APRIL 2010

Poet Laureate says Use Your Words

Whenever someone asks when I knew I wanted to be a poet, I always remember my own mother’s love of language. She sang to us The Ballad of Barbara Allen, an Irish folk song, and Ghost Riders In The Sky, a cowboy song, and read to us the poems in our textbooks we brought home from school each day. And though she was not an educated woman, her love of language grew and became more sophisticated as her six children moved from grade to grade and finally on to college.

But she also had that Southern love of euphemism — though the euphemisms that others often used were never quite colorful enough for her. For example, while other parents were teaching their children to use the phrase belly button when referring to their navels, my mother insisted I use the term boll-weevil when referring to my own navel. Years later I remembered with delight the scene during which I learned that the term boll-weevil was not the scientific term for that particular body part. My poem Language: A Sentimental Education is my attempt at trying to shine a light on this abiding image. 

After reading my poem, you might want to celebrate National Poetry Month by writing your own poem about a humorous, playfully embarrassing or confusing moment in your own life. Make the poem as vivid as possible by recreating sights, sounds, tastes, smells and textures that shine a light on that particular moment. 

Everyday this month we will also highlight the work of an amazing North Carolina poet. Make sure to check it out. Perhaps they too will inspire you to write a poem for every day of this very special month.

Language: A Sentimental Education

How it makes and breaks you.
That tenuous stringing together
of letters and sounds. Mean and amen.
Casual and casualty.
Good and god and dog.

How it can turn on you.

The way my first grade teacher’s eyes
bulged in disbelief
the day I ran crying to her,
tattling on the snot-nose boy
who had poked me
in my boll-weevil
with his pencil.

I can feel the mortification
of that moment still,
the class tumbling
into hysterics,
collapsing
among the jacks
and pick-up sticks
as I lifted my shirt for her to see,
the whorls of my primordial wound
reddening where his eraser had gone.

“It’s time,” my mother said
as I recounted, later, the sequence
of events. Time, she said, and began
the inevitable cleansing,
slow evacuation
of the beautiful rhetoric

of metaphor she had six years
blessed me with.
That day she gave me navel.
The next, vagina and urinate.
Words that could take me anywhere.

Help me, she assured,
disappear into any crowd.

Good dog.

Poetry Month Celebration

It’s not just spring in the air. Verse and short pithy sentences are being strewed about like blossoms from the Bradford pear trees. April is National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate all those writers from the past to the present who wrote expressive prose and narratives that we call upon in good times and bad.

Our new state poet laureate Cathy Smith Bowers invites each of us to write our own poems about the things that make us laugh or cringe. While you’re thinking of your stanzas, visit our Web site www.ncartseveryday.org and post the name of your favorite poet or poem.

Read more.

Poetry Out Loud Winner From Charlotte

Zamyia Felton of West Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte won the Poetry Out Loud competition last month with her interpretations of several poems including Nikki Giovanni’s Walking Down Park. She will be on her way to Washington, D.C., for the national finals on Tuesday, April 27.

The second place winner was Maggie Jordan of North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham.

More than 6,000 students across N.C. participated in some level of the recitation program, a national initiative funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.

Poetry Out Loud encourages high school students to memorize and recite poetry while mastering public speaking skills and building self-confidence.

Read the full press release and watch Zaniyia’s performance.

Message from the Secretary

Last July I announced to ArtMatters readers our pilot program between the North Carolina Arts Council and State Historic Sites to bring artists to our existing historic sites and museums. I'm thrilled that 2nd Saturdays is now a reality. This is a program that reflects the unique character of place, and we have a lot of fun planned for you at all of our historic sites and museums across the state.

We know that you will enjoy the mix of history, skilled craft artists and authentic N.C. culture. Thanks to your efforts talented artists will be showcasing their art at many of our sites. (See the article below for how artists in your community can participate.)

I look forward to the more than one hundred 2nd Saturday events scheduled in June, July and August.

Linda A. Carlisle, Secretary
N.C. Department of Cultural Resources

2nd Saturdays: Promote Local Artists

The Department of Cultural Resources initiative 2nd Saturdays: History, Heritage, Arts & Fun is scheduled June 12, July 10 and August 14. This will be an opportunity for artists to showcase their work at more than 35 state historic sites and museums.

