Past
Grantees

Puppeteer and performance artist MASANARI KAWAHARA, St. Paul, Minnesota, will travel to the Deer Park Monastery in Escontito, California, to participate in a retreat led by Thich Nhat Hahn. Kawahara is developing a puppet show entitled A Path Home: A Story of Thich Nhat Hanh about Hanh's life teachings-especially focused on his peace activism in Vietnam and the U.S. Kawahara expects that this focused experience will bring real-world insight and spiritual foundation to the new work.

A grant was awarded to HOSSEIN KESHAVARZ for Dog Sweat, a narrative film about the schism between six young Iranians and their more conservative elders, in a country where over two-thirds of the population is under thirty. The film aspires to show the real Iran, a portrayal neither sanctioned by the government nor seen by the outside world. An Iran where young people drink alcohol, party, socialize with members of the opposite sex and cautiously allow themselves to be gay, all behind closed doors and blackened windows. The young actors in this fictional film, which was shot in Iran on HD video, put themselves at great risk to participate. The risk was worth taking in their view in order to tell the stories of this film.

THE KITCHEN (Haleakala), New York City, received $14,700 in support of commissioned performance and exhibition projects by emerging New York City-based artists. The Kitchen is an internationally recognized performance and exhibition space dedicated to supporting new work by innovative artists working within and across the fields of music, dance, theater, video and film, digital art and literature. The Kitchen is known for its commitment to experimental new work and for providing instrumental support during the early years of artists' careers. Jerome support allows The Kitchen to offer commissions to emerging creators to seed new works, which are then presented at The Kitchen. Building upon the commissions, The Kitchen offers technical and production support and increased exposure to a large audience base

The LARK PLAY DEVELOPMENT CENTER, New York City, received $10,800 in support of programs serving emerging playwrights and the development of their works. A laboratory for new voices and new ideas, the Lark provides playwrights with resources to develop their work, nurturing artists at all stages in their careers, and inviting them to express themselves freely in a supportive and rigorous environment. Programs and services are divided into the three areas of play scouting, play incubation and play advancement. The Larks commitment to emerging playwrights is manifested in multiple programs and services, beginning with the practice of open access in which the Lark invites scripts from writers throughout the country and abroad. Programs encompass a playwrights workshop, an annual fellowship with a year of free housing in New York City, fully rehearsed public presentations of plays in the form of BareBones productions, studio retreats, roundtables, an annual playwrights week festival of eight to 12 new plays, international exchange programs, an alumni playwright program and launching new plays into the repertoire initiative. Jerome support is focused on emerging playwrights based in New York City and Minnesota.

Photographer LEIGH LEDARE, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Moscow, Russia, to continue research on a Russian motorcycle gang, the Night Wolves, before and during their annual meeting in Moscow. Ledare is investigating Russian subculture and youth culture. He sees their social practices as alternative models for participation in society. Ledare's expectations of this trip are to collect materials and establish connections that will lead to a broader film/photography/archive project exploring the group's cultural positioning as well as his relationship to them as a documentarian.

LIVE ACTION SET, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $5,000 in support of the creation and production of My Fathers Bookshelf. Live Action Set creates ensemble-driven performances that dissolve artistic boundaries, elicit profound responses in audiences, and address issues of relevance to the contemporary world. My Fathers Bookshelf was originally conceived by artistic director Galen Treuer, one of the four members of the ensemble. The work explores Alzheimers Disease through multiple perspectives: the personal through a solo character suffering from the disease, the factual through a neuroscience lecture and PowerPoint presentation, and the community through a short play of scenes with a chorus of individuals who interact with the Alzheimers patient. Stories of science, memory and communication are at the core of My Fathers Bookshelf.

THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $45,000 in support of the 2010-11 Mentor Series in Poetry and Creative Prose. The Loft Literary Center, one of the nations largest independent literary centers, supports the artistic development of writers, fosters a writing community, and builds an audience for literature. The Mentor series was launched in the late 1970s as a vehicle for emerging Minnesota writers to work in small group settings with nationally recognized writers, and to be mentored in ways ranging from review of their work to providing inspiration and examples for the writing life. Twelve emerging writers (four in poetry, four in fiction, and four in creative nonfiction) are selected through an open competitive process to work intensively with six nationally acclaimed writers, over the course of a year. Program components include seminars, discussions, manuscript conferences, public readings, public craft talks, and intensive workshops.

