Past
Grantees

JAMES TANNER, a ceramic artist and professor from Janesville, was awarded a grant to travel to Rome and Greece. He will study various ceramic artifacts and architectural ruins, paying attention to the disintegration, age, natural finish and forms that the sites provide.

THE TEXTILE CENTER OF MINNESOTA, St. Paul, Minnesota, received a two-year commitment of $20,000 in support of programs and services for emerging textile artists. The Center was created through the work and vision of artists and patrons who wished to establish a place for shared information, education and economic opportunities for fiber artists in the Midwest. Founded in 1992, the Center provides a variety of educational and informational programs including lecture series, exhibitions, workshops, information services and distribution, fashion shows, fairs and benefits. The Center hopes to initiate a fellowship program during the period of the grant, through which five fellowships will be offered to qualified emerging artists.

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY, New York, received $10,000 to provide commissions to ten emerging playwrights in the current production season. Theater for the New City, founded in 1970, presents 30 to 40 new American plays each year. It is a center for new and innovative theater arts that is accessible to the community and its experimental artists. Theater for the New City creates spaces where new visions can breathe and be nourished by a working process. Jerome subsidy is directed toward the Emerging Playwrights Program which identifies emerging playwrights and provides subsidies of $1,000 each for the development and presentation of new work.

THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY, New York City, received a commitment of $13,000 which will support ten commissions to emerging playwrights and related production expenses. Founded in 1970, Theater for the New City is a center for new and innovative theater arts. It discovers new plays, nurtures and develops playwrights, and acts as a bridge between those playwrights and audiences. Artistic Director Crystal Fieldss approach is to produce new works and see what they teach the playwright, rather than investing in a more extended developmental process of readings and works-in-progress activities. This playwrights theater allows the writer to make his or her own decisions on casting, direction and design. The purpose is to nurture and realize a playwrights vision through the actual testing ground of production. Plays of any style, genre and political thrust are included. They are selected for their depth, vision and relevance to social and political life.

THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP, New York City, received a grant of $15,500 in support of the 1997 Affiliated Writers Program. TCG is the national service organization for the nonprofit professional theater. It has grown from a handful of resident theaters in 1961 to a nationwide network of 316 institutions and 17,000 individual members. Subsidy was awarded toward the publication of American Theatre magazine, a general circulation monthly magazine devoted to theater. The Affiliated Writers Program seeks to encourage and support a new, responsive generation of cultural reporters and critics by establishing ongoing relationships with regionally-based writers. Jerome Foundation funding supports writers in Minnesota and New York City. Since its launch in 1989, 25 writers participated in the program, contributing 76 articles ranging from book reviews and opinion essays to in-depth analyses of artistic and cultural issues, and interviews with important theatrical figures.

The MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal agent for choreographer MORGAN THORSON, received a grant of $7,000 in support of the development of three choreographic works. She begins with a period of individual research to develop ideas, then moves to rehearsals to make choreography from a group process and solo rehearsals to work on movement development. Bottom Heavy, commissioned by the Walker Art Center, will be presented in mid-1997. A duet titled Counter Hold, based on wrestling techniques and contact improvisation, will be featured in an upcoming New York concert of works by choreographer Sarah Johnson. The third dance, Operation Wet, is a site-specific movement/swimming piece in which Thorson explores movement in water as a metaphor for transformation.

Artist ROGER THUNDERSHIELD, of Watkins, will travel throughout Wyoming, Colorado and Montana studying museum collections and photographic archives of Plains Indian art of the 19th Century. The investigation will contribute to his own artwork, which is informed by the traditional to the Lakota Nation of American Indians.

ERIC TRETBAR, Minneapolis, MN, $15,000. Tretbar will produce Snow, a feature film about a failed guitarist who spends a romantic 24 hours with an ex-punk rock girl around wintry Minneapolis. They briefly relive their carefree earlier days but the journey only reminds them of the present, forcing the guitarist to confront his failure as a musician.

HEDWIDGE TRIPP, Artistic Director of Full House Dance Company in St. Cloud, received funding to travel to Huta Ginjang, North Sumatra, Indonesia. She will experience and study the traditional dances of the Toba Batak in the village of Huta Ginjang

The MINNEAPOLIS AMERICAN INDIAN CENTER received $15,000 in support of the participation of emerging artists in the 1997-98 exhibition program. The Two Rivers Gallery and Cultural Arts Program is an operating arm of the Center, one of the oldest urban Indian community centers in the country. The Gallery presents approximately eight exhibitions per year, featuring traditional and avant garde works by Native artists. Funding will allow the Gallery to mount more thematic group exhibitions, accompanied by collaborative programming, and featuring works which show Native Americans as living people, maintaining and strengthening cultural identity as they meet the challenges of todays world.

Artist JOANN VERBURG was awarded a grant to travel to Italy to collaborate with New York City-based performance artist Ping Chong. The two first collaborated more than ten years ago when Chong invited Verburg to photograph his dancers and actors. At the Bellagio Center in Italy, Verburg will be able to spend a sustained period of time with Chong in order to develop ideas that they have discussed for many years.

