The grant proposal. Here's how I'm describing it to the participants I'd invite. Those participants are the ad hoc members of a group of female artists that meets monthly, and an ad hoc group of female experimental poets that meets monthly:

Micole Hebron
Kristin Calabrese
Erin Cosgrove
Betsy Davis
Dawn Kasper
Elizabeth Tremante
and many more

Martha Ronk
Diane Ward
Therese Bachand
Michelle Costa-Baron
Larkin Higgins
Barbara Maloutas
Jen Hofer
Deborah Meadows
and many more
I am going to try to apply for a grant to publish a number of collaborative books -- written by pairs or groups of invited female visual artists and writers -- in 8 1/2 x 11 black and white, laminated cover format as print on demand books, with 25 copies to each participant. FYI, to look decent, they need to be at least 100 pages long, since the paper stock is yucky.
I see the presentation / public portion of the project as being a series of talks / readings about the collaborations, by each pair of collaborators or as roundtables, and I imagine they'll be in these venues (which are more commonly poetry venues) (anyone who knows someone at a public arts space who can put in e-mail that we can do this -- e-mail me!):
Eagle Rock Community Center (has a gallery and a meeting space)Eric Garcetti's office on SunsetPasadena Public LibrarySunland-Tujunga Librarythe smellBeyond BaroqueThe UCLA Hammer Museumvarious bookstores
There will be public kick off, "middle point" and end events. For the kick off, I think it would be nice if the writers read for all the artists, and the artists showed the poets what they were up to at the beginning -- before the collaborations begin, so we can "pair off." In the middle of the collaborative / publication process, a similar reading / show would I think keep the process on track. The end of the project would be more of a gala celebration and presentation of the grant project (as required). For the larger readings / demos / roundtable, the Hammer Museum I know has a screen and a laptop projector and experience doing these residencies (this would be separate from any of their reading series, including my old one). The smell has a screen, and I think so does Beyond Baroque, which is a better venue than the smell. I can sometimes get a loaner projector; I'm sure some of you can too.
This description is still confusing, but I think you can see that it is not as though the footprint of the project is very large at any insitution, but that as a reading / demo alone it would be pretty exciting and worthwhile.

Because the proposal is for Sept 2005-Sept 2006, and it won't happen in this shape without the grant, it isn't necessary to worry about scheduling yet. Apparently, all I need is a more formal version of the e-mail you just sent -- to the effect that it sounds like something that is within the Beyond Baroque mission and that it would be eager to support by putting the event in the calendar and offering its space-- to print out and enclose with the application. Which has to be postmarked today!

I'll be at the airport p.o. at 10 pm, I'm sure!


Briefly outline your proposal (who, what, when, where and how). What are the overall goals of your project?

Who: Catherine Daly. Catherine Daly in collaboration with visual artist(s) tbd for one publication. Catherine Daly in collaboration with artists in a “first audience” of approximately 50 members for the entire project. Probably about 18 artists in collaboration with other artists, numbers and identities tbd, but drawn from the “first audience.” A public audience of approximately 500.

What: Ten collaborative projects resulting in publication (in hard-cover coffee table book form), roundtable discussion and presentation of in-process projects followed by Q&A, performance, showing, or demonstration of the pieces published. I have two roles: artist on one project and collaborating artist on ten projects.

When: One year spanning the entire grant period. Events at the project start, middle of the project, and project end.

Where: various locations in Los Angeles.

How: By gathering the people and resources necessary to complete my project, I will complete several publication, showing, and performance projects.

One goal of my project is to bring the process of art-making, which is collaborative by its very nature, into the public sphere.

Describe the short and long term community benefits that will result from your residence.

As you know, Los Angeles is arguably the center of the international contemporary art “scene” as well as the center of the entertainment and music industries. Its theatre, supported by its large population of actors, is second in the nation. Yet, it is arguably one of the worst major American cities to experience poetry in performance. The very idea that poetry is an art which has a relation to the other fine arts, that a poet is an artist with a relationship to other artists, is new in LA.

Through this project, which for its budget is very large-scale, I believe I could offer Los Angeles the opportunity to expose the ways in which it is friendly to entrepreneurial efforts by interdisciplinary artists working together. For the short term, it would benefit a small audience of approximately 50 artists by allowing these artists to reach an audience they would not ordinarily reach and complete work they could not conceive and execute otherwise. It would also benefit a larger audience of as many as 500 people (over the course of the year and many events in many locations) by allowing them to witness and participate in the art-making process more actively than their customary roles as after-the-fact reader and audience member would allow. I expect half of this larger audience will consist of people who love visual art, but who are unfamiliar with poetry and intermedia writing. I expect the other half of this larger audience will consist of people who love poetry or performance, but who are unfamiliar with visual and intermedia art.

Because the project is proposing published documentation of the collaboration, these documents, too, will have a short-term and long-term benefit, as example, record, and as art object.

Describe the participants and audience to be served by the project (gender, family type, age group, economic class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and/or any other relevant information).

The smaller group of artists is entirely female, but has a wide range in age, experience, ethnicity, sexual orientation, economic class, and family type (although most of the artists have college degrees, and this education makes them an unusual group of women). They live in many different districts in LA, and I will make an effort to allow these participants to bring new events to their neighborhood audiences. The special needs of this audience? A forum, one it is still more difficult for female artists than male artists to access.