Artists can use these opportunities to sell their work, broaden their audiences and make connections to a larger cultural community. There is no cost to participate; artists retain 100 percent of their sales at most sites, and musicians who perform may sell CDs.

Even if you do not have an historic site or Cultural Resources-operated museum in your county, artists from your community can still participate in this opportunity to display and sell their work.

Help get the word out by e-mailing the following link to artists, artist guilds or co-op galleries in your region to encourage them to participate: www.ncarts.org/2ndsaturdays.org.
 
Spaces are still available at the following sites for the June 12 event: Alamance Battleground (Burlington); Bennett Place (Durham), Bentonville Battlefield (Four Oaks, Johnston County); Brunswick Town (Winnabow); CSS Neuse (Kinston); Duke Homestead (Durham); Fort Dobbs (Statesville): Graveyard of the Atlantic (Hatteras Island); Historic Bath (Bath); Historic Edenton (Edenton); House in the Horseshoe (Sanford); Museum of the Albemarle (Elizabeth City); Museum of the Cape Fear (Fayetteville); Reed Gold Mine (Midland/Mecklenburg County); Town Creek Indian Mount (Mt. Gilead.)

Each site will have a different theme, so you may want to target your artist contacts to those that fit the theme. For example, Town Creek Indian Mound in Montgomery County will feature storytelling with American Indian craft and music, and the CSS Neuse in Lenoir County will have re-enactors, quilting demonstrations, music and fresh farm produce.

Finally, please promote 2nd Saturdays in your membership e-newsletters and on your Web site. If you have questions or need additional information contact Rebecca Moore at (919) 807-6530 or rebecca.moore@ncdcr.gov or Jennifer Huggins at (919) 807-6516 or jennifer.huggins@ncdcr.gov.

Creative Economy Measures

Measure what matters.

Daniel Pink, internationally known forecaster of the changing world of work, challenged Emerging Issues Creativity Forum participants to document “right brain” metrics. Economic developers, employment and training analysts and tourism promoters need to know that creativity, creative industries, creative occupations and arts products are essential to successful communities in the 21st century.

Creativity means business. It’s our job to get the message across that the arts provide jobs and attract visitors.

Two opportunities for arts leaders to explore these metrics are now available in N.C. Join the N.C. Arts Council in our current research studies to get local data proving how important your work is to your local economy.

Arts and Economic Prosperity IV
Americans for the Arts, a national arts service organization, measures the impact of the nonprofit arts and culture industry in America every five years. The N.C. study in 2011 will produce a report for each of the state’s seven economic development regions. You can get a report for your county at a considerable discount by signing up by this June.

Creative Vitality Index (CVI)
States and communities across the country, including Charlotte, are measuring the dynamics of the creative sector through national indicators reporting employment and community participation. The CVI brings facts about for-profit creative business and commercial activity together with nonprofit spending and arts-related jobs. We’ll be sharing the N.C. 2008 regional analyses with arts leaders soon. You can get your own report on your county at a considerable discount now that the state study has been completed.

To find out more about participating in either of these two research projects, contact our research director, Ardath Weaver, at ardath.weaver@ncdcr.gov. She can put you in touch with the researchers conducting these studies and explain how you can best use this data.

Arts Internship Deadline May 3

The North Carolina Arts Council is accepting applications through Monday, May 3, for two paid internships with local arts councils or arts centers.

This opportunity provides two individuals with a three-month intensive internship with one of N.C.’s local arts councils or arts centers under the supervision of the executive director or staff member who will help the intern design a training program within the spectrum of community arts administration.

Interns receive a $5,000 stipend to cover living expenses. The intensive, supervised program is designed to introduce community arts administration skills including learning organizational structure, planning, fundraising, grant writing, financial management, marketing, programming, publicity and promotion, and building interagency relationships.

To read the full press release, click here.

Lincoln Center Institute Registration Opens

Educators, teaching artists and school administrators can register for this summer’s International Educator Workshop on the campus of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem Monday, Aug. 2, through Friday, Aug. 6.

The North Carolina Arts Council and the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts partnered with the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education to create a regional site for this groundbreaking workshop.

The Lincoln Center Institute has developed and refined a professional development model for teachers and teaching artists using a curriculum based on "aesthetic education."

This approach to processing and discussing an artistic experience is the perfect complement to the N.C. Arts Council's educational touring programs and also provides teaching artists with additional skills to communicate their work and their performances to students and any other audience.

To find out more click here.

