ArtSake

Through a combination of need and resourcefulness, writer/artist Mira Bartok has learned the ins and outs of grants, awards, and residencies. Add to that a spirit of goodwill, and the result is Mira’s List, her thorough and useful website on opportunities for individual artists. We invited her to share her background in applying for funding as well as her pragmatic insights on finding “money, time, and a place to create.”

Ten years ago, a truck hit my car on the New York Thruway. Because of a subsequent brain injury, I lost all my freelance work. After maxing out my credit cards, I knew I had to do something soon or I would be out on the street. I had been applying for grants for years as both an artist and a writer, so it was only natural for me to turn to arts foundations for help. It took me over three hours to write each cover letter because of my cognitive deficits, but I was determined to apply for every grant I found. Fortunately, I received enough funding to sustain me until I slowly began to recover. This past winter, I began my blog, Mira’s List, so I could share my experience and knowledge with other artists seeking money, time and a place to create. The info below is from a longer blog article I wrote called, Finding Money for Your Dreams. I hope you find it useful!

THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF GRANT WRITING
What is the secret formula to getting a grant? Here is what you need to do:
1. Work really hard at what you do. You can’t get a grant if you have nothing to show.

2. Get your work out there. Except for rare situations, you won’t get funding if you don’t have a track record. Grant givers want to know that art is your passion, not your hobby.

3. Do your homework. First, figure out what kind of grant you need. Here are just a few kinds available to you: emergency grants, travel and research grants, residency fellowships, emerging artist grants, collaborative grants, production grants and more. Next, learn how to search for grants and discern which ones are right for you. If you’ve never published a story before you are not going to apply for a Guggenheim. Read the eligibility requirements. Are you emerging or mid-career? You can be an artist in your fifties, but still be considered emerging if you haven’t had many shows.

4. Know where to look. The Internet is now the best source for your grant search so make friends with technology. There are dozens of websites that post grants and other opportunities. If you are a visual artist, visit the College Art Association and the New York Foundation for the Arts, if you are a writer, check out the listings on PEN American and Poets & Writers. There are hundreds more so please check my blog for more links.

5. Put yourself out there. Cultivate professional relationships by attending conferences, residencies, workshops, retreats, etc. Check out blogs, list-serves and forums and connect with other artists on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites.

6. Have your ammunition ready. Before applying for a grant, you should have these things at your fingertips: if you are an artist, have a great artist statement. Keep it to around 250 words. Talk about your artistic approach and who your influences were, what your accomplishments have been, what your personal vision is. You also need a good paragraph-long bio. The same goes for writers. Have a professional looking CV and published reviews about your work if you have them. You will need recommendation letters from professionals in your field, so ask for these weeks in advance. Last but not least, you need a good solid work sample for each application. Have you revised that story so it is absolutely polished? Have you double-checked to see if your jpegs are overexposed? Strive for perfection. Your work sample should be the best example of what you do.

7. Start local but dream global. If you’ve never applied for a grant before try your hand at a local arts council grant first. Ask for enough money to attend a writing conference or an artist residency in another state. Most local grants are between $500-1000. That will buy you a plane ticket and more.

8. Ask only for what you need and show that you are resourceful. You have a better chance of getting a grant if you ask for less than what is offered. Also, let the foundation know that you are trying to find funding from other sources, but not for the exact same thing. You can apply to the first organization for travel expenses and another for art supplies or something else.

9. Be clear about what you want. The same rules apply for grants as they do for good writing. Your application should be focused and concise. Use direct verbs and don’t be redundant or vague. Let them know why your work stands out from the others. What you specifically will do with the money. Where else you are looking for funding. Why this opportunity is important at this time in your career. How it will impact your community and the art world at large. Serve the project, not yourself.

10. Pay attention to what the foundation asks for. If you have to write a proposal, note the order of things you are asked to discuss and follow that order. As for page length, if they ask for up to five-pages, dont submit ten. But by all means, use all five pages if you need them. After you have filled everything out check for mistakes and make sure you send the application on time.

THE RIPPLE EFFECT
Grants beget grants, so do residencies, fellowships and any kind of award. When foundations see them listed on your resume, they’ll assume you have resourcefulness and drive. This ripple effect also affects others. Honor those who have helped you, send thank you cards, encourage others to apply for things. And never ever throw in the towel, even if you have a year of rejections. Don’t put stones in your pockets and walk into the river if you don’t get an NEA. Go to the river and toss a stone in instead. See the ripple effect of your own making. Grants beget grants beget grants, which inspires others to apply, which in turn begets change and courage and brings forth art and stories that do not destroy but heal. We need your poems and paintings, your songs and films to keep us going. You need money, time and a place to create. So toss a pebble in the stream, open your journal, your studio door or violin case and begin.

