Primal Source
2008 Grant Recipients

Language of the Birds
2007 Grant Recipients

Emergence

2008 Grant Recipients

The Black Rock Arts Foundation is kicking off their grant cycle to fund interactive, community-based artwork OFF playa (i.e. out there in the real world).

Create interactive artwork in your hometown. Apply for a BRAF grant!

Grant giving is at the core of our mission, and at the heart of who
BRAF is. It’s always with great excitement and anticipation that we
announce the opening of our grant cycle. Our applications for 2009
grants are now available on our website.

Read more about our grant criteria and on how to apply here:

2009 BRAF Grants

Please note that we do not begin to accept applications until February
13, 2009, 9:00am, and that the deadline for submitting a proposal is
March 13, 2009, 5:00pm.

We look forward to reading about your project!

To check out prior Grantees and both their grant project and other works, please see:

http://blackrockarts.blogspot.com/search/label/Grants-to-Artists

In appreciation of our Members and Donors, and of the support of our community, we’re pleased to bring you yet another fascinating and engaging evening of demonstrations and lectures.

This promises to be a good one! The last in our Elemental Interactions series, this evening’s guests will speak on the topic of ‘Water.’ We’ve brought together artists who draw inspiration from water in its many forms.

Our previous events, EARTH!, FIRE! and AIR!, were incredibly enjoyable evenings for all, full of captivating speakers and entertaining demonstrations, as well as opportunities to meet and connect with our members and donors. Join us for:

WATER!
February 5, 2009,
6:30 pm
BRAF/Burning Man offices
1900 Third Street, San Francisco, CA, 94158

Admission is free to Members, with a suggested donation of $10.00 from non-members.

Read more on our exciting guests, and see who’ve we’ve added to the bill at WATER!

Our woman in the street in Detroit, Doxie, tells me that before Christmas some volunteers got together at the Detroit Temple aka Detroit Dream Project, which is part of our Civic Arts Program, and was designed by BRAF board member, David Best.

Sailor and Doxie organized a clothing drive; some of the local Burning Man community met at the Temple and there was a bonfire and cider and fire spinning and ….donations of clothes, blankets, and foods. Then they delivered that warmth directly to the cold streets of Detroit.

For more information about the dedication, wedding, World Hoop Day, Detroit Neighborhood Day and other community events at the Detroit Temple please see our prior posts:

http://blackrockarts.blogspot.com/search/label/Detroit%20Dream%20Project

photos: Dirtball

The Language of Birds, originally uploaded by bothboths.
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2658442&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
Language of the Birds from Thomas Both on Vimeo.

Language of the Birds by Brian Goggin & Dorka Keehn was part of our Grants-to-Artists Program and is being a big sucess at the corner of Broadway and Grant in San Francisco.

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/11/21/language-of-the-birds-by-brian-goggin-and-dorka-keehn/

http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/eco-arts-brain-goggin-s-solar-powered-language-of-the-birds/

Prior posts:

http://blackrockarts.blogspot.com/search/label/Language%20of%20the%20Birds

December 18, 2008
Hi There:

2008 was a highly successful year for the Black Rock Arts Foundation, as we continued to work diligently to ensure that art and community building remained on the public agenda and served as a tool for civic engagement. We awarded grants to 7 artists in 7 cities around the globe; we helped to create the Temple of the American Dream in a disadvantaged community in Detroit, which became a rallying point of pride for its residents; we transformed a vacant lot in downtown Reno into The Mangrove, a glorious sculpture garden and community gathering spot; and we brought the popular “Monkeys” zoetrope, Homouroboros, right into ethnically diverse downtown San Jose, where office workers and neighborhood families joined together to make it spin. (More details on all of these projects can be found on Black Rock Arts Foundation and right here on our blog.)