The Jerome Foundation made a grant of $45,000 to THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER, Minneapolis Minnesota, in support of the 2010 Minnesota Writers Career Initiative Program. The Lofts mission is to support the artistic development of writers, foster a writing community, and build an audience for literature. The Loft offers a diverse range of programs and services for over 600,000 individuals each year. Jerome support is directed to the Minnesota Writers Career Initiative Program, which provides financial support and professional assistance to writers who want to develop and implement substantial, multifaceted plans to help them enter into the next phase of their careers. There is an open call for applications reviewed by an independent panel. Writers and spoken word artists apply with individually designed plans. Examples include conducting a reading or spoken word performance tour, hiring a publicist to market to target audiences, creating a website, consulting with an editor or agent, spending time at an artists retreat or colony, and the production and promotion of a CD/DVD.

LOWER EAST SIDE PRINTSHOP, New York City, received $15,300 in support of the Keyholder and Special Editions Residencies. The Printshop supports contemporary artists of all creative backgrounds by enabling them to create new work. It offers open access to its studio space, stipends, expertise in printmaking, exhibitions, and career services. Its studio facility is a laboratory for artists to develop new work through experimentation and exploration, serving over 150 artists annually. Jerome support focuses on residency programs that serve emerging artists. The Keyholder residencies provide eight competitively selected artists with free studio access for one year, stipends, and other benefits that foster their studio practice and career advancement. The Special Editions Residency Program serves four competitively selected artists with free studio access, stipends, assistance from the Master Printers, and other benefits to enable them to create new bodies of work.

The LOWER MANHATTAN CULTURAL COUNCIL (LMCC), New York City, received $23,000 in support of the 2009-10 Workspace program. The Council is an arts presenter, advocate, and service provider to artists and arts groups. Through progressive cultural planning, innovative artist studio programs, funding and training opportunities, and a rich calendar of free events in the visual, performing and new media arts, LMCC takes an integrated approach to enriching New York City's creative capital. Workspace gives artists, working in a range of media and genres, the space, time, and resources to develop new work. The artists have 24-hour a day, seven-day a week access to studios and a shared community area, receive a stipend for materials and supplies, benefit from curator and critic visits, engage in professional development seminars, and have access to additional resources and services to help strengthen their careers.

MABOU MINES, New York City, received a two-year grant of $60,000 in support of the Suite Resident Artist Program. Jerome support is directed to the participation of emerging New York City-based artists in this program. Mabou Mines is an artist-driven experimental theater collective generating original works and re-imagined adaptations of classic plays through multidisciplinary, technologically innovative collaborations among its members and a wide world of contemporary artists. Established in 1991, the Suite Resident Artist Program is a laboratory for artists to experiment with performance ideas. Suite is open to small companies and individual artists in all fields, any artist with a compelling performance idea in need of investigation. The first year of the program begins with nine artists or artist teams, selected via an open call and company review, as Resident Artists. The Program strives to develop a lively and artistically fertile community while offering guidance to the artists as they explore their individual projects. Mabou Mines' Artistic Directors and Associate Artists serve as mentors. In the second year, four Alumni Resident artists are invited to return to the program to continue work on projects. These residencies are individually designed to meet specific needs. The goal is to prepare and secure fully realized productions.

CRAIG MACNEILL received a grant for Henley, a narrative short about a ten-year-old boy named Ted Henley who lives with his father in their run down motel on a desolate stretch of road. He earns his tiny allowance by collecting and removing the road kill that litters the highway. But when the motel cash register starts to run dry, Ted decides to turn his attention to collecting bigger game. This film was inspired by Clay McLeod Chapman's Miss Corpus, which, according to Macneill, weaves together honest human emotion with peculiar and atypical situations.

JOHN MAGARY received support for Antoinette, a feature-length narrative about a womans unfinished battle with life, an ecstatic chronicle chasing its defiant subject across four decades as she raises seven kids amidst the pain, joy, death, and rebirth of the city she calls home. And where is her home? Its New Orleans, a place like no other, tumbling down the backside of Americas twentieth century. Scenes from Antoinettes life spill out in chronological disorder, in bursts short and long, with the random force of memorya history, a dance, a delirious harnessing. From her self-imposed name change at seven, to her first child at seventeen, to a disastrous brawl in the projects at twenty-nine, to her post-Katrina exile in San Antonio, Antoinette takes a hopscotch through time with ailing siblings, battered suitors, determined girls, belligerent boys, and one very tough woman.