Copyright 2009 Mira Bartok

Author/artist Mira Bartok’s writing has appeared in several anthologies and literary journals, including the Bellingham Review, Kenyon Review, Tikkun, Another Chicago Magazine, among others. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been sited in The Best American Essay series. Her illustrated memoir, The Memory Palace, forthcoming by Free Press (Simon & Schuster), is due to come out late 2010. She has also published over twenty-five children’s books on the art of world cultures.

Mira is a spokesperson for A Room of Her Own Foundation, a foundation for women writers, and for Transcultural Exchange, an international organization that promotes peace and understanding through artistic collaborations across the globe. Visit Mira at http://www.miraslist.blogspot.com.

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The Way We Get By, a documentary film about a group of seniors who gather at a Bangor, Maine airport to thank American soldiers departing and returning from Iraq, has its Boston premiere TONIGHT at the MFA Boston (Thursday, August 27, 8 PM). The film, by Massachusetts filmmakers Aron Gaudet (director) and Gita Pullapilly (producer), has received attention in national news outlets like The New York Times and The Boston Globe, has built audiences through grassroots marketing (including a partnership with the volunteer networking organization the HandOn Network), and won the Special Jury Award at the South By Southwest Festival ’09 Festival.

We spoke to the film’s producer, Gita Pullapilly, about the ways a scrappy and big-hearted independent documentary gets by.

ArtSake: It’s easy to see the appeal of The Way We Get By, a moving and timeless story, but it seems to me the film has also greatly benefited from creative marketing. You’ve received national media attention, do extensive grassroots campaigns in screening cities (contacting military family support organizations, for example), and have a presence in almost every conceivable online community. Apart from energy which you clearly have lots of what has been the driving principal to your marketing of this movie?

Gita: Well, first of all, thanks for reaching out. I am always excited to talk to fellow artists about this because undoubtedly everyone will tell you what is not possible and if we listened to all of them, we would have never released the film. Our driving principal is we don’t quit. If we find an opportunity to showcase THE WAY WE GET BY in some way little or big we take it. You just never know who is reading or watching something. We work every single day trying to find avenues to promote the film – from pitching to the general media or through our social networking sites to reaching out to grassroots groups. We are a two-person team for the most part so that means we have to update all of the sites and do the newsletter and make the calls and send the e-mails. It is unbelievably taxing but it works. People do come out to see the film and talk with us. It’s a great feeling when someone comes out and says they read about the film somewhere or heard someone talking about it. If we keep the film on people’s radar, it means all of this hard work is paying off.

But just to make it perfectly clear we are nowhere near accomplishing our goal. Just read some of the independent documentary blogs out there and you won’t find them writing about us. But what we realize is that we need to focus our efforts on people and places that get the film and hope they can champion it for us.

ArtSake: Can you talk about your partnership with the HandsOn Network (and the local Boston Cares affiliate)? How did it come about, and how is it affecting the way your film is reaching audiences?

Gita: HandsOn Network was one of our first nonprofit partners. Some of the leadership saw the film, showed it to the board of directors and essentially came on board to help spread the word about THE WAY WE GET BY. We are really proud of this partnership because they believe in the film and they believe in us. This partnership is sure to raise awareness for THE WAY WE GET BY while also highlighting the power of volunteerism, providing viewers a connection point to a local volunteer opportunity at a HandsOn Network Action Center.

HandsOn Network screened THE WAY WE GET BY at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in June, bringing the producer and one of the senior citizens featured in the film to San Francisco to speak during the sold-out conference. Additionally, some of the more than 250 HandsOn Network Action Centers across the country are organizing special events in conjunction with the theatrical premieres in their cities. L.A. Works, Volunteer Center Orange County and Volunteer San Diego, all affiliates of HandsOn Network, teamed up with Operation Homefront and us to make the Los Angeles premiere on August 14 a red carpet event. These groups brought a red carpet and photographers to the theater on opening night, inviting volunteers and military families to be celebrities for the evening.

Boston Cares has been helping us get the word out locally and will also be attending the Boston premiere of THE WAY WE GET BY. At this event, 20 Massachusetts National Guard members in uniform will be greeting movie-goers as they enter the Museum of Fine Arts to see the film. It will be quite a sight and we hope all of the military families and volunteers coming out feel like celebrities!

