RACC Blog

The Right Brain Initiative challenged to raise $25,000 from individuals

Posted on January 29, 2013 at 12:00 pm.

Written by RACC IT

The Right Brain Initiative, an arts education program of the Regional Arts &Culture Council, has been awarded a significant matching challenge grant from the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund. This grant incentivizes program staff and stakeholders to raise $25,000 through individual gifts of $250 and higher by June 2013.

Ready to meet this challenge, Right Brain today launches the Imagination Fund campaign. Upon the successful procurement of $25,000, all contributions will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund. This match challenge is the first of a three-year commitment of $75,000 to energize and enhance the Initiative’s individual giving program.

“Our five-year-old program has only a modest history of engaging individual donors,” said Marna Stalcup, The Right Brain Initiative program manager. “This grant will be instrumental in helping us build our foundation of donors. We look forward to rallying the community in support of children’s access to creativity.”

The Right Brain Initiative is a unique and collaborative community effort to make the arts a basic part of every child’s education in the Portland metropolitan area. The program currently serves over 11,000 K-8 students. Right Brain works with teaching artists and teachers to design classroom experiences that integrate the arts with other areas of the curriculum. Right Brain also serves nearly 300 school staff through professional arts training each year. The Imagination Fund will directly support the program’s growth, particularly to high-need schools in the region.

In support of the Imagination Fund campaign, Right Brain has developed a mechanism for individuals to give through automatic monthly donations. Right Brain invites arts education advocates to donate online.

The Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund joins other major Right Brain funding partners including the Bank of America Charitable Foundation, the Collins Foundation, KeyBank, JPMorgan Chase, the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, The Standard, the PGE Foundation, and US Bank/US Bancorp Foundation. Private funders currently make up just over 50% of the program’s $800,000 budget. Find a full list of both public and private stakeholders at TheRightBrainInitiative.org/funding.

Artist Margot Myers presents “Radiate” at the Portland Building Installation Space,1/14 – 2/8

Posted on January 8, 2013 at 12:00 pm.

Written by RACC IT

Project Background: Bellingham artist Margot Myerscombines her drawings, prints and other media to create installations and works on paper. This month she will create a site-specific piece in the Portland Building Installation Space. Inspired by her study of turn-of-the-century scientific illustrations, she’s recently begun working with intricate stencils to describe complex biological forms of radiolaria—microscopic skeletal structures found in ocean sediment. This installation will feature a large stencil cut from MRI film that will describe a magnified radiolaria skeleton. The stencils will be hung horizontally and lit from above, in order to cast shadowy replicas of the cut-outs onto the wall. Myers will then create a drawing on the wall beneath the shadow in response to the visual characteristics of the projected stencils. In keeping with her experimental process different media and materials will be employed to create this portion of the work.

“I want to talk about the incredible force that living things have, and I find these forms are rich territory for such work. The slow process of creating each object with a small knife is also itself an exercise in developing a visual vocabulary that deals with growth, evolving shapes and repeating patterns. The x-ray film is not only visually appealing, but it also echoes the skeletal and scientific nature of the radiolaria itself. The magnification of ocean sediment serves a similar function with the making of an x-ray: it makes visible to the naked eye that which is normally obscured from casual observation and introduces a new way of seeing.”

About the Artist: Margot Myers lives in Bellingham, Washington. As well as keeping her studio practice there, she owns a small business focused on making and selling hand crafted, functional batik textiles and spends each summer working with her family commercial fishing in Bristol Bay, Alaska. She received her MFA in Printmaking from New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico and has shown throughout the Northwest and in the greater U.S.

Viewing Hours & Location: 7 am to 6 pm, Monday – Friday. The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in downtown Portland.

For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space series including images, proposals and statements for all the installations since 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.

Rebecca Burrell elected to Americans for the Arts’ Emerging Leaders Council

Posted on January 4, 2013 at 12:00 pm.

Written by RACC IT

The Regional Arts & Culture Council today announced that Rebecca Burrell, outreach specialist for The Right Brain Initiative, has been elected to the Emerging Leaders Council of Americans for the Arts. AFTA is the nation’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts and arts education.

In addition to developing communications and coordinating community engagement programs for RACC’s arts education Initiative, Rebecca co-founded the Portland Emerging Arts Leaders group, and she is a member of the steering committee for Rebooting Democracy, a Gen Y-focused summit of ideas and innovation in democracy. Prior to RACC, Rebecca worked as the External Relations Specialist for the Museum of Contemporary Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art. She has also spent six years living in New York, New Mexico, California, Pennsylvania and Ohio working for an installation art museum, a design firm, a public radio station, a dance company and a rural middle school. She earned a BA in Communications/Print Media from Antioch College.

“I am really proud to provide Pacific Northwest representation to the Council, tying the incredible work of the Portland Emerging Arts Leaders to our peers around the nation,” she said. “I’m excited to connect with others who are ready to advance the arts through broad thinking and relevant risk taking. Thank you to AFTA for providing a platform for this.”

AFTA’s Emerging Leaders program works to identify and cultivate the next generation of arts leaders in America. It provides an ideal way for new leaders to share their interests with others as they continue to develop their skills and their commitment to the arts. New professionals are valuable to the arts community, and the 15 members of the Emerging Leaders Council are dedicated to ensuring that a bright and democratic future for the arts in America continues for generations to come.

“The Emerging Leader Council serves an important role in helping Americans for the Arts carry out one of its primary goals of strengthening an informed leadership,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. “Rebecca has been an exceptional leader within her community, and we are thrilled to welcome her to the national council.”

