Emergency Working Artist Project Grant
Emergency Working Artist Project Grant
In the project titled ?Earth's Offering,? I will explore food and local communities by creating a series of six shrink boxes with themes of local and sustainable food harvests. Three of the shrink boxes will be donated to North House Folk School.
Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Tammy Mattonen: visual artists, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Kayla Aubid: Native American craft artist, writer, employee at MacRostie Art Center; Kathy Neff: musician, Director, Fine Arts Academy at the University of Minnesota-Duluth; Ron Piercy: jeweler, gallery owner; Emily Swanson: arts administrator at Oldenburg Arts and Cultural Community.
Amber Burns: choreographer, dancer, actor, middle school art teacher; Kendra Carlson: writing and theater instructor, University of Minnesota Duluth; Carla Hamilton-Eisele: visual and multimedia artist; Karen Savage Blue: visual artist; Moira Villiard: visual artist.
ACHF Arts Access
This coming summer I had plans to teach numerous classes, participate in art festivals, and sell work through local and regional galleries and gift shops. As of now all of the classes and festivals have been cancelled and the galleries and gift shops are uncertain about when they will re-open and whether the tourist economy will pick up enough to keep them in business. My artistic and financial plans for this upcoming year have changed drastically, and living through this pandemic is impacting the direction of my artistic expression. My goal here is to focus on a project that will strengthen my skills in green woodworking and express my gratitude for the local ecosystem and the harvesting knowledge that has been passed down through generations. I will use the traditional food storage containers of my Scandinavian ancestors to celebrate the traditional foods of this place, thereby blending cultures and ideas and honoring the importance of food to our communities. Throughout my artistic career I have received numerous grants and have been part of a two-year residency program. These experiences have taught me about the importance of budgeting and spending money wisely, carrying a project through to completion and reporting on the project. Last spring, I applied to hold an exhibition of artistic brooms, dustpans, wooden bowls and shrink boxes at Johnson Heritage post-Art Gallery in Grand Marias, and my acceptance for a show in January of 2020 gave me the opportunity to create a vision and follow through to create something truly unique and well-received. My pure passion about this particular project is another confidence-builder. I am concerned about the security of the world's food systems, which makes this project, and its messages, a priority.I will know that I have succeeded with this project when I create the six shrink boxes and push my skill level through learning new methods for carving and painting. My success will also be measured through the donation of the three containers to North House Folk School. Throughout the project I will journal about the personal impacts this work and the ideas of food security in our local communities brings about in me. Furthermore, I will post-photos and thoughts to social media throughout this project and then track public response to the work through feedback on the social media platforms and the comments section on my website.
My main goal was to use the traditional food storage containers of my Scandinavian ancestors to celebrate the traditional foods of this place, thereby blending cultures and ideas and honoring the importance of food to our communities. I achieved my goals by creating the six shrink boxes and pushing my skill level through learning new methods for carving and painting. I have the three shrink boxes ready to donate to North House Folk School, where staff have told me they will be used for sugar containers with their coffee set-ups. Throughout the project I journaled about the personal impacts this work and the ideas of food security in our local communities brings about in myself. I posted photos and thoughts to social media throughout this project and and tracked public response to the work through feedback on the social media platforms.