ArtStart Grants for 2004 Totaling $45,050 Go to 15 Proposals

From pre-schoolers learning to make puppet shows to highschoolers creating a sculpture garden, children and teen activities benefit directly from 10 of the 15 grants announced by the Newark Art Council. The other 5 grants will enrich neighborhood cultural events. In this fourth year of ArtStart’s the Committee evaluated 46 proposals and the $45,050 awarded covered on the average about 75% of the requested funds of each winning project.

The winning entries reflect the Grant Program objectives of nurturing arts and cultural activities throughout the city, especially neighborhood activities that involve young people.The ArtStart Grants Program includes funding from the Prudential Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, and PSE&G. The 16-member panel of judges, chaired by Dr. Sally Yerkovich, president of the N.J. Historical Society and a NAC Board member, considered five elements in making their decisions: innovation, collaboration, artistic content, reaching under-served communities, and addressing a community problem.

The winning projects that affect younger children are:

Newark Preschool Council. The Puppet Theatre Workshop under the direction of Beverly Lynn, will receive $3,000 to engage a professional artist to instruct and develop a puppet theater workshop for four classrooms serving about 80 children.

Newark Public Schools - Dr. E. Alma Flagg School. Susan Pope will direct the “I Dance Because” project using the $3,000 NAC grant to publish a book to be used in the NPS about why people dance. The first stage is to ask her students and then expand to interviewing other students, teachers, professionals, etc.

Apostle’s House Homeless Shelter. Debbie Kirkland will direct the “Saturday Arts Program” using the NAC grant of $2,750 to help hire artists in different fields of storytelling, dance and visual art to work with children in Latino, Native American and African storytelling.

Newark Public Schools – 14th Avenue School. The $3,200 NAC Grant will help Melissa Walker introduce the choir students in the “Vocal Summit Residency Program” to jazz singing and performance concluding with a public performance at the NPS Annual Jazz Festival held at the Newark Museum.

The winning projects that affect mostly teens are:

Newark Public Schools – Science High School. Alberta Handleman will use the $3,000 grant to help buy performance rights, costumes, scenery, and props so students can stage performance of “The Mad Woman of Chaillot.”

City Without Walls. Joe Ford, the new director, will use the $3,000 grant to develop the “Lincoln Park Visual Literacy Program” in which neighborhood youth and children have weekend art classes, video screenings, and a reference library and media center.

African Globe Theatre. Kabu Okai-Davies will use the $3,000 grant to implement the “SummerWorks Program, 2004,” in which teens have eight-weeks to engage in field trips, internships and workshops.

Paul Robeson Gallery at Rutgers-Newark. Wyndsor Gervais & Adrienne Walker will use the $3,000 grant for “Master Class Workshops” in which six professional artists will lead six two-hour after-school workshops for students from Newark high schools including Central High and Science High. Rutgers-Newark Department of Visual and Performing Arts students will serve as mentors to the high school students.

Aljira, Inc. Victor Davson and Beth Vogel will use the $3,000 grant to help expand their “Young Curators” project to three Newark High Schools in 04-05: Weequahic, West Side and Shabazz. The students will be assisted in understanding the curatorial function and to create their own art and display it in their own communities.

Newark Public Schools – West Side High School. Alonzrea Stewart-Austin will use the $3,200 grant to help create a “Sculpture Garden” at the school as an interdisciplinary project between the visual arts and science.

The winning neighborhood programs are:

Independent Artists Collective. Marjorie Barnes will use the $3,000 grant to empower the “New Ark Mobile,” a flatbed truck, to travel to Newark’s South, Central, East, and West wards to use hip hop as a cultural tool to try to decrease drug trafficking. Setting up on street corners during mid-July through mid-August artists in various modes including poetry, dance, and visual arts will give performances and then workshops.

N.J. Performing Arts Center. “Sounds of the City and Kwanzaa Festival & Marketplace,” under the direction of Vivian C.R. James, received $2,000 to help present Newark artists at these events.

SPARK Friends of Riverbank Park. Under the direction of Nancy Zak, the “Riverbank Park Cultural Program” will use the $3,200 grant to help develop a series of programs for the Ironbound section. These include a neighborhood arts day with visual arts and music, two dance nights featuring Latin or Brazilian music, a neighborhood history day with oral, written, and visual elements, plus some children’s programs such as magic shows and movies.

Bethany Baptist Church. Linda Epps received $3,000 to help support the “Jazz Vespers” series which features both well-known and lesser-known musicians in the Newark/New York area every first Saturday during October through June.

Manuel Acevedo. This photographer was granted $3,500 to help create the “Newark Re-Visions” project by converting supposedly blighted areas into urban sanctuaries using large-scale images on billboards or mural-sized photographs in institutions.

The members of the Panel of ArtStart Judges who served with Dr. Yerkovich are: Vice-Chair Raymond Ocasio, exec. dir. of La Casa De Don Pedro; Sheila McKoy, NJ Transit Arts Program; Dr. Ernesto Amaranto; Janet Rodriguez, vice pres, JPMorgan Chase; Dr. Annette Juliano, Rutgers-Newark; Gladys Barker Grauer, local artist; Donna Drew-Pack, Essex County Division of Cultural & Historic Affairs; Stephen Shiman, exec. dir., Newark School of the Arts; Jeanette Brummell, exec. dir., University Heights Science Park; Egan Davson, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; Karen Lopes-Ector, NJ Arts for Kids Program; Andy Bernstein, musician; Gwen Moten, supervisor, Newark Dept. of Cultural Affairs; Pat Kettenring, Rutgers Business & the Arts Program; and Valerie Wesley, author.