Portland, December 20st. The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) announced that $732,440 will be awarded for artistic projects scheduled to take place in 2013 – including 66 grants to organizations and schools, and 94 individual artists in Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington Counties. This is the largest sum that RACC has ever awarded for project grants.
Keller Auditorium Mural – Una Kim and Students from Portland State University
222 SW Clay; RACC Funding: $3200; 18’H x 108’L
RACC’s funding of project grants is up 5% over last year, thanks to solid public investments from the City of Portland, Clackamas County, Multnomah County, Washington County, and Metro; and continued growth of Work for Art, RACC’s workplace giving program. Demand is up even more: RACC received 352 eligible applications this cycle – up 12% over last year.
Seventy volunteers serving on 18 different panels evaluated the proposals based on artistic merit, audience development and financial accountability. In the end, 160 (45%) of the proposals were recommended for funding and ultimately approved by the RACC Board on December 19th.
A complete list of grants awarded can be found at www.racc.org/2013projectgrants. They include:
- The National Alliance on Mental Illness of Clackamas County received a first-time RACC grant for Stand Up for Mental Health and will present comedy classes to individuals living with chronic mental health issues.
- The Hillsboro Farmers’ Market in Washington County will present a series of summer cultural festivals in celebration of the diversity of the Hillsboro community featuring performances and crafts highlighting the Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and Indian communities.
- Other culturally-specific artistic projects include performances of Lyndee Mah’s memoir piece E-B’an, Damaris Webb’s solo show The Box Marked Black, and Boom Arts’ puppet musical Tunde’s Trumpet. RACC also continues to fund diverse organizations like India Cultural Association, RASIKA, The Obo Addy Legacy Project, Painted Sky, and Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival.
- The number of applications to RACC’s Media Arts category continues to grow every year, and Grand Detour received its first RACC award to produce the 2nd annual Experimental Film Fest at venues throughout the city. Other projects funded in this category include Sway of the Knife by Vu N. Pham and Cooped, a hand-drawn animated short film by Mike A. Smith.
- RACC also funded a number of multi-discipline projects that included strong media or technology elements, including Water in the Desert’s interdisciplinary performance AMERICAN ME, and Bill Holznagel’s Daisy Shorts using film and puppetry. Kelly Rauer’s Underbelly and Jacob Pander’s Incident Energy are both multi-channel video installations, and Ben Darwish’s Adobe Globe is a long-form musical composition incorporating multimedia elements.
- For the first time, RACC convened a visual arts panel focused solely on photography projects, which resulted in several first time project grant recipients including Teresa Christiansen, Anna Daedalus, Loren Nelson and TJ Norris.
- RACC-funded projects will continue to engage youth in many ways, ranging from Staged! Portland’s Musical Theatre Series’ professional premiere of “Ablaze: an a cappella musical thriller” written by local playwright and composer Matthew Zrebski, to the Girls Rock Institute at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls, and the Kukatonon Children’s African Dance Troupe program.
- In addition, an anonymous donor continues to provide special funding for an annual “Innovation Prize” of $2,500. This year’s award for outstanding, innovative, media-oriented project goes to Orlund Nutt for a short movie based on the James Broughton poem, ‘Bear of Heaven’.
“We were amazed and inspired by the proposals we received this year,” said Eloise Damrosch, executive director of RACC. “It is especially gratifying to see that our outreach to artists and arts organizations is resulting in a significant increase in new applications. These grant awards will bring exciting variety to the region’s artistic offerings next year.”
A complete listing of grants appears below, and summaries of each grant are available at www.racc.org/2013projectgrants.
Note: (*) denotes Clackamas County applicants, and (**) denotes Washington County based applicants. All other applicants are based in Multnomah County.