Final Report Forms Available Online

Don’t wait to the last minute to start preparing your organization’s final grant report. The 2009–10 grant final report forms are available at ARTS Grants Online (AGO).

Reports due by June 15 include all Arts and Audiences, Arts in Education, cARTwheels, Creating Place, Folklife and New Realities Program grants.

Reports due by July 15 include all Regional Arts Partners, Regional Artist Project, Statewide Service Organizations, General Support, Grassroots Arts Programs and Outreach Program grants.

Final reports should be mailed to the grants office, N.C. Arts Council, 4632 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-4632, as well as electronically submitted online. The hard copies are due in our office by the deadline date. If hand delivered or sent via special delivery, please use the street address: Grants Office, N.C. Arts Council, 109 East Jones St., Raleigh, NC 27601-1023. 

Upcoming Industry Meetings

National Arts Advocacy Day
April 12–13, Washington, D.C.

North Carolina ARTS DAY
May 18–19, Raleigh

Public Art 360 Conference
September 23–25, Asheville

New on the Web

Profiles on the Web

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival kicks off Thursday, April 8, and continues through Sunday. Read a profile about Full Frame or discover tips for visiting your first film festival.

Find out about Ron Rash’s latest collection of short stories released recently. Durham jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon releases her new CD Homefree on Tuesday, April 20. It's the 11th recording for the six-time GRAMMY® Award-nominee, whose voice has been heard everywhere from the White House to the hit TV series Mad Men.

There’s also a new issue of Artful Living featuring tips on how to enjoy the arts this spring!

ACROSS NORTH CAROLINA

New N.C. Museum of Art Opens April 24

The North Carolina Museum of Art — one of the most important and distinguished museums in the South — has completed a major three-year expansion and reopens to the public on Saturday, April 24.

The centerpiece of the expansion is a new 127,000 square-foot, light-filled building designed by New York-based architects Thomas Phifer and Partners. The single-story structure, surrounded by gardens and courtyards, showcases the museum’s encyclopedic collection, including dozens of new and recent acquisitions.
 
The museum has acquired many additional works through gifts, loans, commissions and purchase. These encompass important examples of both contemporary and historical art from around the world. Highlights include site-specific work by such internationally acclaimed artists as Roxy Paine and Ursula von Rydingsvard, installed in the landscape, and El Anatsui, Patrick Dougherty, Jackie Ferrara, Ellsworth Kelly, David Park, Jaume Plensa and others installed in the new building.

Click here to find out more about the grand opening.

SECCA Seeking N.C. Artmakers

The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art is soliciting North Carolina residents who are making great “art,” whether they consider themselves artists or not, for a national touring exhibition.

SECCA, along with four other American art institutions in the United States, will present People’s Biennial, circulated by Independent Curators International. The show will consist of works by five artists from each of the museum’s participating states and will travel the nation from 2010 to 2012. The exhibition organizers are looking for remarkable, under-appreciated work by anyone and everyone, especially people who may not be considered part of the art world, ranging from a child who makes a dazzling science fair project to a person knitting fantastic clothing.

Artists are not excluded from proposing their work, but the participant pool is open and inclusive, welcoming artisans, “non-artists” and unusual creators to visit Winston-Salem and share their work.

The deadline for recommending work is Friday, April 30. Send photographs and a description of the work along with contact information to SECCA-PB@ncdcr.gov. You can nominate yourself. Please keep images to 72 dpi, sized to no more than 5 inches on the largest side. If any work you have recommended is selected, you will be credited for your contribution. The people chosen for the exhibition will receive a national showcase for their creative talents and two free copies of the catalogue that is being produced for the show.

The curators of People’s Biennial will review all entries and finalists will be invited to present their work in Winston-Salem Thursday, May 20, through Saturday, May 22, at a location to be announced. There is no entry fee but finalists will need to cover the costs of their travel and accommodations.

In addition to SECCA, the institutions presenting this exhibition are: The Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (Portland, Ore.); The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (Scottsdale, Ariz.); The Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford College (Haverford, Pa.); and The Dahl Arts Center (Rapid City, S.D.).

The work will be selected by Harrell Fletcher, a Portland, Ore., artist and professor and Jens Hoffmann, director and curator of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco.

For more information, please contact SECCA Program Assistant Endia Beal at (336) 397-2109 or endia.beal@ncdcr.gov.

