Past
Grantees

Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a grant of $15,000 to the JAMAICA CENTER FOR ARTS AND LEARNING, Jamaica, New York, in support of the participation of emerging artists in its Visual Arts Program. The Center makes the arts accessible to its community and supports the creation of new works by emerging and established artists, especially those who are working from cultural traditions and artistic disciplines under-represented in the larger artistic community. From a residency program for local artists, to workshops, funding seminars and teaching opportunities, the Center provides not only a venue for cutting-edge art but also the resources necessary to help artists nurture their talents and promote their work.

VOLCANO LOVE, New York City, was founded in 1994 by choreographer Sarah East Johnson to develop and perform artistic works that combine dance, theater and circus. The company is a troupe of strong women performing physical feats of power, strength, stamina and daring. The movement vocabulary encompasses dance, wrestling, circus acrobatics, aerials, contact improvisation and more. A two-year grant of $24,000 was approved in support of the development and production of new dance works. One of those is Timberline, choreographed for seven dancers, and inspired by the harsh conditions of high altitude terrain.

The JUNGLE THEATER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $50,000 in support of the development and production of new works by emerging playwrights. The Jungles mission is to maintain a high standard of artistic excellence, present works that preserve our theatrical heritage as well as contemporary works that build on that heritage, encourage and support established and emerging artists in all areas of theater production, broaden access to the theater through education and outreach activities and contribute to the vitality of its community. The Jungle supports the development of new works by emerging writers in ways particularly appropriate to those playwrights. These include readings, workshop productions, commissions and mentoring. Jerome subsidy was authorized for the development process and toward the production of new works by emerging writers on the mainstage.

JUXTAPOSITION ARTS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a $15,000 grant in support of a series of programs serving emerging Twin Cities and New York City aerosol artists. Juxtaposition Arts was created in 1995 as a visual arts organization offering fine arts programs to youth and public art events to community audiences. Founders Peyton and Roger Cummings brought their training and experience to the work of nurturing creativity and building self-confidence by providing hands-on opportunities for young artists to learn skills and grow as creative individuals. In late July, three New York City-based "writers", well known within the urban art genre, will participate in a Twin Cities live mural painting, an art exhibition with local emerging artists, a public slide show and a discussion of the art form.

A grant was awarded to writer ADITI KAPIL to travel for two months in India in the company of her father, Satie Kumar Kapil, an award-winning Punjabi poet. Kapil will spend a large amount of time tracing her family history in Punjab as well as an extensive number of novelists, poets, and other artists and cultural sociologists.

The NRITYA JYOTI DANCE THEATRE, Crystal, Minnesota, received a grant of $12,000 to support the creation of new works by choreographer and artistic director Rita Mustaphi. The mission of this dance organization is to present, promote and strengthen the understanding and advancement of the art of classical dance of India through creation, preservation and sponsorship of artistic and cultural endeavors. Jerome funding will be directed toward the creation of two works, the first a collaboration between Rita Mustaphi and Flamenco choreographer Susana di Palma. Later in the year, the company will produce an evening-length piece titled The Courtesans of Lucknow, exploring the cultural phenomenon and history of the courtesans and their role at the royal court of India. The production will make use of Indian poetic forms, each of which has a particular language with its own flavor and fragrance.

Fiction writer NANCY KELLY received a grant to travel to Grand Island, Nebraska, to view and document the seasonal migration of the Sand Hill Cranes on the Platte River. Kelly intends to gather information for a short story about a birdwatcher.

SHANNON KENNEDY, a multimedia artist, was awarded funding to spend three months in New York City. While there, she will shoot footage for a Franklin Artworks exhibition scheduled for Fall 2000; secure an exhibition site for a project underwritten by the Creative Capital Fund; and introduce and familiarize herself with the curatorial and critical community in New York City.

PATRICE KOELSCH will travel to Sarnath, India, for 35 days at the Universal Education School conducting research for a book on engaged compassion. Koelsch plans to write a book titled A Quivering of the Heart, an exploration of compassionate action in the grimacing, gaping face of competing demands on those caring for terminally ill people.

A grant was awarded to DEJAN KOVACEVIC, for The Secret Lives of Serbs, a documentary that will present a close-up examination of how the Serbian people are now interpreting the brutal atrocities committed recently for the sake of the nation in Kosovo and elsewhere

Choreographer JENNIFER MONSON, through the sponsorship of PERFORMANCE SPACE 122, New York City, received a two-year grant of $24,000 toward the creation and production of new work. Monson has been pursuing an original approach to experimental dance since 1983. Funding in the initial year will enable her to create a full-evening work titled The Hearts of Small Lives, which will investigate ideas of navigation and location through the natural and cultural history of pigeons. Funding will also be directed toward a touring project, Bird Brain, which will broaden the scope of the first dance work to include an investigation of the migratory patterns of birds and other animals, set to an original sound score by composer James Lo. Both dances will look at how the meaning of location becomes more fluid as communication technologies develop.

Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a two-year grant of $30,000 to THE CORNUCOPIA ART CENTER, Lanesboro, Minnesota, in support of an artist residency program. The Center serves as a catalyst for artistic development in Southeast Minnesota, nurturing new talent in its region and beyond. The Center proposed the creation of a new program designed to provide residency opportunities for emerging artists, while challenging and engaging the local community in an ongoing artistic dialogue. Funds will provide four to six residencies ranging from one week to one month in duration.

A grant was awarded to SARAH JANE LAPP, for The House of the Living, a thirty-minute experimental narrative that portrays the last day in the life of a professional eulogist. The film will explore the function of a memory industry and the place of individual humans in producing social nostalgia. It will also delve into the following questions: Why do we strive to create a verbal imprint of a dead soul? How does the individual figure in the collective spiritual mind? How does memory translate the faults of our loved ones? And, why and how does one learn to love a perfect stranger?

Photographer and computer artist JOHN LARGAESPADA received a grant to travel to and photograph the Black Hills and Badlands in order to create images that express his reactions to and feelings for a region steeped in history and sacred purpose. Largaespada will camp and shoot the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, the Cedarpass Badlands National Park, and the Deerfield Lake Black Hills National Forest.

STEVE LARSON, St. Paul, MN. Larson received support for Beyond Duluth, a digital narrative about a 17-year-old named Olivia O'Leary Miller, who leaves the home of her couples' therapists parents in order to ostensibly confront a boyfriend who dumped her. Along the way she meets Leon Benson, a man in his 40s who doesn't talk and carries about three to four thousand watts of light bulbs on his coat. As they drive northward, things change and start to get complicated. Light becomes dark, dark becomes light. The story culminates with Leon confronting his past, and Olivia her future through that past.

LAURA LITTLEFORD received funding to travel to London and cities and towns in Wales to conduct research for her book-in-progress, Winter Seed, a cross-genre collection of memoir, literary criticism, and poetry.

THE LOFT LITERARY CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $44,000 in support of the Creative Nonfiction Program. Established in 1974 as an organization for writers, The Loft has evolved into a nationally recognized, community-based literary center. Its mission is to foster a writing community, the artistic development of individual writers and an audience for literature. It seeks to be a crossroads, a place where writers meet and exchange work and ideas with others and with audiences. Since 1985, The Loft has annually brought a nationally acclaimed writer of creative nonfiction to the Twin Cities to work with six emerging writers in a month long mentoring experience. There is an open call for submissions and a competitive review that leads to the selection of six writers who show promise in their craft and would benefit from a mentorship program. The intensive month of discussions and critique includes eight evening workshops, individual manuscript critique and a public reading.

THE LOFT Literary Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $66,000 in support of the Mentor Series, an important initiative that the Foundation has been funding since 1979. The mission of The Loft is to foster a writing community, the artistic development of individual writers and an audience for literature. It seeks to be a crossroads where writers meet and exchange work and ideas with each other and with their audiences. The Mentor Series is a vehicle for emerging Minnesota writers to work in small group settings with nationally recognized writers, and to be mentored by them in ways ranging from review of their work to providing inspiration and example for the writing life. Both poets and fiction writers are eligible. An independent panel makes selections from a competitive field of applicants. A local mentor assists the participating local writers.

JULIA LOKTEV, was awarded a grant for the installation/movie, Said in Passing, that presents portraits of 20 women from different backgrounds as they ride the New York City subway. The film portion appears on five screens as it unfolds in space and time. The installation melds documentary and fiction, street photography and performance within the context of urban space. Loktev is a previous Jerome Foundation New York Media Arts grant recipient for Moment of Impact.

The Jerome Foundation awarded $30,000 to the LOWER EAST SIDE PRINTSHOP, New York City, in support of the multifaceted Artist Workspace Program, which serves a substantial number of emerging artists. The Printshops goal is to foster excellence in the medium of printmaking by encouraging experimentation, introducing and developing new materials and processes, and incorporating printmaking in interdisciplinary works. Artists may work in silk screen, intaglio, relief print making, photo processes and hand paper making. Within the Workspace Program, there is a Keyholder access program, a scholarship program for artists of color, a speakers series, open studios, classes, special editions fellowships, artist residencies and exhibitions. In the Keyholder program, for example, approximately 30 artists per year receive full access to the studio and a range of services for a subsidized monthly fee.