26 Oregon artists receive Career Opportunity Grants

In the second of three competitive rounds of FY2018 Career Opportunity Grants, the Oregon Arts Commission, The Ford Family Foundation and The Oregon Community Foundation have collectively awarded $71,676 to 26 artists for career development projects. The awards include $23,676 from the Oregon Arts Commission; $20,000 in supplemental funding for 12 artists through a partnership with The Ford Family Foundation; and $28,000 for nine artists from The Oregon Community Foundation. Individual grants range from $673 to $6,500.

Career Opportunity Grants support individual Oregon artists by enabling them to take advantage of timely opportunities to enhance their artistic careers. The Ford Family Foundation and The Oregon Community Foundation funds are available only to established Oregon artists who are over 30 years of age and actively producing new work. The Ford Family Foundation grants are awarded to artists in the fields of contemporary fine art and craft; The Oregon Community Foundation grants are awarded only to established Oregon artists in the literary and performing arts fields. Most of the grants from both foundations support the artists’ participation in residencies, exhibitions or performance opportunities.

“This grant program invests in the career growth of talented Oregon artists,” said Michael Dalton, the arts commissioner who chaired the review panel. “We also are so proud to support artists in representing Oregon, both here and across the entire nation and world.”

“We are pleased to be able to invest in these artists at such pivotal moments in their careers,” said Anne C. Kubisch, president of The Ford Family Foundation. “We expect these artists to make significant progress on regional, national and international stages.”

“These artists make our communities so much richer. It’s an honor to be able to support them in their work as they continue their creative journeys,” said Max Williams, president and CEO of The Oregon Community Foundation.
This fiscal year a total of $190,000 is available for three rounds of funding.

Career Opportunity Grants were awarded to:
Sofia Acosta, Portland: Arts Commission $1,145
To support Acosta’s trip to Prague, Stockholm and Berlin to perform and teach at the Music Ports conference and Berlin Community Radio, presenting her music to new audiences. She also will collaborate on and record music projects with different artists and instruments.

Alito Alessi, Eugene: Arts Commission $1,500; Oregon Community Foundation $1,850
To support Alessi’s collaboration as a choreographer for three of the Eugene Symphony’s live community outreach performances in April 2018.

MaryJo Anderson, Nehalem: Ford Family Foundation $2,500
To support the transport of Anderson’s marble sculpture from her studio in Carrara, Italy, to her Nehalem, Oregon, studio for gallery display and sale in the spring of 2018.

Robert Arellano, Talent: Arts Commission $1,500; Oregon Community Foundation $2,600
To support Arellano’s participation in a two-month writing residency at the Asociación Hermanos Saiz in Santa Clara, Cuba.

Linda Austin, Portland: Arts Commission $673
To support Austin’s participation in a one-month choreographic residency at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming in April 2018.

Anne Baxter, Ashland: Ford Family Foundation $1,500
To support Baxter’s participation in a six-month exhibition in Venice, “Time-Space-Existence,” in May 2018, organized by the Global Art Affairs Foundation and hosted by the European Cultural Center as a part of the Venice Architecture Biennale.

David Bithell, Ashland: Oregon Community Foundation $4,500
To support the premiere of Bithell’s new large scale work at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (Canada) in June/July 2018.

Maura Campbell-Balkits, Portland: Arts Commission $1,500
To support Campbell-Balkits’ participation in a two-month artist residency at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland, from July 30 to Sept. 21, 2018.

Christopher Corbell, Portland: Oregon Community Foundation $2,800
To support the presentation and sharing of high-quality recordings of Corbell’s original vocal music during a workshop on vocal music composition she will lead at the UUMN annual conference in Portland, Oregon, in August 2018.

Fernanda D’Agostino, Portland: Arts Commission $1,500; Oregon Community Foundation $4,750
To support a national tour of D’Agostino’s interactive video installation “Borderline,” both as a full installation and as individual projections.

Jeff Geiger, Eugene: Oregon Community Foundation $2,350
To support Geiger’s 10-day writing workshop and salon with George Saunders (Man Booker Prize Winner and #1 NYT Bestseller) and Mary Karr (PEN/Faulkner Winner, #1 NYT Bestseller) in July 2018.