Our next big event is with HandsOn Network and several nonprofit other partners in Washington D.C. in late September. Several U.S. Senators, political leaders, military families and support groups will view THE WAY WE GET BY at the newly-opened Capitol Hill Visitors Center on September 30, and it will be screened for patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and their families the following day.

ArtSake: In general, how important have partnering organizations been to your films success?

Gita: We see the relationships with our nonprofit partners as long-term relationships. What we are doing now with the theatrical run is just the start. As we prepare for the national television broadcast, DVDs and community outreach screenings, they will become even more integrated into our plan. If we are successful with these partnerships, we will encourage their missions and they will make our film a success. This is just the start and were hoping that not only will they be advocates for this film but for future projects as well.

ArtSake: How did this project begin?

Gita: Aron Gaudet, the film director, and I started dating when we were working in television news in Michigan. Aron brought me home to Bangor, Maine to meet his 76 year-old mother, Joan. She had started troop greeting so we followed her out to the airport. At 2am during the dead of winter, we went out to the local airport. The first person we met there was 87-year old WWII veteran Bill Knight. Earlier that day he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, yet he was still at the airport greeting troops. When we saw him walk up the ramp to greet the men and women returning home from war, we instantly got choked up and we knew we had to tell this story. Of course, so much more happened from that point on and the story ended up becoming intertwined with our own life. Aron and I are now engaged and will be getting married in Maine.

ArtSake: You’ve had premieres in New York, LA, the SXSW festival but is there something particularly satisfying about your local premiere (how’s that for a leading question)?

Gita: Boston has been our lucky charm. We have received great opportunities here. We were WGBH Filmmakers in Residence in 2007-2008 and have met amazing friends and fellow independent documentary filmmakers who have given us the confidence to continue making films. After four long years of working on THE WAY WE GET BY, it will be pretty amazing for us to see the premiere at the Museum of Fine Arts this Thursday. This is a very special and emotional week for us.

THE WAY WE GET BY opens theatrically in Boston TONIGHT! The film will screen August 27 – 30 and again on September 2 at the MFA in Boston. Kicking off the Boston premiere, members of the Army National Guard will greet veterans and military families as they walk into the theatre. Showtimes have been announced for all five screenings– Aug. 27 @ 8pm, Aug. 28 @ 8pm, Aug. 29 @ 1pm, Aug. 30 @ 11am and Sept. 2 @ 4pm. Tickets are available now. Director Aron Gaudet and producer (and WIFV/NE Member) Gita Pullapilly will be in Boston for the four opening weekend screenings and there will be Q&As following each showing.

For more information, please visit: www.thewaywegetbymovie.com.

Images: Gita Pullapilly; promotional still from THE WAY WE GET BY. Both photos by Sean Carnell.

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Some people have no trouble threading a needle, making use of the materials at hand, and stitching fabric swatches together to create spectacular quilts. By the way, guess when the invention of the needle and thread took place? (See answer below).

And so visitors to the upcoming exhibition of The New England Quilt Museum are in for a treat. The show MASTER PIECES: Haberdashery Textiles in Antique Quilts is heading to Lowell.

There will be more than 40 works made from simple utilitarian fabrics long overlooked in the study of antique quilts.

The antique quilts on exhibit are made of menswear fabrics recycled from suits and shirts, neckties, pajamas, military uniforms, work clothes, and socks. Some resulted from the artful salvage of menswear swatch sample books and fabric mill remnants.

In addition to the quilts themselves, the exhibit will feature historic advertisements, swatch books, and catalogs from menswear companies, dating from the 1900s through the 1950s, including several items from the vaults of Brooks Brothers, the chief sponsor of the exhibition.

The tradition of making unique, often very personal quilts from repurposed menswear textiles gained popularity around 1850, and lasted through the 1950s. Today, the tradition revives in memory quilts made from old T-shirts and clothing that has personal sentiment. The exhibition once again proves that the art of recycling clothing into items of beauty and practicality has a long and important history in the US (see Etsy or Boston Handmade for example).

Guest curator Laure Fischer will be speaking about the exhibition on September 26. On Sunday, September 27, the museum will host a demonstration on making quilts from recycled T-shirts. The public is invited to come learn how to turn T-shirts into a quilt using basic sewing skills. In addition, historic textiles expert Pam Weeks will deliver a lecture about the history of textile production in New England on October 17.

The exhibition runs from September 24 through November 15.