Other RACC staff serving on AFTA’s national councils include public art manager Peggy Kendellen, who serves on the Public Art Network Council; director of community affairs Jeff Hawthorne, who serves on AFTA’s Private Sector Council; and Eloise Damrosch, who represents Portland at AFTA’s United States Urban Arts Federation.

A new sculpture,”Noble Architect,” comes to NE Alberta Street

Posted on January 2, 2013 at 12:00 pm.

Written by RACC IT

A new sculpture, Noble Architect, was dedicated on Friday December 14 at 3:30pm by the artists at NE Alberta Street at 18th. This artwork was selected by a local panel of artists and citizens, and will become part of the City of Portland’s Public Art Collection, administered by the Regional Arts & Culture Council.

Artists Ruth Frances Greenberg and David Laubenthal conceived of the sculpture to “mirror the ebullient, raw and wonderful vigor of nature as well as our relationship to it.” Many different species of animals inhabited and thrived in this area before it was settled as the Portland we know. One of the abundant animals was the beaver. One could scarcely take a short walk without seeing one.

In a written statement, the artists explained their inspiration: “With so much regional history and lore we chose this remarkable animal to represent our reverence and respect for the resilient, beautiful, and abundantly generous natural world that remains intertwined with our human development. Our rendition of the beaver is intended to show the beaver in its innate majesty, grace, wildness, and dignity. It is an homage…a reverent depiction of a magnificent animal.” Its pose is dignified and vaguely humanized, standing on its stump, at just over six feet tall. The “fur” is a richly, hand-crafted, textured mosaic, inviting “petting” from passersby.

RACC awards $732,440 in project grants to schools, arts organizations and individual artists

Posted on December 20, 2012 at 12:00 pm.

Written by RACC IT

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) announced today 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.

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 Nelsonand 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 buyneurontinonlinehere.com 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 website below.

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

Regional Arts & Culture Council elects Eileen Day as new board member

Posted on December 17, 2012 at 12:00 pm.

Written by RACC IT

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) board of directors has elected Eileen L. Day as a new board member.

Eileen received degrees from Portland State University in Finance and Accounting. After graduating from Portland State, Eileen worked in the finance and accounting industry. She became a CPA in 1997. In 2005, she joined Holmes & Company, LLP and has been the audit partner since 2007.

Eileen is currently on the Board of Portland Center Stage and heads the audit committee. Prior to heading the audit committee, she was the Treasurer and a member of the Executive Committee. She has served as the chair and public member of the audit committee for the Beaverton School District and Treasurer for the Mount Hood Ski Patrol.

Lina Garcia Seabold is Board Chair of RACC with Peg Malloy Vice Chair, Jennifer C. Cies Treasurer, Alan Alexander III Secretary, and Carol R. Smith, Ed.D. Chair Emeritus.

Continuing RACC Board members for FY13 include: Jesse Beason, Nik Blosser, Verlea G. Briggs, Jessica Clark, Jay Clemens, Daryl Dixon, Mike Golub, Stacey A. Graham, Kira Higgs, Phillip Hillaire, Eric R. Hormel, Jerry E. Hudson, Karen Karbo, Joe Krumm, Max M. Miller, Jr., Bonita Oswald, Joanna Priestley, Brian Rice and Jan Robertson.

Board and staff profiles are available online at www.racc.org/about/staff-board.

RACC will present 11 workshops for artists in 2013

Posted on December 13, 2012 at 12:00 pm.

Written by RACC IT

Artists who are trying to make a living with their craft will benefit from a series of professional development workshops being presented by the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) from January through June of 2013. Each workshop is led by experts in his or her field; they focus on grant writing, marketing, legal issues, and building audiences to enhance and advance an artist’s career. RACC is committed to providing affordable learning opportunities that help artists succeed in the region; each workshop costs only $20-$30.

The 2013 workshop schedule includes:
• January 26: Fundamentals of Grant Writing for Individual Artists
• February 9: Marketing, the Same but Different
• February 20: To be or not to be a 501(c)3 and how (A panel discussion)
• March 2: Copyrights and Contracts 101: For Artists and Creative Professionals
• April 6: Putting the Pieces Together: How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Art or Event
• April 17: For Organizations: Building Audiences in a Complex and Competitive Environment
• May 4: The Artist Talk: How to Talk to Anyone Anywhere about Your Art
• May 21: Your Career in Music—options and next steps (A panel discussion)
• June 2: Music Business 101: Copyrights and Contracts for Musicians
• June 8: Grant Writing for Individual Artists: Making Your Story Work for You
• June 15: Writing for Artists: Engaging your audience

To register or learn more details about each workshop, including the presenter(s), the time and the location, visit website below. For more information, accessibility and translation needs please contact: 503-823-5111 or email info@racc.org.

Unveiling and Dedication of “Noble Architect” on NE Alberta Street

Posted on December 12, 2012 at 12:12 pm.

Written by RACC IT

WHO: Noble Architect by artists Ruth Frances Greenberg and David Laubenthal

WHAT: Sculpture Unveiling

WHEN: Friday, December 14, 2012 at 3:30pm

WHERE: Corner of NE Alberta Street at 18th

NOTES: Artists Ruth Frances Greenberg and David Laubenthal conceived of the sculpture to “mirror the ebullient, raw and wonderful vigor of nature as well as our relationship to it.” Many different species of animals inhabited and thrived in this area before it was settled as the Portland we know. One of the abundant animals was the beaver. Its pose is dignified and vaguely humanized, standing on its stump, at just over six feet tall. This artwork was selected by a local panel of artists and citizens, and will become part of the City of Portland’s Public Art Collection, administered by the Regional Arts & Culture Council.

Refreshments to follow at Alberta Main Street, just next door.

LINKS: The Unveiling