KyArtsCast

This episode is a audio from a presentation during Arts Day(s) in Kentucky. It features three artists whose work is in the Kentucky Arts Council's traveling exhibit "Our Kentucky Home: Hispanic/Latin American Visual in the Commonwealth." You can view a slideshow of the entire exhibit on the arts council website.

Episode footnote:

• Online slideshow of "Our Kentucky Home: Hispanic/Latin American Visual Art in the Commonwealth

Today, Oct. 21, has been designated by the National Endowment for the Arts to be a day to focus on health and wellness in the arts as we celebrate National Arts and Humanities Month. We thought it would be a good idea to highlight an important grant program, the Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grant, administered by the New York Foundation for the Arts. This program provides one-time grants of up to $5,000 for recent unexpected medical, dental, and mental health emergencies to artists in financial need who are practicing in the visual arts, film/video/electronic/digital arts, and choreography. One of our Kentucky Crafted artists, Deb Chenault, received one of these grants and talked with us about what it meant for her, and why artists in Kentucky who need help paying for necessary medical treatment should give this grant a look. Also along for the interview is Mollie Quinlan-Hayes, who administers the grant program for NYFA, and who has valuable information on how to navigate the application process. The next cycle of these grants opens on Nov. 1.

Episode footnotes:

• Mollie Quinlan-Hayes email address - [email protected]
• Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants information.
• Grant FAQs
• If you don't quality for a Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grant, the New York Foundation for the Arts maintains a list of other emergency grants for artists
• Deb Chenault's Kentucky Crafted directory page

"Don't turn yourself down."

That's advice Joyce Garner gives to her fellow Kentucky artists about taking opportunities to advance and promote their work. Joyce was recently named the Kentucky State Fellow in the South Arts Southern Prize competition. Her work will be considered, along with state fellows from each of the South Arts member states, for the $25,000 Southern Prize, which will be announced in a FREE virtual ceremony on June 17.

For this episode of the podcast we talked to Joyce about winning the state fellowship, her journey to art, and what inspires her.

Episode footnotes:

• Description of the Southern Prize competition
• Joyce Garner's artist statement and work
• Register to watch the 2021 Southern Prize Awards Ceremony on June 17

"Everyone asks me, especially when I'm traveling around the country...'What is it? feel like you all have something special there in Kentucky. Why is it that this idea of a Kentucky writer is such a special thing?' And I think it's special because we're always reaching out for the next wave of writers. That's been part of the tradition."

Learn more about the woman who will be Kentucky's literary ambassador for the next two years, Crystal Wilkinson. She will be inducted as Kentucky Poet Laureate April 23 as we celebrate Kentucky Writers' Day.

Episode footnotes:

• Kentucky Writers' Day page
• Kentucky Poet Laureate page
• Watch Kentucky Writers' Day on the Kentucky Arts Council Facebook page or YouTube channel

Arts Week in Kentucky is coming, Feb. 22-26! On this episode of the podcast we get a taste of what to expect during Arts Week with Lori Meadows, chair of Kentuckians for the Arts, and Mark Brown, the Kentucky Arts Council's folk and traditional arts director. Each of them will have a role in bringing the great programming on tap for Arts Week in Kentucky, and they are just the tip of the iceberg. You can register for this FREE week of programming here!

Episode footnotes:

• Kentucky state legislature
• Kentucky Arts Council's Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Grant

The Kentucky Arts Council's communications and technology branch manager Sandie Lawrence is retiring at the end of 2020, closing a chapter on her 25-year career at the Kentucky Arts Council. She recently chatted with coworkers Tom Musgrave and Emily Moses about building the arts council's first website, the advent of that strange new communications method called email, what she'll miss about working for the Commowealth of Kentucky, her philosophy about life, and how parenting influenced her interpersonal relationships with coworkers. Enjoy this tribute to our own Sandie Lawrence!

Last year, we spent time with the folks who lead Consolidated Baptist Church's Summer Enrichment Program, a unique education program, which includes the arts among other academic disciplines. This program serves the youth of Lexington, lasting for several weeks, and we supported it with funding last year. When they wanted to go virtual for this summer, we provided assistance again in the form of a virtual teaching artist residency and technical support. On this episode, we talk with program director Demetria Blair, teaching artist Yolantha Pace, and Kentucky Arts Council arts education director Samuel Lockridge about how the program made the pivot from in-person to virtual. We explored the success, challenges and unexpected benefits of learning in a virtual environment.

Episode footnotes:

• Listen to last year's episode on the Summer Enrichment Program
• Learn more about the program - consolidatedsummerenrichment.org
• Yolantha Pace's Teaching Artists Directory page
• Frank X Walker's website
• Lexington Children's Theatre

This past spring, the Kentucky Arts Council, with our friends at the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, entered into a partnership with the for-profit group Artrepreneur. Founded in 2015, Artrepreneur is an e-commerce platform that serves more than 40,000 visual and craft artists from more than 50 countries. Joining us are Steve Schlackman from Artrepreneur, Heather Pontonio of the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, Kentucky Crafted artist David Shadwick and Emily Moses, executive staff advisor of the Kentucky Arts Council. We'll talk about how this relationship formed and how Artrepreneur is benefiting participating Kentucky Crafted artists.

Episode footnotes:

• A list of Kentucky Crafted artists using the Artrepreneur platform
• The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation
• Americans for the Arts COVID-19 economic impact survey data

Kentucky's connection to poetry will be the subject of a an upcoming episode of the documentary series "Poetry Unites America." On this episode of KyArtsCast, we talk with Ewa Sandrzynska, the documentary filmmaker behind the series, about how Kentuckians can contribute to the episode via an essay contest she is conducting. Deadline for submission to the contest is Sept. 15, so listen to this episode to find out more about the project! We also chat with Tamara Coffey of the Kentucky Arts Council about the nomination process for Kentucky Poet Laureate. The deadline to nominate someone for that important position is Oct. 1.

Episode footnotes

• Poetry Unites Kentucky Facebook page
• Submit your essay!
• Guidelines for Kentucky Poet Laureate nominations

The Kentucky Arts Council is currently accepting applications to the Kentucky Crafted program, the state's juried arts marketing program. The deadline to apply to this free program is Aug. 17. On this episode of KyArtsCast we talk with three artists in the Kentucky Crafted program: Michelle Hayden of Michelle Hayden of Michelle Hayden Fine Art in Berea, Rob Bridges of Rob Bridges Illustration in Georgetown, and Amy Henson of Rock Bottom Soap in London. We also talk about the program benefits and our guests give advice on how to approach the application process.

Episode footnotes:

• The Kentucky Crafted program guidelines and application
• Michelle Hayden's Kentucky Crafted directory page
• Rob Bridges' Kentucky Crafted directory page
• Amy Henson's Kentucky Crafted directory page