Electronic composer, sound and multimedia artist LUIS MAURETTE, New York City, will travel to Chile and Argentina to conduct cultural research along the Qnapac an (Main Inca Road) from Santiago, Chile, to La Quica, Argentina. While there, he plans to research the charango, a small South American stringed instrument used in the traditional music of the area and central to his compositions. He will collect field recordings, meet with musicians and music scholars, and talk with people along the way about the stories and beliefs behind the music.

CONOR MCGRADY and DARIO SOLMAN, artists living in Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia to interview select cultural leaders on the nature of mythology and ideology and to document architecture and urban spaces to form the basis for a new collaborative body of work. The artists employ a similar aesthetic approach featuring the iconographic use of the future to represent the individual's relationship to ideology and power. The impact of shifting mythologies in these geographic locations, their impact on urban space and concepts of national identity, will form the basis for the research trip.

GRANTMAKERS IN FILM + ELECTRONIC MEDIA, Baltimore, Maryland, received $2,500 in support of 2009 programs and services. This affinity group of the Council on Foundations is an association of grantmakers committed to advancing the field of media arts and public interest media funding. It is a resource for grantmakers who fund media content, infrastructure and policy and those who employ media to further their program goals. It also serves funders who want to learn more about supporting media. The Jerome Foundation has been a member since 2005.

MEET THE COMPOSER, New York City, received $15,000 in support of the participation of New York City and Minnesota based emerging composers in the 2010 Creative Connections program. Meet The Composer fosters the creation, performance, dissemination, and appreciation of music by contemporary composers. It is dedicated to supporting living composers through direct financial assistance and opportunities to connect with audiences. The Creative Connections program provides support to composers to engage with broad audiences in conjunction with live performances of their work. Activities may include workshops, discussions, interactive presentations, and in-school residencies. Four times a year, the program distributes funds ranging from $250 to $5,000 for a broad range of composer activities and venues.

ALISSA MELLO, puppeteer and playwright living in Jackson Heights in Queens, New York, will travel to Charleville-Mzire, France, to participate in a one-month workshop led by Philippe Genty and Mary Underwood, founders of the Compagnie Philippe Genty, renowned for visual theater that combines puppetry, dance, and illusion. Mello is interested in expanding her artistic palette and exploring new techniques to work with performers, transform raw materials and performing objects, and use performer generated content as part of the creative development process.

MILKWEED EDITIONS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $20,700 in support of the publication of single author books of fiction by emerging writers. Founded in 1979, Milkweed Editions publishes 15-20 books per year with over 250 titles in print and over a million copies of its books in circulation. Its mission is to publish books that have the potential to make a humane impact on society, in the belief that literature is a transformative art. Its commitment to publishing work by emerging artists has resulted in Jerome support of this independent press since 1980. The publication of these books by emerging writers will significantly contribute to their development and the advancement of their work and careers. Authors are selected by the editorial staff of the press and receive the full development, distribution and promotion support of the organization.

The MINNEAPOLIS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN (MCAD), Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $71,100 in support of the 2009-10 MCAD/Jerome Fellowships for Emerging Artists. The goal is to advance, artistically and critically, the work of emerging Minnesota visual artists. Four emerging artists will be chosen to receive $10,000 fellowships to cover a working period of 12 months. They will meet with visiting critics/curators individually and as a group. The College will provide technical assistance and a supportive framework for the year. There will be a culminating exhibition in the College gallery with a catalog. The program invites artists applications in response to an annual open call. A jury of experienced professionals narrows the field to finalists, who then receive studio visits from the jury prior to the selection of the recipients. Artists must be at an early stage of career development, without wide exhibition exposure locally and nationally and without having received other prestigious grant awards. Founded in 1986, MCAD is an independent, accredited institution offering a four-year curriculum and a graduate degree program. It educates individuals to be professional artists and designers, effective leaders and active citizens, thereby advancing the cultural life of its community.