RAFAEL VIERA, Minnetonka, MN, $15,000. Viera will produce a 30-minute drama titled Leaving With Love. This film is the story of a father telling his wife he has AIDS, their initial despair and then re-commitment to their marriage and family. The story ends at Christmas, as the father makes his farewell and his spirit begins to vanish.

THE PLYMOUTH MUSIC SERIES, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a two-year grant of $44,000 to subsidize four orchestral readings of works by emerging composers over the 1997-98 and the 1998-99 seasons. The mission of The Plymouth Music Series is to explore the interaction of voices and instruments through innovative programming of music, past and present. As part of a broader commitment to the commissioning and performance of contemporary music, the Series created the Orchestra Reading Project. An open application process draws proposals from emerging composers who wish to hear their symphonic work read/rehearsed under the direction of conductor Philip Brunelle and using the services of The Plymouth Music Series orchestra. The reading of an orchestra score is of substantial value to the composer, who learns practical lessons such as the importance of conductors scores and orchestra parts which precisely convey the composers wishes. Each composer receives a recording of the reading given their work, plus immediate personal feedback and evaluation in sessions with the conductor and a mentor composer. Often, this is the first opportunity emerging composers have to hear their works read by a professional orchestra.

The sum of $10,000 was awarded to VOICE & VISION, New York City, in support of the development and production of new works within the 1997-98 season. This organization was founded by Marya Mazor and Jean Wagner with the mission of building an artistic home for women artists. Unheard Voices is the play development program, which includes workshops, readings and full productions of new plays. Jerome Foundation support was allocated for the 1997-98 Unheard Voices season, with particular emphasis on Corn, Beans and Squash, a reading and workshop series featuring new works by Native American women writers, curated by Elizabeth Theobold.

A commitment of $12,000 was made to VERY SPECIAL ARTS MINNESOTA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in support of an artist recognition program and services to artists. Very Special Arts Minnesotas mission is to make the arts accessible to people with all types of disabilities throughout the state. In conjunction with Resources and Counseling for the Arts, the organization has worked to determine whether members of the disability community have the same opportunities as producers in the arts as do people without disabilities. An active support network and the allocation of financial resources were identified as needs. In 1996, the Jerome Foundation provided funding to conduct a competitive program which awarded grants to two visual artists, two literary artists and one performance artist. A second year of subsidy was awarded to continue this program of direct support and services to artists.

In a departure from program focus and policy, the Jerome Foundation made a three-year grant of $22,500 to the WALKER ART CENTER, Minneapolis, Minnesota, to support the Irving Clark Memorial InfoGuides Program. Irving Clark was the attorney who drew the Trust instrument which created the Foundation, and was a founding Member and Director of the Foundation. His death, in early 1997, was a substantial loss to the Jerome Foundation. After discussion with his family and the Members of the Foundation, the Directors decided to make a memorial gift to the Walker Art Centers Education Department to underwrite the employment of InfoGuides who will encourage Walker Art Center visitors to engage in casual and accessible conversations about the art in exhibitions. InfoGuides will be stationed in the galleries on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, easily identified, and available to answer questions, discuss current exhibitions and provide a helpful and welcoming presence.

Directors authorized a two-year grant of $58,000 to THE DALE WARLAND SINGERS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in continued support of the New Choral Music Program, a program initiated in 1987. Dale Warland leads an exemplary professional choral ensemble which performs music from a wide repertoire, and which is known for its support of new music. The New Choral Music Program draws manuscript submissions from emerging composers throughout the country. Individuals compete for the opportunity to create works for a new choral music reading session, for which four finalists receive a $1,000 stipend to compose a five to seven-minute work. The composers who participate in the reading session are given the opportunity to compete for one commission, and they are involved in a variety of activities designed to strengthen their work and professional development as composers. The commission offered allows one composer the opportunity to create a 12 to 20-minute composition which is premiered as part of the Warland Singers annual season.

Writer MARYANN WEIDT, from Duluth, will spend a week in Taos, New Mexico, participating in a writing workshop titled "Walking and Memory" with Natalie Goldberg. Weidt creates picture book stories for young children.

A two-year grant of $20,000 was awarded to WHITE COLUMNS, New York City, in support of the participation of emerging artists in two exhibition seasons. One of New Yorks oldest alternative spaces, White Columns offers culturally diverse exhibitions and services for visual artists. It presents new exhibitions on a monthly basis, and commissions large-scale installations by emerging artists. White Columns also mounts a series of exhibitions in the White Rooms, spaces dedicated to solo shows for 18 emerging artists each year. White Columns is especially noted for bringing to public attention the work of emerging artists. A highly interactive viewing program enables staff members to see artists works and visit studios.

A grant of $7,500 was made to the MINNESOTA DANCE ALLIANCE, Minneapolis, Minnesota, as fiscal agent for choreographer CATHY YOUNG to support the creation and presentation of new work in 1997. The proposed concert, One-on-One, is an exploration of the dynamics existing within relationships. The choreography will make physical an emotional landscape. Most of the works will be duets, newly created.