Heidi Grew, Salem: Arts Commission $1,500
To support Grew’s participation in the 13th International Symposium of Ceramic Art VOglje in Slovenia from July 1 to 14, 2018.

Rainen Knecht, Portland: Arts Commission $1,500
To support the production of Knecht’s new paintings and her travel to participate in a two-person exhibition with Nicola L at Situations in Manhattan, New York, in March 2018, as well as the release of an accompanying exhibition catalogue with writing by poet Cedar Sigo.

Evan La Londe, Portland: Arts Commission $1,500
To support La Londe’s exhibition and documentation of a new series of four large silver gelatin prints for a two-person exhibition at Ditch Projects (Springfield, Oregon) in April and May 2018.

Sandee McGee, Roseburg: Arts Commission $1,200; Ford Family Foundation $1,000
To support McGee’s participation in a solo exhibition and artist talk in a rural storefront in Roseburg, Oregon, in April 2018.

Jessica Mehta, Hillsboro: Arts Commission $1,500
To support Mehta’s residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in Nebraska City, Nebraska, as writer-in-residence in March/April 2018, where she completed her eighth book (and sixth collection of poetry). The project, “Savagery,” will be published by Airlie Press in 2019.

Patrick Moran, Portland: Oregon Community Foundation $2,250
To support the development of Moran’s new play in collaboration with Australian playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer.

Donald Morgan, Eugene: Arts Commission $1,500; Ford Family Foundation $3,500
To support Morgan’s solo exhibition at The Green Gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in May 2018.

Eric Nordstrom, Portland: Arts Commission $1,500
To support Nordstrom’s participation in an international dance conference, Dance Studies Association, in Valletta, Malta, in July 2018.

Kelly Pratt, Portland: Oregon Community Foundation $4,500
To support Pratt’s commission for (and collaboration with) the Camas High School Choir beginning February 2018.

Christopher Rose, Hillsboro: Arts Commission $1,258
To support Rose’s participation in a one-week writing residency for African American poets at the Cave Canem Retreat in Pennsylvania in June 2018.

Tracy Schlapp, Portland: Oregon Community Foundation $2,400
To support publication of Schlapp’s “Searching for Johnny Cash,” a catalog of essays and broadsides that expand on her writing with the Folsom50 performances in Oregon prisons from April through the fall of 2018 to commemorate Johnny Cash’s “At Folsom Prison” album.

Heidi Schwegler, Portland: Arts Commission $1,500; Ford Family Foundation $5,000
To support Schwegler’s month-long residency and solo exhibition in London in August 2018, followed by a month-long artist residency (Sept.) in Beijing, China.

PM Shore, Portland: Ford Family Foundation $1,500
To support Shore’s creation of and participation in a solo exhibition at Portland’s 5 Centers for the Performing Arts’ Antoinette Hatfield Hall in October 2018, introducing a new body of work in abstract acrylic and mixed media painting.

Stephanie Simek, Portland: Arts Commission $1,400
To support Simek’s production of a computational logic installation titled XOR, AND, NOR (or how to process all possible outcomes for a+b=c when a and b equals zero or one) for a three-person exhibition, “Mapping Invisible Systems,” at Oregon State University’s Fairbanks Gallery in April 2018.

Peter Simensky, Portland: Arts Commission $1,500; Ford Family Foundation $5,000
To support the exhibition of Simensky’s new work as part of a solo project at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 2018.
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The Oregon Arts Commission provides leadership, funding and arts programs through its grants, special initiatives and services. Nine commissioners, appointed by the Governor, determine arts needs and establish policies for public support of the arts. The Arts Commission became part of Business Oregon (formerly Oregon Economic and Community Development Department) in 1993, in recognition of the expanding role the arts play in the broader social, economic and educational arenas of Oregon communities. In 2003, the Oregon legislature moved the operations of the Oregon Cultural Trust to the Arts Commission, streamlining operations and making use of the Commission’s expertise in grantmaking, arts and cultural information and community cultural development.

The Arts Commission is supported with general funds appropriated by the Oregon legislature and with federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as funds from the Oregon Cultural Trust. More information about the Oregon Arts Commission is available online at: www.oregonartscommission.org.

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