Image credit: All images courtesy of the New England Quilt Museum. Portrait quilt, made from neckties, with painted center panel, maker unknown, mid 20th century. Photo by Fletcher Boland. Two of the quilts above are made from suiting materials, and another is made from military uniforms. All are late 19th -early 20th century.

The answer according to Wiki is that handsewing as artform began some 20,000 years ago.

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Shine little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer
Shine little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer
Lead us lest too far we wander…

Crawling over to the Boston Center for the Arts one can find the Movement at the Mills proposal deadline approaching fast for local, independent dance companies to showcase complete or in-progress works. A variety of dance styles are encouraged to apply – novice, professional, folk, cultural, etc. Applications received by August 31, 2009 will be considered for the October performance. Applications received by December 8, 2009 will be considered for the January performance. Applications received by March 30, 2010 will be considered for the April performance. For more information go here or contact ablesso@bcaonline.org

When you gotta glow, you gotta glow– glow little glow-worm, glow…

CRAFTBOSTON applications are now being accepted for both CRAFTBOSTON Spring and CRAFTBOSTON Holiday 2010. There is only one application for both 2010 shows. The online application can be found at www.juriedartservices.com. For more information contact Sarah Cunningham at show@craftboston.org.
Deadline: September 25, 2009

Shine little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer
Hey, there don’t get dimmer, dimmer…

Also from the Society of Arts and Crafts is the 2009 John D. Mineck Furniture Fellowship for $25,000. The fellowship is designed to encourage and support a young in career furniture artist. Go here to download the guidelines and application.
Deadline: August 31, 2009

This night could use a little brightnin’
Light up you little ol’ bug of lightnin’

Here’s one to spark your flame. There’s a call for entries for work made with remade, recycled, reused, or reclaimed materials at The Green Design Center. Go here for more information. Questions call 508-477-7988 or info@ggreendesign.com
Deadline September 18, 2009

Image credit: Photo by Magnus Rosendahl

Learn more about the song The Glow Worm or better yet, listen to the fabulous Mills Brothers perform the song live.

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The trailer you just watched (go ahead, watch it!) accompanies the short story “Your Fate Hurtles Down at You” by Western Mass. resident (and past MCC Artist Fellow) Jim Shepard, just published in Electric Literature. The trailer is notable because, well, it’s an animated trailer for a short story, and how often do you see that? But also, because it’s part of an experiment in literary journal publishing that will be interesting to follow.

The publishers of that journal plan to distribute five-story issues in multiple formats: electronically for iPhone, Kindle, and eBook readers, and in paperback using print-on-demand technology. Spending less on printing (because of the aforementioned electronic publishing and print-on-demand), they’re paying their authors more – an unheard of $1000 per accepted work (plus, no submission fees). This author-friendly tack may be partially responsible for attracting both Jim Shepard and Michael Cunningham to the inaugural issue.

It’s interesting to consider these experiments not as replacements for existent literary journal models but as additional avenues for individual artists. Could multi-format publishing help preserve or better yet, expand opportunities for creative writers?

At the very least, I hope it means more short story trailers. That music is catchy!

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For the next few weeks, travelers in Boston’s Logan International Airport may feel, ever so briefly, like they’re passing through a Cambridge artist studio.

Through September 18, an exhibition of Cambridge Open Studios artwork will be on display in Logan’s Terminal A and B-C walkway. The show has its origins in Spring 2009, when the Cambridge Arts Council (CAC) coordinated its first city-wide Cambridge Open Studios, unifying and expanding on open studios weekends previously organized by Cambridgeport Artists Open Studios and North Cambridge Arts.

Coordination by the CAC meant not only a larger-scale and more inclusive open studios event, but also distinct benefits for participating artists, according to KD Mernin, one of the curators of the Logan exhibition.

“Being the former chair of NoCa (North Cambridge Arts), putting on that open studios for many years, I know it’s a lot of work,” said KD. “We asked for a big commitment from our membership.” But with the CAC now coordinating the event, that commitment could be redirected – back to the process of making new art.

The resulting open studios event inspired Massport, which manages Logan, to invite the CAC to bring a Cambridge Open Studios show to the airport. CAC asked artists KD Mernin, Judith Motzkin, and Patricia White to curate the resulting exhibition.

The scale and demands of a public space like Logan presented some unique curatorial challenges. “Works selected have to be large enough to make an impact on an audience who are in the space for reasons other than art viewing,” said Judith.

