This week, the Durham Arts Council released their 2009 list of Emerging Artist grant recipients. Seventeen artists from Chatham, Orange, Granville, Person and Durham counties will receive grants to help complete projects to jump start or enhance their professional careers.
DAC, who administers the Emerging Artists Grant Program, has set aside $23,900 for this year's winners. The grants are cited repeatedly as an important financial support and public recognition opportunity, according to the press release from the Council, and some major players have received the award in the past:
"Past recipients include six-time Granny-nominated, jazz vocalist, Nnenna Freelon; painter and Guggenheim Fellow, Beverly McIver; and violinist and Presidential Scholar in the Arts, Nicholas Kitchen. Sauda A. Zahra, an Emerging Artists Grant recipient in 2007, is a Master Quilter whose work has just been selected for Quilts for Obama: An Exhibit Celebrating the Inauguration of our 44th President, at the Historical Society of Washington, DC."
Even Obama approves.
Check after the jump for info about all the artists and what they are working on from the press release.
Beverly Botsford, Music, purchased multi-track recording equipment for composing and arranging, for creating current work samples and recording CDs.
Jessye McDowell, Film/Video, work with local performers to create five tableaux vivants based on the instructions of an 1860 text, record them on HD video, and create images for projection.
Gillian Parke, Craft, build a kiln shed for a gas kiln.
Gary Pohl, Sculpture, reinvent the "high striker" machine, more elegant and complex than any other. Rather than measuring strength, this sculpture will "Test Your Socio-Economic Worth."
Mikel Robinson, Photography, create a hand-bound limited edition book of his landscape photographs titled, "Under These Stones: Vanishing Reflections of Rural North Carolina."
Sydney Scherr, Craft, purchase computer software and hardware, and art books to use during a two year appointment at Raffles International College in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Carolyn Shull, Music, release a CD of a concert for which she received a grant from the Chicago Downtown Sound Gallery series.
Leah Sobsey, Mixed Media, work with Lynn Bregman Blass to create a public art installation and a series of community art workshops for the Chapel Hill/Carrboro Public Art Commission.
Lynn Bregman Blass, Mixed Media, to work with Leah Sobsey to create a public art installation and a series of community art workshops for the Chapel Hill/Carrboro Public Art Commission.
Grey Brown, Literature, work with a graphic artist to create a website to promote her forthcoming collections of poetry and to further her career as a poet.
Ellen Giamportone, Photography, produce a portfolio of limited edition large format photographs created at night, distingushed by enhanced lighting and ambiance.
Annemarie Gugelmann, Painting/Drawing, paint, in oil, five large-scale canvases (6 ft. x 6 ft) of cityscape works that reflect the life and development of downtown Durham.
Daniel Harris, Painting/Drawing, attend 2009 Penn Relays in Philadelphia to sell his work illustrating track and field events.
Victoria Ralston, Installation, create a theatre piece "Hungry Ghost" which is a shadow and marionette puppet performance, based on the Asian belief that haunting, unearthly beings roam among unwitting humans, both tricking and confusing.
Reuven Sadeh, Installation, create "Cycles of Life' - a functional innovative installation sculpture, which is a fully tunable, self-sustained musical instrument operated by the power of falling water.
Wendy Spitzer, Music, hire an audio engineer to record the last three songs of her album, and to have the entire album professionally mastered.
Arthur Knowles, Craft, create and market a new line of handcrafted wood items - furniture, jewelry, wall pieces, and cremation urns - using a state-of-the art bandsaw.
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