Past
Grantees

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 $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.

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.

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.

THE LOWER MANHATTAN CULTURAL COUNCIL, New York City, received $20,000 to support winter and spring 2001 residencies of World Views--a studio residency program. LMCC is a unique cultural organization serving individual artists, small arts organizations, and community-based arts groups of diverse disciplines and cultures. Its mission is to remove barriers to participation in the arts for artists and audiences. Operating both in its historic downtown area and throughout Manhattan, the Councils programs include free arts presentations and performances, grants and technical assistance in support of community-conscious artists and arts organizations, and arts information exchange, arts/business partnerships, and the exploration of art and technology. World Views is LMCC's experimental studio program housed in over 15,000 square feet of windowed space on the 91st floor of World Trade Tower One. Residents work in varied media including video, photography, paintings, new media, sculpture and installation, and have 24-hour, seven-day studio access for a five-month period. Following an open call for applications, residents are selected by a jury of critics, artists and curators based on artistic merit, project descriptions, and how an artist's career and body of work would progress from the residency opportunity. Jerome funding is designated for emerging artists, and in particular, artists' fees.

MAYA LPEZ-SANTAMARIA is the lead singer of the salsa band Orquestra Sabor Tropical, a 13 piece ensemble featuring music from Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. Lpez-Santamaria received funding to travel for six weeks in Mexico and Cuba studying salsa singing.

LYNN TJERNAN LUKKAS, a cinematographer and instructor of media arts, received funding to spend three weeks in Egypt to research an experimental film/video based on the stories of the Egyptian writer Alifa Rifaat whose work has been banned in Egypt. This travel plan connects with playwright Pamela Nice.

MABOU MINES, New York City, is a long-standing generator of experimental work of exceptional quality. The accumulated experience of company members informs Suite, a resident artist program, for which Jerome support has been awarded since 1993. Emerging artists interested in mentorship opportunities with Mabou Mines submit applications, which are competitively reviewed. Artists are selected for six-month residencies during which the artists are given studio hours, presenting opportunities and mentoring. This years grant of $25,000 supports a reduced programming level while Mabou Mines undertakes an extensive evaluation of the program designed to inform its future structure and purpose.

MAD ALEX ARTS FOUNDATION, New York City, presents the work of both emerging poets and fiction writers, and honors those who provide role models to a younger generation by virtue of sustained commitment to their craft. MAD ALEX Presents, the focus of the Jerome Foundation grant of $15,000, features poets, writers, performance artists and playwrights in a two-reader format. The series takes place one evening per week, September through May. The artist/reader has an opportunity to contextualize his or her work. A new series for the upcoming season features readings curated by MAD ALEX Arts Foundation, Asian American Writers' Workshop and the Bronx Writers' Center. Each organization will choose one of three writers for each of three readings. The main thrust is the introduction of each communitys writing to the others.

Sculptor and installation artist DUNG TRI MAI received funding to spend four weeks in Vietnam, where he was born and raised, until the age of ten. Mai will work in a community-based art project in Saigon.

J. MANDLE PERFORMANCE, Brooklyn, New York, was founded in 1996 by Julia Mandle. It creates site-specific performances in unexpected locations in order to heighten public perception of the everyday environment. Each production is realized through a concept Mandle calls costume-defined choreography--a process of character development and dance movement through the structure of clothing. Jerome funding of $12,500 was authorized for the development of two new works, the first titled Erika and inspired by the 1999 oil spill of the large tanker Erika 65 miles off the French coast. The second work, titled Day to Day, addresses the experience of living in the urban box and its impact on the human imagination, body and movement.