Past
Grantees

Narrative filmmaker STEVEN FOLEY received funding to travel to Paris, Berlin, Lotz and Quebec City to improve his knowledge base and sphere of influences while developing his skills as a filmmaker, storyteller and individual. His trip of six weeks will begin in France, where he will study the history and new trends in French cinema. Foley will also study the work of filmmakers of African heritage, living in France. In Germany, he will attend the 19th Annual Black International Film Festival in Berlin. From there, Foley will travel to Lotz, Poland where he will study the work of Krzystof Kieslowski. He will then move on to Quebec City, Canada, where he will spend one-week at Theatre Ex Machina, a multidisciplinary performance art and filmmaking organization that fuses those art forms with emerging technologies.

STEVEN FOLEY, St. Paul, MN, received a grant for Strange as Angels, a feature-length narrative film that examines the loves, lives and relationships of six African Americans living in Chicago, Illinois. A work about timing and circumstance, two variables that govern all of our lives but over which we have no control. This film is about identity, perception, sex, longing and the way that in one instant, another person's skin and breath can make you feel still and eternal in a weighted world.

JEFF FORESTER, a writer and teacher, will spend three weeks in Cornwall, England, to conduct research and write a book of historical fiction, a novel titled North Country Digs. The book focuses on a Cornish woman, a Druid, who is a pioneer in the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Northern Minnesota. She filters her understanding of her environment, family, and friends through an animistic belief system. Forester will visit the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, the National Mining Museum in Turo, the Poldark Mine, the Cornish Earth Mysteries Group, the Tolven Stone, the Merry Maidens of Boleigh, and the Hurlers of St. Cleer, among other sites.

THE FOUNDRY THEATRE, New York City, received $23,000 in support of its developmental and production work with emerging creative artists in the 2003-04 season. The Foundry commissions, develops, premieres and tours theater pieces that provoke new questions for our times, and often challenge the definition of theater itself. The organization is a cross between a theater that produces new work and a think tank for the artists who make that work. The 2003-04 season encompasses the world premiere of The Roaring Girle by Alice Tuan, a workshop production of The Myopia by David Greenspan, continued development of Fifth Exotic by Ralph Pena, a workshop of W. David Hancock's play The Generation of Regret, commissions of new work by Steve Cosson and Juliana Francis, and the workshop development of a new piece by performance artist Ann Carlson. Jerome funding is restricted to emerging playwrights and theater creators working with the Foundry.

FRANCONIA SCULPTURE PARK, Shafer, Minnesota, received a grant of $32,500 in support of emerging artists residencies, a majority of which are filled by New York City and/or Minnesota artists. Franconia is a 16-acre site that supports the creation of new work by emerging and mature artists, conducts educational programs, and offers residency support. New works are sited within the Park each year, most built through artist residencies. An open call for applications, reviewed by an independent selection panel, results in residency opportunities for emerging artists each summer.

FRANKLIN ART WORKS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $19,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in its exhibition program. Franklin Art Works is a visual and performing arts enter devoted to presenting new work by local, national and international artists. Through a mix of one-person exhibitions, video screenings, performing arts productions, and film, Franklin Art Works celebrates the work of emerging and established artists, predominantly from Minnesota and New York City. Main Gallery exhibitions in the current season will feature artists Bruce Tapola, Ana Lois-Borzi, Stacey Davidson, Chris Larson and a New York City-based artist yet to be selected. A portion of Jerome dollars may support installations in the Video Gallery. Each exhibition is personally designed by the artist in conjunction with the Gallery Director, and is accompanied by an artist's talk and brochure.

BRIGITTE FRASE, a freelance book reviewer, editor and writer, will travel for six days to various cities in Texas to conduct research, which will inform a memoir that she is currently writing about her familys two immigrations to the United States. Frases maternal great-grandparents settled in what is known as German Texas in 1867, in the town of Clinton on the Guadalupe River. Deaths drove her great-grandmother, a widow, back to Germany in 1883. A great uncle settled in Texas in 1859, and represents a new area of investigation. Frase is working from her father's manuscript, which is nothing more than family oral history. This travel will allow her to investigate the facts about her familys past in order to produce her book.

COLLETTE GAITER, a new media artist, will travel to Cuba for 16 days to interview artists for a new media collaboration that she plans on creating for the 2004 International Symposium on Electronic Art. She will also spend time studying and observing the culture and history of Cuba, as well as collecting documentation (printed matter, images, video and sound recordings) of urban street life. These materials will be incorporated into a multimedia work-in-progress titled Unofficial Communication, which is a website that documents an experiment in visualizing virtual space using metaphoric and literal information.

LEAH GILLIAM received support for Agenda for a Landscape Vol. 6, an experimental video that investigates intersections of history, identify and technology in NASAs 1997 Pathfinder mission to Mars.

