Rural and Community Art Project Grant
Rural and Community Art Project Grant
Picnic Operetta "Philemon and Baucis"
Janeen Carey: vocalist, retired Hibbing Community College librarian and information media specialist; Adam Guggemos: graphic designer, art events promoter; Michelle Ronning: jewelry designer and maker; Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Moira Villiard: visual artist; Jeanne Doty: Retired Associate Professor of Music at University of Minnesota-Duluth, pianist; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Margaret Holmes: visual artist, poet, former Children's Theatre employee; Tammy Mattonen: visual artist, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Quentin Stille: student liaison, College Music Director at KUMD.
Janeen Carey: vocalist, retired Hibbing Community College librarian and information media specialist; Duane Barnhart: watercolor painter, cartoonist; Mary McReynolds: arts administrator at Lyric Center for the Arts; Chris Marcotte: retired social worker, historian, writer; Maria Brown: art instructor and program coordinator at CHOICE, unlimited!; Margaret Holmes: visual artist, poet, former Children's Theatre employee.
ACHF Arts Access ACHF Arts Education ACHF Cultural Heritage
The overall mission of Northern Lakes Arts Association is to enrich the quality of life for our members, the community, and the surrounding area through support and development of the visual, literary and performing arts. For this particular event, we have these specific goals: 1) to present a professional piece of music theater to a remote, rural audience; 2) to build relationships between/among entities: Northern Lakes Arts Association, Northern Delicious CSA, Mixed Precipitation, and the communities of Ely, Babbitt and surrounding areas; 3) to expose rural audiences to new musical genres presented in a creative format; 4) to build awareness of, exposure to, support for, and the viability of sustainable, community-supported agriculture; 5) to support creative performing artists of Minnesota; 6) to enjoy fresh, flavorful creatively-prepared produce in a farm setting; 7) to explore themes of fear, displacement and hospitality to strangers; 8) to build our audience and presence in the community. The methods to measure outcomes will include attendance and ticket sales to assess breadth of audience impact, including new and renewed memberships, and an audience survey to assess the depth of the experience.
In our grant proposal, Northern Lakes Arts Association (NLAA) projected 150 adults and 30 children would attend the event. We exceeded adult attendance and had around 200 adults and about the anticipated 30 kids. Because Mixed Precipitation does not charge for attendance (but takes donations at the "door" --actually this was the path to the back field in this case), it was hard to know exactly how many people were there, but based on a quick "head count," attendance exceeded projections and were significantly higher than last year. We did not track membership in Northern Lakes Arts Association at the event, but we did have a table with membership information available at the venue and enrolled some people after the event who had taken membership information. We did do a follow-up survey (please see attached sample comments) and responses were overwhelmingly positive. Audience members loved the farm venue, loved the live singers and instrumentalists, liked the story-line and sustainability message, and mostly liked the food choices (some of the kids weren't too enthusiastic about some of the food).
Other, local or private