ArtSake

If you own artist space in Massachusetts, you might be interested in the latest news from Massachusetts Cultural Council’s ArtistLink Initiative:

ArtistLink is announcing up to four Systems Replacement & Maintenance Planning Grants to owners of artist live-work or work-only buildings in Massachusetts. The goal of the Planning Grant is to provide owners of artist buildings with the tools they need to prioritize their capital maintenance needs.

Proposals will be accepted on a rolling basis. The RFP is available online. Contact Jay Paget to confirm eligibility and to discuss any questions.

ArtistLink is a program of the MCC that promotes the development and maintenance of affordable artist live-work spaces and studios in Massachusetts.

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We’re excited to tell you about Assets for Artists, a program that offers a range of services to advance artists entrepreneurially and financially, including home ownership assistance.

The program is partially funded through MCC’s Adams Arts Program, led by MASS MoCA and supported by local partners in Boston, Lowell, New Bedford, and Pittsfield. Previously, the program had been offered to Berkshires artists – now it’s open to artists statewide!

So, what does the program do? Assets for Artists can explain it best:

Since 2008, Assets for Artists has piloted an innovative matched savings grant program and financial and business training opportunities for low- to moderate-income artists in Berkshire County, and starting in 2011 those opportunities are now being offered state-wide.

By meeting savings goals and by completing the required training, participating artists can receive grant funds as a savings match for “working capital” to invest in their work as an artistic microenterprise, or receive down payment assistance for the purchase of a home.

Who can apply? Funny you should ask – the Assets for Artists blog was just talking about this…

To be eligible, your adjusted gross income can be no more than $45,000 for a household of 1, $52,000 for 2, $58,000 for 3, and $65,000 for a household of 4. The maximum eligible household income increases $5,000 for each additional person in the household above 4.

Artists will be selected based on a combination of need and artistic accomplishment. They need to make savings deposits monthly (for at least 6 months) to meet a savings goal, during which the program contributes to a “matched savings account” in that artist’s name. Artists are required to do some business and professional development training, after which they can use the accrued “working capital” to invest in an artistic microenterprise, or as part of a down payment for the purchase of a home or live-work space.

Assets for Artists has no application fee or tuition. Go here to download the application.

Applications should be received by 5:00 pm on April 21, 2011. Questions? Email Assets for Artists.

Image: Angela Zammarelli (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’11), COME OVER, COME OVER (detail) (2010), cardboard, textiles, light fixture, extension cord, glue, 5.5 ft

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There are a handful of upcoming opportunities for artists’ professional development – so on your marks, get set, etc!

March 15 – deadline for New England filmmakers to apply for LEF New England Fellowships to support attendance to the Flaherty Seminar in NYC. The Flaherty Seminar, June 19-25, 2010 at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY, is a great opportunity for film artists to connect with programmers, scholars, and other filmmakers from around the globe. The LEF Fellowships can help New England filmmakers attend.

March 19 – ARTmorpheus partners with Fractured Atlas to present Raising Money to Support Your Creative Endeavors, a fundraising workshop for emerging artist of all disciplines and start-up arts non-profits. To RSVP, contact Liora Beer.

March 24 – Free Trailers Workshop for filmmakers at the Center for Independent Documentary in Newton. Register here.

Artist Business Training – one-and-a-half day workshops led by the UMass Arts Extension Service to address business basics and key issues that artists confront in the current economy

• April 21-22 Petersham, Petersham Town Hall (contact Sarah McMaster at North Quabbin Woods for more info or to sign up)
• April 28-29 Springfield, Schibelli Hall, Springfield Technical Community College (contact Tracy Woods at Art for the Soul Gallery)
• May 5-6 Northampton, Dynamite Space (contact Julia Handschuh)

Ongoing – PRIME Program from the International Institute of Boston – offering free guidance and resources for small businesses (including artist-entrepreneurs). Visit the Program’s website for more info.

Ongoing – Assets for Artists teams with City of Pittsfield to help artists buy homes or start-up/expand arts businesses in Pittsfield. Visit Berkshire Creative for more details.

If you know of any other upcoming professional development opportunities we’ve missed, let us know!

Image: Daniel Ranalli (Drawing Fellow ’10), SNAIL DRAWING/DOUBLE LINE START (2007), Snail drawing in sand, 20×28 in.

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If you’re an artist who lives or works in Somerville, Massachusetts, you know by experience that it’s an arts-infused place: reverberant with musicians, splattered with painters, and bestrewn with, well, artists who make art that can be strewn – maybe quilters? Anyway, there’s every reason to believe that in the future, the Seven Hills will continue to emanate the atomic glow of art-being-made.

In the near term, Union Square in Somerville is expected to see growth due to a proposed extension of the MBTA’s Green Line, and the Somerville Arts Council has worked with the city to create zoning that complements that growth while encouraging the arts.

The new zoning code provides incentives for arts development, including the designation of a Union Square Arts Overlay District and Transit Oriented Districts to bring about more arts-related use of new and existing spaces.

You can read more about it in an easy-to-read guide to the changes put together by the Somerville Arts Council.