Writer and teacher DIANE GLANCY will spend 12 days in Hierapolis in Western Turkey and Caesarea on the Mediterranean, the places that constitute the setting for her novel in progress, The Parting. She writes from the land, traveling to the places the characters live to hear their voices in her imagination. She will find the ruins of old Caesarea and continue to Hierapolis, following the movements of her characters. Glancys novel is based, in part, on a minister (Philip) and his four daughters, taken from Acts 21:9.

SARAH GOODMAN was awarded a grant in support of Build Me Up, Break Me Down, a documentary that examines the daily reality of three diverse youth in the US Army. It will explore their motives for joining and the impact of training on their respective identities.

Funding was awarded to JACQUELINE GOSS for Kishlak Dwellers, an animated video illustration of Soviet scientist A.R. Lurias 1933 book Cognitive Development: Its Cultural and Social Foundation. This animated video will present data collected from three years of experiments with Uzbek farmers who lived in the outer regions of the Soviet Union in the early 1930s.

A grant of $10,000 was made to GRANTMAKERS IN THE ARTS, Seattle, Washington, in support of programs and services and Jerome Foundations 2002 and 2003 organizational membership. Grantmakers in the Arts was established in 1985 as the national affinity organization for private, corporate, community, and family foundations that make arts and culture grants. The organization provides publications, research, information services, and meetings to strengthen the field of private sector arts grantmaking with the aim of promoting more meaningful support of arts and culture.

GRAYWOLF PRESS, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $50,000 in support of the publication of emerging author titles. Graywolf is dedicated to the creation and promotion of thoughtful and imaginative contemporary literature essential to a vital and diverse culture. It publishes authors whose works convey distinct visions by way of unique voices and vigorous engagement with the possibilities of language. For over 25 years, it has been committed to supporting the work and careers of emerging literary authors whose work may be overlooked in other publishing environments and may not have received the critical audience attention it deserves. The editorial team at Graywolf reviews hundreds of manuscripts and publishes approximately 18 books of creative contemporary literature each year, of which at least a third are titles by emerging authors. Graywolfs lists contain a mixture of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, local as well as national and international writers, and established authors alongside new talent. In the two years covered by this grant, Graywolf will publish 12 books by emerging poets and prose writers.

JOHN GWINN, a media artist, media arts teacher, and administrator will attend the Interactive Screen Workshop at the Banff New Media Institute in Alberta, Canada. Titled Interactive Screen 0.3, this is an international project development laboratory and networking opportunity for new media creators, technologists and researchers. The Workshop is led by an international faculty with participation by leading creative artists. It will combine formal and informal exchanges, and skill development workshops to explore issues in the conceptualizing, writing, designing, developing, planning and financing of ideas and projects that explore the potential of interactive content and software.

AARON DAVIS HALL, New York City, received $20,000 in support of commissions of new work from emerging creative artists through the Fund for New Work. Aaron Davis Hall is a multidisciplinary arts presenter providing programming in dance, theater, music, art, and film. A critical part of the Hall's mission is fostering the creation, development, and presentation of new works by artists of color, especially African American and Latino artists. Through its performance series NewFacesNewVoiceNewVisions, the Hall presents talented artists who bring new energy to their fields. The Fund for New Work provides commissioning dollars, rehearsal space, and other services designed to help artists prepare their works for presentation. Jerome Foundation dollars are dedicated, each year, to six to ten emerging creative artists.

The Jerome Foundation Board authorized a grant of $17,000 to IN THE HEART OF THE BEAST PUPPET AND MASK THEATRE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of the creation and presentation of new works by emerging puppet artists. In the Heart of the Beast is a professional puppet and mask theater that explores and celebrates the human experience and the wonders of the worlds natural and cultural richness through performance, ceremony and teaching. The funding authorized will allow In the Heart of the Beast to award six commissions to emerging artists, selected through a competitive application process to create 20-30 minute productions, in any puppetry form. In the Heart of the Beast will present their works-in-progress in March of 2004 and then produce them during the 2004 May Day Parade and Festival.

HERE ARTS CENTER, New York City, received a two-year grant of $38,000 in support of the production of four new works by HERE resident artists in the 2003-04 season. HERE supports a wide variety of artistic projects in theater, dance, new media, music and visual arts. Readings, works-in-progress, full productions, and exhibitions are offered. Resident artists are selected through an application process open to individual artists and collaborative teams working in live performance. Artists must be emerging, and developing a distinctive hybrid form of work or interested in stretching the boundaries of form. They are expected to actively participate in the HERE community via a peer-based program of exchanging resources, ideas, critique and support. The artists receive a monthly stipend as well as access to free rehearsal space, performing opportunities, production equipment, office time and caf hospitality. The program aims to be a fertile art incubator, encouraging individual growth and collaboration.

Poet and teacher KATE LYNN HIBBARD will travel to Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she will spend one week studying with writer Catherine Bowman at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and one additional week writing and revising work produced during the workshop. Bowman teaches an intensive poetry writing workshop focusing on craft and process. Hibbard will also explore the intersection of creative writing and visual art.