Recently I had the pleasure to address a group of some key supporters at the ARTumnal Gathering, our annual fundraising and community-building event. I talked about how inspired I am by Larry Harvey’s description of Burning Man’s 2009 theme, “Evolution.” In it, he states that Black Rock City is a kind of Petri Dish, that Burning Man is an experiment in generating culture and all that is needed is a fitting social vessel to sustain it. We see BRAF as a kind of genome tugboat – guiding that vessel of social culture, through dangerous waters, rivers, and uncharted tributaries – far from the Petri dish of the playa. For those of you who were able to attend the ARTumnal Gathering or have been engaged in other BRAF activities throughout the year, I think you’ll agree that BRAF has made great progress in bringing the ethos of art, interaction, and community “to the rest of the world the other 51 weeks of the year.” But we need your help to continue to fund, support and enable community-building, civic-minded, interactive arts projects and expand our reach to new regions.2009 brings with it the potential for many new and exciting projects in our three key program areas: Grants to Artists, Civic Arts, and ScrapEden, as well as the completion of our Civic Arts Toolkit to assist others with instigating art in their communities. Finally, as you might have noticed, BRAF itself continues to evolve and I have joined the organization as Executive Director. I look forward to this tremendous opportunity to inoculate communities worldwide with the Burning Man ethos and encourage you to be in touch with ideas about how to engage you, our community, in our mission. We are continually grateful for the extraordinary support and investment of our community. It is your donations that sustain us. Please consider showing your support once again by making an end-of-year contribution, so that we may bring even more innovative, interactive and community-building projects to cities worldwide in 2009.

Sincerely,
Tomas McCabe
Executive Director
DONATE

A portion of the grant was in addition to her requested amount, in appreciation of her work and to facilitate exhibition of the “White Noise Shower” in other San Francisco venues.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5347905

In the years since BRAF was one of the donors for her performance art she has become an amazing felt maker and continues to have sculpture, performance art, metal work and painting in her life. If you are interested in learning more about felting follow her Jenne’s blog.

Last chance to see The Reno Mangrove! For the last three months, a once unused and uninteresting vacant lot in downtown Reno, NV, has been transformed into a grove of trees, all by different artists. The Reno community has embraced the space created by this ‘Mangrove’ and quickly adopted the location as a favored meeting spot for social events, music performances and family outings. We’re sad to announce the project’s deinstallion on December 13, 2008, but very proud of the community involvement and civic action it has inspired! Thanks to all who contributed and supported this project. BRAF extends our sincerest thanks to the The Freight House District, LLC, the City of Reno, United Rentals, Fernley Electric and Peppermill Hotel Casino Reno and the Sierra Arts Foundation for their support of this project. Special thanks to Crimson Rose, of the BRAF Board of Directors, and volunteers Maria Partridge, Linda Shields, and the amazing Reno Burner community!

The Language of the Birds dedication, a site specific sculpture by Brian Goggin and Dorka Keehn was an art unveiling worth remembering. Local luminaries spoke and the artists spoke and then the Extra Action Marching Band showed up to accompany the actual defrocking of each book in the sky, and that is when it got exciting. We had skimpily clad women and heroic artist scaling the heights to remove the covers, at times to our collective breathes held to the beat of the drum, and then the Language of the Birds lit up and brightened the sky.

To see more photos by Steve Rhodes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/sets/72157610035643833/ [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0oBFa6SnmQ]
video: http://www.youtube.com/user/Monatov

Previous posts:
http://blackrockarts.blogspot.com/2008/11/meet-our-grantees-language-of-birds_14.html

http://blackrockarts.blogspot.com/2008/11/meet-our-grantees-language-of-birds.html

So recently I have been introducing you to our current recipients from our Grants-to-Artists Program, so we all know about the art that the Black Rock Arts Foundation is supporting. But now we are going to go enter The Wayback Machine and meet some of our first grant recipients and what they are doing now.

So let’s celebrate BRAF’s support of interactive installations and performances from our early years.

photo: Sherman and Mr. Peabody, from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, entering the WABAC Machine, to check out a moment in history. The WABAC Machine was the inspiration for The Wayback Machine or Internet Archive.