| Organization | Category/Discipline | Amount |
| Architecture Foundation of Oregon | Arts-in-Schools | $ 6,000 |
| Beaverton Civic Theatre ** | Community Participation | $ 3,620 |
| Boom Arts | Theatre | $ 6,000 |
| Bubbaville | Community Participation | $ 5,800 |
| Buckman Arts Focus Elementary | Arts-in-Schools | $ 4,800 |
| Classical Revolution PDX | Music | $ 2,460 |
| Compass Repertory Theatre | Community Participation | $ 5,024 |
| Conduit Dance, Inc. | Dance | $ 6,000 |
| Dill Pickle Club | Community Participation | $ 5,691 |
| Dill Pickle Club | Literature | $ 3,720 |
| Estacada Arts Commission * | Community Participation | $ 5,058 |
| Experimental Half-Hour | Media Arts | $ 4,800 |
| FearNoMusic | Music | $ 5,400 |
| Friends of Marquam Nature Park | Community Participation | $ 4,800 |
| Grand Detour | Media Arts | $ 3,731 |
| Hand2Mouth Theatre | Theatre | $ 5,700 |
| Hillsboro Farmers’ Markets, INC. ** | Community Participation | $ 4,800 |
| Impact NW | Arts-in-Schools | $ 5,998 |
| India Cultural Association ** | Community Participation | $ 3,655 |
| Irvington School PTA | Arts-in-Schools | $ 3,542 |
| Kukatonon | Arts-in-Schools | $ 5,700 |
| Lewis & Clark College Hoffman Gallery | Visual Arts | $ 5,100 |
| Living Stages | Community Participation | $ 4,720 |
| Media, Arts & Technology Institute | Arts-in-Schools | $ 4,304 |
| MetroArts Inc | Music | $ 4,316 |
| Museum of Contemporary Craft | Folk Arts | $ 6,000 |
| Music Access Project of Portland | Arts-in-Schools | $ 4,800 |
| My Voice Music | Community Participation | $ 5,307 |
| National Alliance on Mental Illness of Clackamas County * | Community Participation | $ 4,433 |
| NAYA Family Center | Arts-in-Schools | $ 4,800 |
| NAYA Family Center | Community Participation | $ 4,500 |
| North Clackamas School District * | Arts-in-Schools | $ 4,500 |
| Opera Theater Oregon | Theatre | $ 4,999 |
| Oregon Cultural Access | Community Participation | $ 3,521 |
| Orlo | Literature | $ 5,950 |
| Pacific Northwest College of Art | Visual Arts | $ 6,000 |
| Painted Sky Inc. ** | Folk Arts | $ 4,520 |
| Polaris Dance Theatre | Dance | $ 4,800 |
| Polish Library Association | Presenting | $ 5,700 |
| Portland Actors Conservatory | Theatre | $ 3,685 |
| Portland Children’s Museum | Community Participation | $ 6,000 |
| Portland Jazz Festival | Music | $ 4,800 |
| Portland Oregon Women’s Film Festival | Media Arts | $ 4,800 |
| Portland Playhouse | Theatre | $ 4,800 |
| QDoc | Media Arts | $ 5,950 |
| Portland Revels | Community Participation | $ 3,560 |
| Portland Story Theater | Theatre | $ 4,380 |
| Portland-Suzhou Sister City Association ** | Multi-Discipline | $ 3,200 |
| Portland State University Department of Art | Visual Arts | $ 4,000 |
| RASIKA – India Arts and Culture Council | Music | $ 4,608 |
| RECESS LLC | Social Practice | $ 3,563 |
| Resonance Ensemble | Music | $ 6,000 |
| Rex Putnam High School Theatre Department * | Arts-in-Schools | $ 5,220 |
| Jerry Tischleder | Presenting | $ 5,985 |
| Rock and Roll Camp for Girls | Community Participation | $ 4,800 |
| Signal Fire | Multi-Discipline | $ 3,000 |
| Sowelu Theater | Theatre | $ 4,425 |
| Staged! Portland’s Musical Theatre Series * | Theatre | $ 5,044 |
| The Art Gym, Marylhurst University * | Visual Arts | $ 4,500 |
| The Library Foundation | Community Participation | $ 4,800 |
| The Obo Addy Legacy Project | Multi-Discipline | $ 5,850 |
| Theatre In The Grove ** | Community Participation | $ 4,800 |
| Theatre Vertigo | Theatre | $ 3,222 |
| Water in the Desert | Mizu Desierto | Multi-Discipline | $ 4,800 |
| Willamette Partnership ** | Arts-in-Schools | $ 2,280 |
| World Forestry Center | Visual Arts | $ 2,687 |
| Individual Artists | Category/Discipline | Amount |
| Devon Allen | Theatre | $ 4,620 |
| Corey Averill * | Music | $ 4,463 |
| Hayley Barker | Visual Arts | $ 3,513 |
| Amy Bernstein | Multi-Discipline | $ 4,260 |
| Barbara Bernstein | Media Arts | $ 6,000 |