There is, too, an element of randomness in that the art is related by its ties to Cambridge rather than by thematic parallels. But the work is unified by its quality. “It’s a strong group of artists,” said KD, “which shows well for our city and its level of commitment.”

“It was a rare and wonderful opportunity to exhibit our work to more people than is possible with the more typical gallery showings,” said Patricia White.

All three artists have work in the show. Judith’s Toscanini Triptych and KD’s No More Barbies are in Terminal A. Patricia has two abstract monoprints with chine colle, both of which are exhibited in the Terminals B-C Walkway.

Judith’s Toscanini Triptych is uniquely local in that it was created using ingredients from flavors of the Cambridge-based Toscanini’s Ice Cream, which were scanned on a flat bed scanner and “mixed” using digital imaging. Judith may be best known for her impressive ceramics work (in fact, she was chosen to create the MCC’s 2007 Commonwealth Award Object), which have distinctive “flame painted” surfaces. “Some say the digital ice cream images are much like smoke and fire surfaces of my ceramics,” she said.

The Cambridge Open Studios exhibition will be on display at Logan International Airport through September 18. Find more details and full list of participating artists.

Images (top to bottom): Judith Motzkin, TOSCANINI TRIPTYCH (2009), giclee print 32×32 in; KD Mernin, NO MORE BARBIES (triptych, 2006), monotype.

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Listen up artists and arts & cultural organizations: help may be on the way. From redesigning a website to setting up a wireless network, tech-savvy volunteers are waiting to lend a helping hand. Idealist and Mozilla will be hosting Mozilla Service Week, September 14 – 21, to pair thousands of volunteers with nonprofit organizations that need some tech help.

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The environment for media arts makers is, to put it mildly, in a state of change. So many ideas are in play, so many words abuzz – sustainability, monetization, community-building, to name a few – that this month’s NAMAC (the National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture) biennial conference at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel (April 26-29) couldn’t come at a better time. It’s a chance for media arts groups, artists, and creative thinkers to share ideas and make connections. (Learn about it, register, and/or see a full schedule, here. Online registration ends Friday, Aug. 21.)

Organizers of the conference (called CommonWealth) are looking for volunteers to help keep its many gears in motion. By working ten hours, volunteers will get free registration to the entire conference. From conference assistant Mira Simon: “We will need volunteers starting on August 26 (Wednesday) and ending on August 29 (Saturday). Any interested individuals can contact me with a resume and a list of times that they will not want to volunteer.”

If you’re interested, be specific about times you can’t volunteer; organizers will assume you’re available anytime you don’t specify.

And if you do volunteer and/or participate in the conference, let us know your impressions!

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Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it, vogue, vogue …

Call for Entries from the Photographic Resource Center for their members’ PhotoSLAM. The PhotoSLAM is a digital slide show of ALL submitted photographsa showcase of the talent within the PRC membership. Deadline: September 15, 2009

She’s crafty. Located on the lovely shores of Porter’s pond in Brockton, the Fuller Craft Museum has a call out to artists for their biennial members exhibition. Artists may submit up to 3 objects.
Deadline: August 21, 2009

Funds for Indigenous Film Productions: The National Geographic All Roads Seed Grant Program supports film projects by and about indigenous and underrepresented minority-culture filmmakers worldwide. This program supports filmmakers who bring their lives and communities to light through first-person storytelling. Indigenous and underrepresented minority culture filmmakers, as well as filmmakers who can demonstrate that they have been designated by indigenous or minority communities to tell their stories, are eligible to apply. These grants of $1,000 to $10,000 should be used toward the development and production of a feature film, long documentary, short documentary, shorts, animation, or music video.
Deadline: September 15, 2009.

Image credit: Daguerreotype of Emily Everett Abbot and Mary Susan Everett Abbot, [ca. 1852], Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [reproduction number, LC-USZC4-12730 DLC (color film copy transparency post-conservation)]

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On the Extra Criticum blog, Gary Garrison (dramatic writer and Executive Director for Creative Affairs at Dramatists Guild of America) has an interesting exercise for playwrights and screenwriters:

1. Take a page of dialogue from one of your plays that has three characters or more speaking to one another.
2. Using liquid white-out, blank out all the names.
3. Make a Xerox copy of that page.
4. Hand it to a fellow playwright, director or actor someone who reads a lot of plays.
5. Ask: how many people are speaking on this page? If they can’t tell you the number of people speaking, there’s a problem, no?

I like the simplicity of this, as a way to ensure distinct voices. Just don’t forget to re-add the names before first full cast read-through.

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