FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:           

Adam Short           

401-351-4320

ashort@artistcommunities.org                                                                       

Ruth Davis

401-497-6684

ruth1davis@gmail.com

 

NEA Awards $1.6 Million to Artist Residency Programs

Providence, RI (December 9, 2010) – The National Endowment for the Arts announced today its most recent round of grants, awarding $26.68 Million through 1,057 organizations and individual fellows nationwide. More than $1.6 Million will support artist communities, colonies and residency programs – places that provide artists of any discipline with dedicated time and space for the development of new work.

This marks only the second year for the NEA’s “Artist Communities” funding category, which was created in 2009 to specifically recognize those organizations whose primary function is to provide artist residencies. Fifty-one organizations were awarded grants for residencies: in the Artist Communities category, $636,000 in grants was awarded to 25 residency programs; in Dance, $285,000 to 6 residency programs; in Presenting, $110,000 to 2 residency programs; and in Visual Arts, $604,000 to 18 residency programs.

“I have always understood the critical role that Artist Communities play in American Culture,” wrote former NEA Chair Dana Gioia, upon the creation of the Artist Communities category. “You are a unique field whose main focus is on the individual artist. You play an irreplaceable role in this nation's artistic creativity and vision.”

“We are thrilled to celebrate the NEA’s support of the field, which will provide artists with necessary resources to develop new work,” says Caitlin Strokosch, Executive Director of the Alliance of Artists Communities, a national and international association of artists' communities, colonies, and residency programs. “The NEA’s recognition is a symbol of the relevance and immediacy of our field's work: to support living artists in the creation of new work and the exploration of new ideas. The Alliance of Artists Communities was founded on the belief that supporting today's artists in developing new work is essential to human progress – not as a luxury, not as a leisure activity, but as a vital and necessary force in society.”

There are an estimated 500 artist residency programs in the U.S. (and more than 1,000 worldwide), which in turn provide residencies to more than 12,000 artists each year – painters, poets, composers, choreographers, playwrights, filmmakers, novelists, scholars, and others. The field includes long-established artist colonies like The MacDowell Colony (Peterborough, NH), Skowhegan (Skowhegan, ME), and Yaddo (Saratoga Springs, NY), as well as small, lesser-known artist residency programs like A Studio in the Woods (New Orleans), Hermitage Artist Retreat (Englewood, FL), and PlatteForum (Denver).

Last year, $1.25 Million was awarded to 49 artist communities, colonies, and residency programs, of which $575,000 was awarded in the then-inaugural Artist Communities category.

While artist residency programs remain relatively unknown to the public, the artists they have served and some of the works created in-residence are immediately recognizable: Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Gregory MacGuire’s Wicked; Thornton Wilder’s Our Town; Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; as well as works by Allen Ginsberg, David Sedaris, Marcel Duchamp, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Robert Rauschenberg, James Baldwin, John Lennon, Truman Capote, Bill T. Jones, Spalding Gray, Leonard Bernstein, Edward Albee, Langston Hughes, Liz Lerman, Sylvia Plath, Gwendolyn Brooks, Bob Dylan, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and many, many more.

Grants awarded to artist residency programs in November 2010 (*indicates Alliance member organization):

*18th Street Arts Center	Santa Monica, CA	$30,000
Alliance of Artists Communities	Providence, RI	$50,000
Alliance of Artists Communities (Consortium)	Providence, RI	$30,000
American Academy in Rome	New York, NY	$75,000
*Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies	Red Wing, MN	$10,000
*Anderson Ranch Arts Center	Snowmass Village, CO	$15,000
Appalachian Artisan Center of Kentucky, Inc. (aka Artisan Center)	Hindman, KY	$25,000
*Archie Bray Foundation	Helena, MT	$23,000
*Art Students League of New York	New York, NY	$10,000
Artpace San Antonio	San Antonio, TX	$60,000
*Atlantic Center for the Arts	New Smyrna Beach, FL	$40,000
*Bates College	Lewiston, ME	$30,000
*Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts	Omaha, NE	$50,000
Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation	Brooklyn, NY	$20,000
Center for Photography at Woodstock	Woodstock, NY	$20,000
Clay Studio	Philadelphia, PA	$20,000
Creative Time	New York, NY	$25,000
Dance Theatre Workshop	New York, NY	$90,000
Dieu Donné Papermill	New York, NY	$90,000
*Djerassi Resident Artists Program	Woodside, CA	$20,000
*Fine Arts Work Center	Provincetown, MA	$25,000
*Florida State Univ/Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography	Tallahassee, FL	$15,000
*Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences	Rabun Gap, GA	$20,000
*Headlands Center for the Arts	Sausalito, CA	$10,000
*Hedgebrook Foundation	Langley, WA	$10,000
*Hermitage Artist Retreat	Englewood, FL	$45,000
*Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival	Becket, MA	$15,000
*Kala Art Institute	Berkeley, CA	$10,000
Kings Majestic Corporation (aka 651 ARTS)	Brooklyn, NY	$90,000
Light Work Visual Studies	Syracuse, NY	$40,000
Lower East Side Printshop	New York, NY	$45,000
*MacDowell Colony	Peterborough, NH	$25,000
*McColl Center for Visual Art	Charlotte, NC	$34,000
*Millay Colony for the Arts	Austerlitz, NY	$40,000
*Montalvo Arts Center	Saratoga, CA	$30,000
Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition (Consortium)	Oklahoma City, OK	$15,000
*Penland School of Crafts	Penland, NC	$30,000
Performance Zone, Inc. (aka The Field)	New York, NY	$15,000
*Pilchuck Glass School	Seattle, WA	$50,000
*PlatteForum (Consortium)	Denver, CO	$10,000
Project Row Houses	Houston, TX	$20,000
*Sheboygan Arts Foundation, Inc. (aka John Michael Kohler Arts Center)	Sheboygan, WI	$15,000
*Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture	Skowhegan, ME	$40,000
Smack Mellon Studios	Brooklyn, NY	$65,000
SPACES	Cleveland, OH	$20,000
*A Studio in the Woods	New Orleans, LA	$26,000
*Virginia Center for the Creative Arts	Amherst, VA	$15,000
Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center, Inc. (on behalf of Creative Glass Center of America)	Millville, NJ	$10,000
Women's Studio Workshop	Rosendale, NY	$26,000
*Yaddo	Saratoga Springs, NY	$20,000
The Yard	Chilmark, MA	$15,000

 

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The Alliance of Artists Communities is a national and international association of artists' communities, colonies, and residency programs — a diverse field of more than 1,000 organizations worldwide that support artists of any discipline in the development of new creative work. Believing that the cultivation of new art and ideas is essential to human progress, the Alliance's mission is to advocate for and support artists' communities, to advance the endeavors of artists.

 

For more information, visit: http://www.artistcommunities.org

For a complete list of grants awarded by the NEA, visit: http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/11grants/11AAE.php?CAT=Access&DIS=Artists Communities

 

 

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Jodi Melfi

Absolutearts.com

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