So, that might portend some trends in Somerville’s near future. But what about 2020? 2050? 2099? Tim Devin’s The history of Somerville, 2010-2100 is a community arts project that dares to ask what the future holds for the ‘ville. Tim is gathering predictions from past and current residents, as well as official plans. He plans to use his research to create timelines and assemble a series of talks. He’s posted a few of the predictions he’s already received on his site, including this one:

2080: By now, Somerville is densely populated, as Boston and Cambridge are flooded. Residents farm and tend gardens.
Source: Jennifer Mazer

Until December 31, 2009, you can contribute your own predictions about the future of Somerville.

Images: Bill Ritchotte, FUTUREVILLE, suggesting the future Squares of Somerville; Logo for the HISTORY OF SOMERVILLE, 2010-2100 project organized by Tim Devin.

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It’s deadline day for our Artist Fellowships applications (Fri, Dec. 5). Which means: not so much time for blogging today. But interesting stuff is still happening all over the wonder-ific web-o-sphere, and here’s some of it:

Elizabeth Graver, Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow from 2006 (and terrific writer and mind), gives Paper Cuts (the NY Times book blog) some tantalizing details about her next writing project.

HubArts reports on an effort to score some Berklee profs the gig to perform at President-elect Obama’s inauguration.

Innovative theater director Anne Bogart ponders how snapping cellphone pictures in art museums reveals a society that consumes, rather than engages, its art.

The Independent Film Festival of Boston announced Dec. 31 as the deadline in their call for entries for films, including narrative and documentary features, short films, animated, experimental, horror, and GLBT interest works. More info at the Filmmakers Workshop page (a resource of the Center for Independent Documentary).

New England Film explores the LEF Foundation’s recent changes in its Moving Image Fund.

Berkshire artists who want to buy homes but also want homebuyer training have the perfect confluence of their wants in these meetings at Berkshire Bank in Pittsfield. From Assets for Artists.

Congratulations to Boston poet Henri Cole, who recently received a 2009 NEA Fellowship in Poetry.

Good stuff from our fellows/finalists
Ben Berman (Poetry Fellow ’08) has received a Pushcart Prize nomination from The Raintown Review.

Julie Mallozzi (Film & Video Finalist ’07) has announced the launch of 60.30.1, an 11-site installation over three campuses of Harvard University. The light installation commemorates the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Julie is the project’s artistic director, and the official launch is at 5pm on Monday, December 8 outside Widener Library (Harvard Yard, Cambridge).

Rania Matar (Photography Fellow ’07) speaks as part of an artist talk with the 2008 James and Audrey Foster Prize Finalists at ICA Boston, on Sunday, December 7, 1 PM.

More Fellows Notes.

And finally: GalleyCat created and posted a video interview with Joan Wickersham (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’08), conducted at the National Book Awards ceremony (her memoir The Suicide Index was a finalist for the award). It’s fascinating insight into her writing process.

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An handful of past MCC fellows/finalists recently got some nice (and free) publicity: Globe art critic Cate McQuaid had very good things to say about Sally Moore’s (Sculpture/Installation Finalist ’07) exhibition Edge and Jane Marsching (Photography Finalist ’03), Deb Todd Wheeler (Sculpture/Installation Fellow ’03), and Tanit Sakakini’s exhibition Figment’s Imagination.

Greg Cook pointed out this Chicago Tribune story of a local artist abroad. Boston’s Bren Bataclan spent October in the City of the Big Shoulders to trade paintings for the pledge that the recipient will “smile at strangers more often.” (The Trib, clearly an anti-smile establishment, punished him by calling him “Bret.”)

Speaking of giving away your work for free, literary agent Nathan Bransford asks: does it pay?

And does it pay for a city in revival to offer artist space for free? Fall River is about to test the theory. Artists can apply to take over empty storefronts, rent-free (they do pay utilities), in return for staying open to the public at designated times. The Herald News has the story.

As we approach election day, CultureGrrl makes a heartfelt plea to the next administration: end this long national nightmare and revive of National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowships for all disciplines!

Speaking of NEA, it’s rolling out a new program to support new plays, and the first group of selections and finalists have been announced. Congrats to Massachusetts artists Lydia Diamond and Anne Gottlieb – both created works named as finalists.

The literary blog The Millions probes how a settlement between Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers could pave the way for major changes in book publishing. Most notably, out-of-print or impossible-to-find literature could be made available in digital versions or through print-on-demand technology.

Anyone out there know a William Young, formerly (and maybe still?) of Winchester? Authorities are trying to find him: they’ve found the George Benjamin Luks painting somebody pinched from him 37 years ago!

At HubArts, Joel Brown explores how an abandoned state mental hospital in Danvers has inspired hyperbolically creepy pastels by a Massachusetts artist.

Artists in the Berkshires can pick up marketing and business strategies in small business seminar for artists in Pittsfield.

Image: Jane Marsching, MCCALL GLACIER (2006), large-scale lightjet print. Jane’s digital prints are exhibited in Figments Imagination at Miller Block Gallery, through December 12.

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Whether you’re serious about buying or just ‘buy-curious’, Needham and Lowell both have awesome new opportunities for artists looking to purchase their own workspace.

In Needham, the newly renovated Gorse Mill Studios building contains three floors of studios with many ammenities. In Lowell, the Marston Building has 7 units of artist live/work space in it, with lots of natural light (see image above).

Stay up-to-date with all things artist space by frequenting the ArtistLink website, including its ArtSpaceFinder.

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