new work in 1999. Stiehm is a well recognized dancer in the Twin Cities area, who received Jerome funding in 1994 to support an evening of her own choreography with the Dancing People Company. She has used fellowship and other grant support since then to develop her choreographic voice. Jerome funding in 1999 will support the creation of a duet for two dancers with whom shes worked since 1994. Shell also create a quartet, both described as concise pieces. Stiehm intends to push toward getting her work seen outside of the Twin Cities area in the upcoming season

The MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, submitted a proposal on behalf of choreographer ROBIN STIEHM and her DANCING PEOPLE COMPANY. Subsidy of $12,000 was authorized to support the development and presentation of new work in 2000. This was the third grant made to Stiehm's Dancing People Company. It focuses on a new evening-length work titled City, scheduled for production this coming February at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. The work is based on a section of Italo Calvino's book Invisible Cities; and is about decaying infrastructure, and the decaying of society.

THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM, New York, received a grant of $10,000 in support of the Artist in Residence Program. Opened in 1968, the Studio Museum in Harlem boasts a permanent collection of approximately 1,600 objects in three broad categories: 19th and 20th Century African-American Art, 20th Century Caribbean and African Art and traditional African Art and Artifacts. In 1968, the Studio Museum initiated an artist in residence program that annually provides cash fellowships, materials and studio spaces to three emerging artists of African descent. They are selected from a competitive field of applicants in a rigorous process. The artists exhibit selected pieces in a show at the conclusion of their 12-month residencies. The artists are required to work in their studio spaces for a minimum of 20 hours per week. The Museum also requires a modest amount of service in educational programs and outreach to community groups.

VERNAL BOGREN SWIFT, a studio artist based in Bovey, received a grant to travel and work for three months in the isolated region of the Pilbara, in Western Australia. This region is rich in iron ore and Aboriginal petroglyphs which are referenced in Swifts work.

SYMPHONY SPACE, New York City, received a grant of $15,000 in support of a Selected Shorts program in Minnesota. Symphony Space presents free or low-cost artistic programs representative of New York's many cultures. Its programming is varied and energetic. The mission of Selected Shorts is to foster the appreciation of short fiction and the spoken word through a variety of media. Jerome Foundation has been supporting the participation of emerging writers in that program for three years. In 1993, Symphony Space was invited by The Loft to select three Minnesota writers and to produce a program of readings in St. Paul in cooperation with Minnesota Public Radio. The Jerome Foundation Directors were interested in repeating that program offering. The event is scheduled for November of this year. It will be presented in the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, and promoted as part of the 20th Anniversary of The Loft's Mentor Series.