Youth Programs at Cameron Museum Receive Grant

The Cameron Art Museum has received a grant from the John Shaw Field Foundation to fund educational art programs for targeted at-risk youth. This grant will provide art sessions at the museum’s Clay Studio with master artist Hiroshi Sueyoshi and admission passes to the museum for children who participate in the Big Buddy program, Guardian ad Litem and the Yahweh Center.

Recent studies show that children who participate in the arts are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, four times more likely to participate in a math and science fair, are elected to class office within their schools three times more often and are three times more likely to win an award for school attendance.

The Cameron Art Museum presents about seven changing exhibitions annually, ongoing family and children's programs, a unique program of tours for Alzheimer's patients and their caretakers, interdisciplinary programs (lectures, music, films, literature, dance) and ongoing workshops and classes in ceramics at the Clay Studio with resident master artist Hiroshi Sueyoshi.

For more information about the museum, please visit www.cameronartmuseum.com.

Gregg Museum of Art & Design Names Director

Roger Manley was selected as the new director of the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at North Carolina State University starting June 1. He served as the curator for the Gregg Museum when it first opened as the NCSU Gallery of Art & Design. His first show at the Gallery was the 1988 exhibition A Blessing From the Source which featured 3,500 biblical sculptures by the late Outer Banks visionary folk artist Annie Hooper.

Manley has worked as a curator with more than forty other institutions including the Asheville Art Museum, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Center on Contemporary Art/Seattle, the Collection de l’Art Brut in Switzerland, the Columbia Museums of Art & Science, Duke University and the Sawtooth Center for Visual Design.

Manley, an artist, photographer and writer, has received several grants from the N.C. Arts Council including a fellowship to the Headlands Center for the Arts in California and the Fondation d’Art de La Napoule in France. The Texas native grew up in an Air Force family and graduated from Davidson College in 1974. He then spent two years living in the Australian Outback with a tribe of Aboriginals. He later completed graduate work in education at the University of Denver and in folklore at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Henderson County Arts Council Gallery Renovation Grant

The Arts Council of Henderson County has been awarded $15,000 from the Janirve Foundation to upgrade and expand Henderson County’s only public art gallery. 

Renovation of the arts council’s galleries, the D. Samuel Neill Gallery and the hallway gallery, is a major component of its Facilities Enhancement Project, which also includes redeveloping under-utilized rooms in its suite for multi-purpose use, such as additional gallery space, class and meeting rooms. 

Once the project is completed, the arts council will be able to offer new exhibition opportunities for local and regional artists, community arts, cultural and education organizations and institutions. The project’s completion will also result in space for visual and performing arts classes and community meetings.  

“We are thrilled about this award from the Janirve Foundation, which will allow us to begin work on this much-needed renovation,” said the arts council’s Executive Director Jim Faucett. “These physical improvements — both in the galleries and classroom spaces — will help support the arts council’s desire for greater outreach locally and regionally.”

The Janirve Foundation is a private foundation established by the late Irving J. Reuter, an executive in the automobile industry. The Foundation became active on a full-time basis upon the death of his widow, Jeannett Reuter, in 1984. The majority of its grants are made to organizations located in western N.C.

American Dance Festival Announces 2010 Season

The American Dance Festival celebrates 77 years of the best in modern dance by exploring What is Dance Theater? The festival, scheduled from June 10 to July 24, will explore works of the dance theater genre, allowing audiences the opportunity to see the influences of theater on modern dance and the inspiration the art form has had on choreographers’ artistic expression.

The festival includes eight world premieres, one U.S. premiere, two reconstructions and ADF debuts. Many of the choreographers represented this season — Jerome Robbins, Shen Wei, Paul Taylor, RUBBERBANDance Group, Martha Clarke, Pilobolus, Mark Dendy, Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak, Tatiana Baganova and Rosie Herrera — have created works known for dipping a toe in both theater and dance and then back again, all with great success.

For more information about this exciting season, visit http://www.americandancefestival.org/.

Winston-Salem Arts Council Commissions New Works

The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County has commissioned works of art by two internationally acclaimed artists for the community’s new Center for the Arts. 

People entering the Hanesbrands Theatre foyer will see their images become a part of a mirrored cymatic work created by Jimmy O’Neal of Madison County, N.C.

The main entrance to the center on the Spruce Street side of the Sawtooth Building features a colorful work created with glass tiles by Kyungmi Shin of Los Angeles, Calif.

