Women & Their Work awarded NEA Stimulus grant!

We are very proud to receive this American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding from the NEA. This one time grant will be used to continue our current Education Programs. Congratulations Erika Shamaly at Motion Media and to the other grant writers. Thanks Vincent Kitsch for this nice mention in the COA AIPP Newsletter today…

Greetings,

I want to begin with an important announcement regarding the Cultural Funding Program. We have been notified by the NEA that the City of Austin Cultural Arts Division will not receive any American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding. Therefore, we will not be able to distribute any sub-granting funds for special salary support as we had hoped.
 
I do have some good news to report, though; four cultural contractors have been awarded stimulus grants from the NEA: Center for Women and Their Work, Motion Media Arts, Rude Mechanicals, and Texas Folklife Resources. To those groups I offer congratulations, and we are glad you were able to take advantage of this one-time federal funding!
 
I would also like to extend congratulations to the Art in Public Places Program. Last month, two Austin AIPP projects were recognized for excellence at the Americans for the Arts Convention by the Public Art Network. Grotto Wall at Sparky Park by Berthold Haas and Letterscape by Jimmy Luu were chosen out of more than 300 entries from across the country. You may or may not know that Austin was the first city in Texas to establish a public art ordinance over 20 years ago, and we are still leading the way with innovative and exemplary public art works.
 
Sincerely,
Vincent E. Kitch
Cultural Arts Program Manager
City of Austin

Fraser inspired student sculptures

Last Friday students from Eastside Memorial High School came to get a tour of No Sure Footing. Leslee came in from San Antonio to lead the kids through her show. She gave a truly superb tour. As with all of our field trips (btw we provide free field trips and pay for AISD subs and buses) we let the kids make a piece of art that reflects the work on exhibit. Leslee brought a box full of great stuff from her studio and the dollar store for the kids to dig through and use. We had clay and beads at their disposal and we told them to use all of this stuff to create their own found object sculpture. The students created some awesome sculptures, some more temporary than others. Here are a few.