| Jesse Blanchard | Multi-Discipline | $ 5,486 |
| Andy Blubaugh | Media Arts | $ 5,624 |
| Beth Madsen Bradford | Music | $ 1,654 |
| Gary Brickner-Schulz | Theatre | $ 4,603 |
| Tracy Broyles | Dance | $ 4,370 |
| Jessica Burton | Dance | $ 3,727 |
| Teresa Christiansen | Visual Arts | $ 4,119 |
| Anna Crandall | Community Participation | $ 4,569 |
| CarlosAlexis Cruz | Theatre | $ 4,800 |
| Philip Cuomo | Theatre | $ 4,926 |
| Anna Daedalus | Visual Arts | $ 5,700 |
| Berl Dana’y | Arts-in-Schools | $ 2,640 |
| Ben Darwish | Music | $ 5,700 |
| Shelby Davis | Visual Arts | $ 4,800 |
| Daniel Duford | Visual Arts | $ 4,560 |
| Dan Duval | Music | $ 5,830 |
| Wynde Dyer | Visual Arts | $ 5,696 |
| Lisa Fink | Community Participation | $ 1,984 |
| Subashini Ganesan | Dance | $ 4,616 |
| Keyon Gaskin | Multi-Discipline | $ 5,382 |
| Nicole J. Georges | Community Participation | $ 5,400 |
| Leanne Grabel | Literature | $ 4,450 |
| Anna Gray | Visual Arts | $ 4,380 |
| Cheryl Green | Community Participation | $ 4,198 |
| Jenni GreenMiller | Theatre | $ 3,218 |
| Ashia Joanna Grzesik | Music | $ 1,625 |
| Courtenay Hameister | Multi-Discipline | $ 4,300 |
| Joel Harmon | Theatre | $ 2,888 |
| Jen Harrison | Music | $ 5,033 |
| Chisao Hata | Dance | $ 5,100 |
| Matthew Henderson | Multi-Discipline | $ 2,924 |
| Ashley Hollingshead | Theatre | $ 5,034 |
| Bill Holznagel * | Multi-Discipline | $ 4,425 |
| CJ Hurley | Visual Arts | $ 4,500 |
| Kazuyo Ito | Arts-in-Schools | $ 4,489 |
| Sara Jaffe | Literature | $ 4,182 |
| Julie Keefe | Community Participation | $ 5,475 |
| Eva Kokopeli | Community Participation | $ 3,808 |
| Joanne Kollman | Visual Arts | $ 5,092 |
| Lee Krist | Visual Arts | $ 4,774 |
| Andrea Leoncavallo | Visual Arts | $ 4,800 |
| Alain LeTourneau | Visual Arts | $ 4,624 |
| Lyndee Mah | Multi-Discipline | $ 4,500 |
| Margaret Malone | Literature | $ 1,640 |
| Carla Mann | Dance | $ 5,963 |
| Paul Martone | Literature | $ 5,387 |
| Jim McGinn | Dance | $ 4,800 |
| Max McGrath-Riecke | Theatre | $ 5,631 |
| Janet McIntyre | Multi-Discipline | $ 4,794 |
| Chaz Mortimer | Arts-in-Schools | $ 5,700 |
| Emily Nachison | Visual Arts | $ 5,100 |
| Loren Nelson ** | Visual Arts | $ 3,298 |
| Eric Nordin ** | Theatre | $ 4,774 |
| TJ Norris | Visual Arts | $ 1,688 |
| Orland Nutt | Media Arts | $ 4,566 |
| Orland Nutt | Innovation Prize | $ 2,500 |
| Caroline Oakley | Arts-in-Schools | $ 4,680 |
| Kristin Olson-Huddle | Theatre | $ 3,500 |
| Brian Padian | Media Arts | $ 5,079 |
| Jacob Pander | Media Arts | $ 5,307 |
| Casey Parks | Media Arts | $ 5,100 |
| Leif Peterson | Media Arts | $ 4,500 |
| Nick Peterson | Media Arts | $ 5,695 |
| Vu N. Pham | Media Arts | $ 5,026 |
| Lisa Radon | Multi-Discipline | $ 4,900 |
| Jayanthi Raman ** | Dance | $ 5,355 |
| Kelly Rauer | Media Arts | $ 5,596 |
| Michael Reinsch | Multi-Discipline | $ 3,463 |
| Michelle Ross | Visual Arts | $ 1,200 |
| John C. Savage | Music | $ 3,376 |
| Crystal Schenk | Visual Arts | $ 4,800 |
| Lisa Ann Schonberg | Multi-Discipline | $ 5,100 |
| Heidi Schwegler | Multi-Discipline | $ 5,144 |
| Rebecca L. Shapiro | Visual Arts | $ 5,229 |
| Larry Sherman | Multi-Discipline | $ 4,800 |
| Carter Sickels | Literature | $ 3,420 |
| Shalanda R. Sims | Arts-in-Schools | $ 5,100 |
| Stephen Slappe | Media Arts | $ 5,946 |
| Mike A. Smith | Media Arts | $ 3,360 |
| Julia Stoops | Visual Arts | $ 5,686 |
| Paul Susi | Theatre | $ 4,063 |
| Minh Tran | Dance | $ 4,500 |
| Curtis Walker | Community Participation | $ 5,558 |
| Samantha Wall | Visual Arts | $ 1,368 |
| Holcombe Waller | Multi-Discipline | $ 5,700 |
| Archie Washington | Community Participation | $ 4,069 |
| Damaris Webb | Theatre | $ 2,970 |
| Jackie Weissman | Media Arts | $ 4,800 |
| Emmett Wheatfall | Multi-Discipline | $ 3,260 |
| Alan Wone | Media Arts | $ 4,760 |
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Mary Bauer
Communications Associate
Regional Arts & Culture Council
