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News
Innovative Culture Builds Communities Grants Announced
The Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester, in collaboration with the City of Rochester and Citibank, announces the first-ever Culture Builds Communities (CBC) grants to neighborhood organizations.
A total of $50,000 will be distributed to seven projects that enable Rochester artists to work with neighborhood residents to create a lasting work of art. The purpose of each project is to support neighborhood pride through art-making. The grants program is managed by the Arts & Cultural Council, and funded equally by the City of Rochester and Citibank. The grants range in size from $970 to $15,000.
In announcing the grants, Rochester’s Mayor William A. Johnson, Jr., said, “This program represents a new way of thinking about the role of art in community development. We are pleased to support these projects that will strengthen neighborhoods through Neighbors Building Neighborhoods (NBN).”
Citibank’s President Fred Kulikowski said, “Citibank has a longstanding commitment throughout New York State to strengthening communities through the arts. This is a community development investment in Rochester that we are delighted to make.”
The seven CBC projects will involve neighborhood groups from all four quadrants of the city. The projects include the development of a gateway sculpture; several murals; a quilt; an informational kiosk topped with artwork; and an interdisciplinary work for children’s chorus and string quartet. Each project is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The grants were determined by a panel of community leaders and artists, including: Nancy Johns Price, Rochester-Monroe County Youth Bureau; J. K. Nsaa, Rochester Area Community Foundation; Cecil Felton, Rochester Community Television; Walter Zimmerman, visual artist; Norine Jones, Citibank; Vickie Bell, City of Rochester; and Ginna Moseson and Sally Gaskill, Arts & Cultural Council.
Culture Builds Communities
1998 Recipients Sector 1
Charlotte Community Association, visual art, $5,900
Artist: John Kastner
Location: Charlotte Branch Library Community Room
Project: for a mural, Historic Charlotte - A Community That Cares. Community residents will choose the subjects of the mural at a number of community forums and at schools and senior centers. Subject areas may include Charlotte’s early settlement including Native Americans; Charlotte as a thriving port and transportation crossroads; and Ontario Beach, the Genesee River, and Lake Ontario as Rochester’s center for water-based recreation. The mural will be used as the background for a series of storytelling presentations at the library.
Sector 4
19th Ward Community Association, music/photography, $7,180
Artists: Genesis String Quartet and photographer Anthony Cowart
Location: Throughout the 19th Ward
Project: for the Genesis String Quartet and photographer Anthony Cowart to create an interdisciplinary work that celebrates diversity and community in the 19th Ward. Written for string quartet and children's voices, the performance piece will incorporate music and a slide presentation that captures the essence of the neighborhood through images of its people, places, and events. Composer Beth Bultman will write the music by utilizing favorite tunes of neighborhood residents. The Genesis String Quartet and a neighborhood children's choir will premiere the work at the 19th Ward Community Association's Annual Convention in November, and it will be video and audio-taped for future showings.
Southwest Area Neighborhood Association, visual art, $14,550
Artist: Pat Bacon
Location: James Madison School of Excellence, Genesee Street
Project: for a multi-media mural, "Striving for Excellence in a World of Diversity," combining photographic images of excellence and diversity in collaboration with students from the new James Madison School of Excellence. The new work will complement the recently restored WPA mural by Carl Peter that hung in the old Madison High. Mounted together, these works will reflect the changing character of both the Southwest neighborhood and the different eras in which the murals were created.
Sector 6
South Wedge Planning Committee, crafts, $4,500
Artists: Craig Wilson and Don Naetzker
Location: Corner of South Avenue and Mt. Hope Avenue
Project: for a kiosk topped with artwork that reflects the history and features of the South Wedge. Metal artist Craig Wilson and landscape architect Don Naetzker will work with students from Monroe Middle School to design and construct the project. The kiosk will serve as a welcoming beacon to the South Wedge.
Sector 7
Sector 7 Neighbors Building Neighborhoods, crafts, $970
Artist: Susannah Gravino
Location: Monroe Branch Library
Project: for a quilt that will be displayed in the Children's Room of the Monroe Branch Library. Visual artist Susannah Gravino will collaborate with library staff and patrons, young and old, to design and sew a quilt with hand-appliqued characters from children's storybooks. Story hour attendees, past and present, will contribute patches of favorite clothing that will be included in the quilt.
Sector 8
North East Area Development, visual art, $15,000
Artist: David Merkel
Location: Corner of North Goodman Street and Webster Avenue
Project: for the Land/Mark Gateway sculpture, a symbolic gateway to Beechwood, Upper and Lower Marketview Neighborhoods. The project will concentrate on the concept of "community," by interweaving historic and contemporary designs celebrating the vitality of Northeast Rochester. Participants will include neighborhood residents and businesses.
Sector 10
Green Acres Pantry, visual art, $1,900
Artists: Mimi Schiller and Lorraine Tyra
Location: Joseph Avenue
Project: for a mural on the outside wall of the Green Acres neighborhood drop-in center, designed and produced by children and adults from the community. The mural will convey positive images of both nature and of influential citizens, past and present, from the neighborhood.
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