Milton Rhodes, president and CEO of The Arts Council is excited about the new works. “We are fortunate to have attracted the attention of Jimmy O’Neal and Kyungmi Shin — two highly regarded members of the international arts community — who were selected by our panel and now are creating remarkable commissioned works for the center’s most visible areas,” Rhodes said.

O’Neal, a classically trained artist, began exhibiting in galleries while still a teenager. He is a unique combination of artist and scientist, and a mirrored paint he has developed will be an intricate part of his work for the center.

Shin, a principal partner with her architect husband at Shin Gray Studio in LA, have created public art works for a variety of public and private buildings, including LA International Airport and two LA libraries.

New CityOfTheArts.com Web Site

The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County has a first-of-its-kind hybrid Web site — CityOfTheArts.com — that provides a holistic, immersive online experience around events and activities within the city and county.

The site, which launched earlier this spring, was designed by the Triad-based marketing and product development company Pursuit of Happiness. The site incorporates research and input from the city’s arts, cultural, business, civic, tourism and educational organizations.

CityOfTheArts.com combines robust behavioral mapping, database, social media, search and mobile technologies, brought together for the first time to create the ultimate online experience for Winston-Salem area residents and visitors. It offers current, easily updated information on a wide range of events and activities.
 
To check out the site, visit http://www.cityofthearts.com/events.php.

ARTIST NEWS AND OPPORTUNITIES

Artist Edwin Gil Opens Charlotte Gallery

Edwin Gil opened his new art gallery, Gil Gallery, last month in downtown Charlotte. Gil, a Columbia native, is self-taught. He worked with Colombia’s great masters such as Hector Favio Castaño — who “fed his spirit with the dirty world” of art, as the painter Jorge Botero Lujan expressed it — when Gil began his dizzying career in the art world.

After moving to the U.S. in 2000 and a short stint in Miami, Gil established himself in Charlotte where he is known for his Hispanic art.

For more information, visit www.EdwinGil.com.

Artist Opportunities

For a list of artist opportunities, visit our Artist Opportunities archive or subscribe to receive this e-news directly by sending an e-mail to ncarts@ncdcr.gov with the subject "Subscribe to Artist Opportunities."

ACROSS THE NATION

NEA Releases Arts Participation in Rural Urban Areas

Come as You Are: Informal Arts Participation in Urban and Rural Communities is the NEA’s first research publication in several years to examine the “informal arts” such as playing a musical instrument, attending an art event at a place of worship or visiting a craft fair.

“Art works everywhere and this new research helps us to understand the many ways and many places in which people across America experience art in their daily lives,” said NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman. “I look forward to drawing on this data as we move forward with opportunities for cities and towns to invest in the arts in their communities.”

The publication provides an analysis of arts participation in rural and urban areas. Come as You Are: Informal Arts Participation in Urban and Rural Communities is available in print and PDF on the NEA Web site. The publication analyzes data from the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA).

Some of the findings are:

• In 2008, one in four residents from each type of community — urban or rural — visited a historical park or neighborhood or attended an arts and craft fair; one in five adults from both communities went to an outdoor performing arts festival.
• Twenty percent of both urban and rural dwellers attended a music, theater or dance performance at a place of worship.
• Urban and rural dwellers played musical instruments at the same rate — 13 percent. Nine percent of each group created paintings, drawings or sculptures. Two percent performed dance.
• There are two notable exceptions: rural residents were more likely to sing in choirs, sew, weave, crochet or quilt. Urban dwellers were more likely than rural dwellers to create photography, videos or films for artistic purposes.

Arts in the News

New math of Poetry

The Chronicle of Higher Education featured the story The New Math of Poetry by poet and critic David Alpaugh. He asserts that writing and performing poetry has spilled out from the universities to the mainstream, where “you can write your first poem in May and appear at an open mike in June waving a ‘chapbook’ for sale.” The new math of poetry is driven not by reader demand for great or even good poetry but by the demand of myriads of aspiring poets to experience the thrill of "publication." And he’s not sure that’s a good thing. You decide. Click here to read the article.  

Charlotte Arts Featured in New York Times

The Charlotte arts scene was featured in a Sunday, March 28, travel story in The New York Times. The story, entitled Arts Oasis in a Sporty Town, highlights the new Wells Fargo Cultural Campus. Click to read the story.