Black Rock Arts Foundation Newsletter – July 2012
In this issue:
– Event Calendar
– BRAF receives a second N.E.A. grant!
– BRAF’s new website!
– Grantee Updates
Event Calendar – Save the Date!
– BRAF at Burning Man – Monday, August 27, 2012
– Monday, September
3, 2012
– BRAF Playa Meet and Greet – Thursday, August 30,
2012, 4:00 PM –
6:00 PM, Black Rock City, NV
(blackrockarts.org/events/
– The Artumnal Gathering – Saturday, December 1, 2012,
The Bently
Reserve, San Francisco, CA
(blackrockarts.org/events/artumnal-gathering-2012)
– Check out our list of all BRAF projects currently on
display at
blackrockarts.org/current-
Announcing Big Art for Small Towns
Exciting news! BRAF proudly accepts our second grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), for the amount of $75,000.
As
an NEA Our Town grant recipient, BRAF will collaborate with the
Burning Man Project and the City of Fernley, Nevada, to develop
and
install big art in this small Nevada town to promote arts-led
economic and civic development.
The Our Town grant is a matching grant, and many of our devoted
supporters stepped up to match the NEA’s award of $75,000.
Many
thanks to The Burning Man Project, Amber Marie Bently, Crimson
Rose,
Nancy Fennell, KPS3 Marketing, and in-kind support from The City
of
Fernley and the Fernley Foundation.
This grant will kick start a pilot initiative we’re calling
Big Art
for Small Towns. Through this new initiative, over the next two
years, two pieces of large-scale sculpture will be installed in a
new
city-owned park in Fernley. One of the artworks will be an
existing
piece of sculpture, selected by the Fernley community for
temporary
display. The second artwork will be an original piece created
by
local residents working with a competitively selected lead artist
to
reflect Fernley’s character, heritage, and culture.
We’ll also host a
series of public lectures, workshops, and youth learning
opportunities focused on the community-building benefits of
public
art.
Big Art for Small Towns is the latest project produced through
our
Civic Arts Program. Our Civic Arts Program – the same program
that
brought Bliss Dance to Treasure Island, Homouroboros to San
Jose,
Spire of Fire to Reno, and so many more projects. This new
project
rigorously enacts BRAF’s vision of bringing
community-building,
extraordinary arts experiences to everyday lives.
We hope this is just the beginning for Big Arts for Small Towns.
If
this program is as successful as we anticipate, we’ll
replicate it in
other small towns in Nevada and across rural America.
Help manifest this dream and make a donation to our Civic Arts
Program today at blackrockarts.org!
New BRAF Website!
BlackRockArts.org has been completely redone! It’s more than
just a
facelift: check out the interactive map of all our projects,
new
blog, and new donation form, to name a few improvements.
We would like to thank everyone whose hard work and support made
the
new site possible:
– Michael Barbarino, Silvia Stephenson, and Heather
“CameraGirl”
Gallagher of the Burning Man Web Team.
– Christopher and Amber Marie Bently and the Bently Holdings
web
team.
– The entire BRAF board, especially Freddy Hahne and Drea
Lester for
their work on the site.
– Jared Gutekunst, Artist/Designer/BRAF Volunteer
Also, it’s time to update your blog subscription. The new
RSS feed is
feeds.feedburner.com/
Grantee Updates
2012 Grantee – PERSPECTIVES
On view now! If you’re in London, stop by the Southbank
Center and
see this playful installation in a bustling urban setting.
Perspectives, first shown at Burning Man, is a collection of
oversized children’s blocks, varying in size from 18 inches
to 10
feet tall. If viewed from the proper perspectives (i.e. two
specific
spots) the blocks align to appear to be the same size and to
reveal
hidden messages. These messages will change throughout the summer.
Perspectives at the Southbank Centre
June 1, 2012 – September 9, 2012
Belvedere Road
London
SE1 8XX
Visit www.onemandown.com/
www.southbankcentre.co.uk for more information and photos.
2012 Grantee – FLOAT BEIJING
FLOAT BEIJING is getting ready for its first set of workshops
in
Beijing, in the Dongcheng area. The project is also now the center
of
a documentary by Joshua Frank for the Asia Society/China Green,
which
is especially timely considering the recent media attention to
the
Chinese and U.S. feud over air quality readings. Recently,
Xiaowei
Wang helped out with an air quality-monitoring workshop at
Tongji
University, in conjunction with the Air Quality Egg folks and
Parsons.
For continued updates visit www.f-l-o-a-t.com
2012 Grantee – THE POOL
THE POOL by Jen Lewin is in production. Lewin and her team are
finishing up their rotational molds, and will start rewiring
and
rebuild the Pool internals this September. Lewin is working with
the
Colorado University Art Museum as wells as The Clews Center for
Arts
in France to show the final re-worked Pool in spring of 2013.
In July of this year, Lewin will also begin working with John
Taylor
at Techshop and his amazing team to build a new more dynamic
software
interface and gaming system for THE POOL. This will include an
iPpad
controller, where participants can not only interact with the pool
by
playing within it, but also by using a remote iPad app!
For more information visit www.jenlewinstudio.com.
2012 Grantee – OMEGA MART
“From the first thing you want, to the last thing you need.
Alpha
products, Omega savings-guaranteed!”
OmegaMart now in Santa Fe!
Grand Opening July 5th, 2012!
1605 St. Michaels Dr.
In the St. Michaels Village West Shopping Center
“Make a Brand New Start at OmegaMart!”
For more details visit www.omegamart.us
2009 Grantee – LIVE DEBRIS
Taylor Cass Stevenson is taking her project LIVE DEBRIS to
Bhutan
this summer, where she will spend three months teaching reuse
and
helping the Samdrup Jongkhar Initiative with their new zero
waste
initiative. Taylor’s work, which explores waste and social
rejection
through art, will investigate the impact of stigma on waste
systems
in an effort to promote social integration and waste reduction
through creative reuse. For more information, please visit
www.livedebris.org.
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Don’t forget, you can always show your love of art by making
a
donation to BRAF at blackrockarts.org. Thank you!