The larger group of audience members is “everybody,” with the exception that new audiences will be reached largely through careful selection of venues. For example, the smell is an all-ages music club in downtown Los Angeles. Readings, art shows, and other non-musical events at the smell, the Community Room at Eric Garcetti’s District office, and the Cultural Arts Center in Eagle Rock draw a teenage-to-twentysomething multiethnic audience. The UCLA Hammer Museum and the Digital Arts facilities at UCLA as well as Beyond Baroque draw a sophisticated westside art audience of all ages which is more accustomed to viewing intermedia work, attending arts roundtables and discussions, and the like.

Describe your participation or relationship with the host venue(s).

I have run reading series at the smell and at the UCLA Hammer Museum. I have co-curated reading series with the Electronic Literature Organization at UCLA. I have read from my published works at Beyond Baroque, the Eric Garcetti District Office Community Room, and the Cultural Arts Center in Eagle Rock. I am familiar with what these facilities have to offer, and with working with the venues to market events of my own planning.

Describe how this residence will benefit your own artistic development.

Even though I have considered some of my work to be written in collaboration with other (dead) writers and with potential / eventual readers, and even though some of my written work has an intermedia (visual, new media, graphic design) aspect and some of my visual work has an intermedia aspect, I have never been able to fund a collaboration of mine with anyone, since this collaboration by necessity involves publication and public viewing / performance of the results of that collaboration. With this project, not only will I be able to complete a collaborative work – in the full sense that entails publication / showing / performance, but I will be a “collaborator for collaborators” – I will also have a participant’s role in other collaborations, which I expect to be part teaching, part editing, part production, but also artistic. I think I am planning a total and totally exciting learning experience. It is wonderful that art leads to further art, different art, art that seems to “grow,” “develop,” and “progress.” I see this project, in a metaphorical way, as one where I get to build a greenhouse for myself, and then invite Los Angeles in.

Describe your artistic history and your ability to implement this residence. Emphasize any special training, experiences, fluencies, or expertise that will benefit the project.

I believe that my training, experience, and accomplishment as an editor and writer, as a reading series curator and marketer, and as an artist demonstrate that I am uniquely qualified to complete a residency with this large scope.

Will there be collaborating artists? If so, describe them or your selection process and the roles of the collaborating artists.

There will be collaborating artists, which I will invite to participate from groups of female artists with which I meet regularly. While I have included bios and cvs of some of the collaborating artists I will invite to participate in the residency, more artists will be invited to participate by collaboration than those I list here. Aside from my own collaboration, the other collaborations that I choose to publish and feature in events as part of the grant cycle will be those – not to be too selfish – which I think will exploit the planned formats best, and which will benefit my project as a whole most.

During the initial phase of discussing the project with the artists I regularly get together with, I was ecstatic to witness the environment we create for each other briefly each month reproducing itself in support for this project. We get together because we can discuss very process-specific thoughts and challenges to a comprehending and supportive audience, but also to get new ideas, different points of view, leads and contacts.

While talking through this project, I’ve been led to recognize the types of roles the “first audience” has in the project – not only audience and catalyst, but graphic design team, pr and marketing team, performance gurus, audio-visual department, critic, friend – fellow artist. It’s like a meta-collaboration. In other words, from the range of collaborative projects proposed that can be well executed and completed according to the project plan, I will choose those which most clearly offer the possibilities of “meta-collaboration” that the “first audience” as a whole offers.

Describe how you will collaborate with your host venue for outreach. How much time and money do you estimate will be spent on marketing?

I do not expect to have to spend a great deal of money on marketing; for the readings series that I curate, very modest amounts of money, but large amount of time, are spent on e-mailings to my established lists, printing and distributing flyers and posters; faxing and otherwise distributing press releases and invitations to the press; ensuring the events are listed in the local newspaper calendars, online arts calendars, etc. For this series of events at multiple venues,. I will expect that the venues will cooperate with my marketing by performing the marketing efforts they perform for other events (if any): listings on venue web sites, printed calendars, e-mail lists, and mailing lists.

For each event, I expect to send out marketing postcards in addition to hundreds of e-mails; 100 of these marketing postcards generally cost $150.00 (including postage) per event.

What amount of interactivity is provided with your project? Describe the specific activities you will use to introduce yourself, your art, and the goals of the project to the community. How will you generate an atmosphere that encourages artistic expression by participants? Describe the creative methods or innovative approaches that make your project unique.

I believe my project is unique in that it opens the collaborative process to the public in a way that is commonly only experienced between the collaborating artists or between a reader reading the final printed product or an audience member attending the final show and performance.

Describe the project planning and evaluation. How will you determine impact and success? How much time and money do you estimate will be spent on evaluation?

Since I am also an experienced project manager in my other life, I expect to do the typical meeting scheduling, event planning and scheduling (which is conveniently at project milestones), marketing planning, and time and materials planning in addition to the publication-specific publication planning, scheduling, etc. I do not expect to spend a significant amount of time and money on evaluation outside the natural evaluation of the projects themselves as they move to performance, showing, and publication, and the evaluation of the marketing / outreach typically marked by increasing and changing mailing lists, e-mail notifications, etc. to garner larger and different audiences. I expect to develop a more formalized mailing list / comment sheet than I use for my other events; generally these are shared with the venue.


Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi. Just read your idea for a poetry-painting collaboration, and want to wish you well. For a year, I collaborated with poet Kathryn T.S. Bass, meeting once a month, talking, and trading new work. We showed the resulting original painting-poems at an Art Center, and had a book published, too. Visit www.kmgraham.com/artgallery-within.html to learn more. Good luck!
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