The Creative Work Fund is pleased to announce the awarding of 13 grants totaling $518,000 to literary and performing artists throughout the Bay Area to create new works through collaborations with nonprofit organizations. The 2014 grantees, each receiving grants ranging from $30,000-$40,000, will create poetry installations, interactive websites, music, theatrical and dance performances, as well as books and multi-disciplinary works.
Creative Work Fund is celebrating its 20th anniversary on September 1, and, since its inception in 1994, has contributed almost $11 million to advance art-making by Northern California artists in a variety of disciplines. The 2014 grants were awarded to artists in the disciplines of literary and performing arts.
“Over the past 20 years, the Creative Work Fund has funded over 300 projects that have brought local artists and nonprofits together to work on challenging projects,” said the Fund’s director, Frances Phillips. “Central themes for this year’s grantees include the region’s rapid growth and displacement of nonprofits and families, specific qualities of Bay Area neighborhoods, and cross cultural collaborations. We are excited to see the work of these 13 outstanding 2014 grantees come to fruition over the coming years. ”
From Sonoma to San Jose, the 2014 grant projects feature partnerships between artists and nonprofit organizations to create works that highlight social, historical and cultural issues. For more information about the Creative Work Fund’s 2014 awardees, their collaborators and projects, please see the attached project descriptions. A complete list of the awardees follows.
2014 Literary Arts Awardees & Collaborators
- Denise Newman (San Francisco) with University of California Botanical Gardens (Berkeley)
- Linda Norton (Oakland) with Peralta Hacienda Historical Park (Oakland)
- Barbara Jane Reyes (Oakland) with San Francisco State University Poetry Center and the University Corporation, San Francisco State, fiscal sponsor
- Suzanne Rivecca (San Francisco) with Homeless Youth Alliance (San Francisco) and Tides Center, fiscal sponsor
- Erica Lorraine Scheidt (Berkeley) with Teacher Salary Project (San Francisco) and Intersection for the Arts, fiscal sponsor
- Michael Warr (San Francisco) with Bayview Hunters Point YMCA (San Francisco).
2014 Performing Arts Awardees & Collaborators
- John Calloway (San Francisco) with Community Music Center (San Francisco)
- Chitresh Das (San Rafael) with 3rd i Films (San Francisco)
- Shinichi Iova-Koga (Oakland) with Dancers’ Group (San Francisco)
- Bernard Krause (Sonoma) and Richard Blackford with Alonzo King LINES Ballet (San Francisco)
- Sean San Jose (San Francisco) with The Cutting Ball Theater (San Francisco)
- Erika Chong Shuch (Berkeley) with Kitka, Inc. (Oakland)
- Van-Anh (Vanessa) Vo (Fremont) with Asian Americans for Community Involvement (San Jose).
Grants are highly competitive and are recommended to the Fund by committees of accomplished panelists. The literary arts review panelists were: Tamim Ansary, writer; Juan Felipe Herrera, California Poet Laureate; Fiona McCrae, director and publisher, Graywolf Press; Clifford Mayotte, Voice of Witness Education Program Director; and Harryette Mullen, poet and Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles. Also advising the literary arts selection process were writer Sabina Chen and editor Oscar Villalon.
The performing arts review panelists were: Luis Alfaro, Chicano writer and performer; Kristy Edmunds, artistic and executive director of the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA; Georgiana Pickett, executive director of the Baryshnikov Art Center; Matias Tarnopolsky, executive and artistic director of Cal Performances; and Byron Au Yong, composer. Also advising the performing arts selection process were Cynthia Mei, Managing Director, San Francisco Classical Voice; Rob Bailis, Director of External Relations and Artistic Initiatives, Cal Performances; and Ellen Sebastian Chang, theater writer and director.