Past
Grantees

En Garde Arts, New York City, received a grant of $7,500 to cover the participation of two creative artists in a developmental workshop program. Since 1986, En Garde Arts has commissioned playwrights and directors to create theatrical productions which integrate visual arts, performance and architecture. The company has commissioned over 25 large-scale, multimedia collaborative works for sites of social, architectural and/or historical significance. Jerome funding is earmarked for the participation of puppeteer Janie Geiser and playwright Naomi Iizuka.

Ensemble Studio Theater, New York City, received a two-year grant of $24,500 to support its developmental programs for playwrights in the 1994-95 and 1995-96 seasons. Ensemble Studio is dedicated to nurturing individual theater artists and developing new plays by American playwrights. As it approaches its 25th anniversary, it provides an environment which emphasizes process over product, and allows the needs of each individual playwright to determine the methods of a play's growth.

LeAnn Erickson, Iowa City, IA, $3,000 (Completion). From One Place to Another. For the completion of a feature-length video documentary which takes an historical and personal look at the Emma Goldman Clinic for Women in Iowa City, IA.

Evergreen Chronicles, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a grant of $15,000 in support of a literary contest and general publication. Evergreen is a gay and lesbian literary and cultural publication which includes poetry, fiction, visual art and cultural commentary. Its mission is to respond to changing notions of literature, of arts and cultures, and of gay and lesbian peoples. The special issue will be the result of a national contest for collaborative work.

The Foundation Center, New York City, received a two-year grant of $3,000, representing annual support for an organization which provides timely, accurate information about grantmaking in the United States. Thousands of nonprofit organizations have come to rely upon the Center to meet their changing and expanding information needs. Free public access to the Centers five libraries and 205 cooperating collections around the country enables the Center to serve those seeking accurate information on foundations and corporate giving.

Two years of subsidy, totaling $11,000, were awarded to Frank Theatre, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the 1995 and 1996 seasons. Frank's mission is to produce work which stretches the skills of creative artists while simultaneously challenging the everyday perceptions of the audience through an exploration of ideas and issues of social, political and cultural concern.

Franklin Furnace, New York City, received $32,000 of which $12,000 was designated for the Emerging Installation and Performance Artist Program and $20,000 for a regranting program titled the Fund for Performance Art. Franklin Furnace selects artists for these two programs through the use of expert peer panels, which consider proposals from artists. The Fund for Performance Art awards grants of between $2,000 and $5,000 to emerging artists so that they may produce work.

Franklin Furnace, New York City, received a two-part grant of $32,000 to continue support for the Fund for Performance Art and the Performance and Installation Artists Series in 1995-96. Under the direction of founder Martha Wilson, Franklin Furnace sustains an archive of artist books, a performance art regrant program for emerging artists, and exhibitions of time-based arts, both site-specific works by contemporary artists and historical and contemporary exhibitions of artists books and other ephemeral art.

Franklin Furnace, New York City, received a two-part grant of $32,000 to continue support for the Fund for Performance Art and the Performance and Installation Artists Series in 1995-96. Under the direction of founder Martha Wilson, Franklin Furnace sustains an archive of artist books, a performance art regrant program for emerging artists, and exhibitions of time-based arts, both site-specific works by contemporary artists and historical and contemporary exhibitions of artists books and other ephemeral art.

Franklin Furnace, New York City, received $32,000 of which $12,000 was designated for the Emerging Installation and Performance Artist Program and $20,000 for a regranting program titled the Fund for Performance Art. Franklin Furnace selects artists for these two programs through the use of expert peer panels, which consider proposals from artists. The Fund for Performance Art awards grants of between $2,000 and $5,000 to emerging artists so that they may produce work.

Artist VERONICA LYNN FRENNING received support to spend five weeks in the Republic of Korea to study as much of the culture as possible with an emphasis on seeing work in galleries and museums, and making studio visits to artists. Frenning expects to feed her own art work, which is based primarily on personal experiences and memories. This will be a trip to her country of birth, to see a place she cannot recall in memories. She expects the visit to affect her view of the world and her sense of identity.

P.S. 122, New York City, also received $8,000 in designated support for a collaborative project to be undertaken by artist Dan Froot. Funding will support a concert to be presented in May of 1996, under the title Blow Molding, and consisting of five compositions. Saxophone quartet works are to be the centerpiece of the concert. Froots compositional concerns have to do with dynamic spatial relationships, both musical and physical.

JANIE GEISER received support for Magnetic Sleep, an experimental animation using two and three dimensional puppets and live actors in a pictographic, elliptical narrative. Magnetic Sleep was a term used in the 19th Century for hypnosis, referring back to Mesmer and his magnetically/electronically induced trances. The film will center around the figure of a woman hypnotist, and will explore issues of power, manipulation, desire and loss. This will continue Geiser's exploration of the subject of memory, especially as it is intertwined with issues of power.

Playwright-performer BETH GILLELAND will spend two weeks visiting Civil War battle sites in Tennessee and Pennsylvania in order to complete a new play on Mrs. Frances Clayton, who, disguised, joined the Union army during the Civil War in order to be near her husband.

The Jerome Foundation made a $2,000 grant to Grantmakers in the Arts in support of its 1995 program and activities.

Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a grant of $18,000 to continue its publishing support of emerging writers. Under the new direction of Artistic Director/Executive Fiona McCrae, Graywolf will intensify its efforts on behalf of talented emerging artists.

Media Program Coordinator JOHN GWINN received support to spend six weeks in Mexico City studying with several media arts groups, most notably the Independent Video Producers of Mexico, in order to further his knowledge as a media producer and program administrator. He will participate in production workshops and roundtable discussions, and assist with current narrative and documentary video productions by PIVAC members. He hopes to gain knowledge about coordinating and managing a coalition group of independent film and video makers, to explore the moral and social implications associated with the documentary form and how it functions in a social context, and to investigate neighborhood-based media literacy programs.

Writer PATRICIA HAMPL received subsidy to spend one month in Prague, in the Czech Republic, to significantly improve her Czech language skills. She will then work with the Czech translator of her literary work, beginning with Spillville, a prose meditation on Antonin Dvoraks 1983 summer in Spillville, Iowa. These experiences will help Hampl fulfill two goals. The first is to be a productive English half of a Czech/English translating team not only for her own work but as a conduit for more Czech literature into the United States. The second is to expand her contacts with Czech writers in an effort to know that literary culture better so that she might write about it more authoritatively for an American audience. She wants to contribute to a lively exchange between the Czech Republic and the United States.

Aaron Davis Hall, New York City, received $7,000 in support of the Fund for New Works. Jerome subsidy is earmarked for emerging artists' projects. The Fund for New Works provides commissioning and programmatic support for three to four works by emerging artists each year. The Hall's larger New Faces/New Voices/New Visions series programming responds aggressively to the lack of opportunities for the creation of new works by artists of color.

Karen Haselmann, Minneapolis, MN, $3,000 (Completion). Burning Desire. Finishing funds for a video documentary, which documents the creative collaboration of women - "fire junkies" - who involve themselves in all aspects of the foundry arts.