Society for the Encouragement of the Arts Awards First two Partner
with an Artist Grants
Sarah Slifer and Lara Lepionka named first two recipients
Gloucester, MA – July 12, 2005 – The Society for the
Encouragement of the Arts (SEArts) is awarding the first two out
of four Partner with an Artist grants of $1000 each to Gloucester
artists Lara Lepionka and Sarah Slifer.
The purpose of Partner with an Artist is to facilitate business
and artist partnerships generating visibility and economic opportunity
for both. The goals are to create innovative arts projects that
showcase high-quality work, help establish Gloucester as a new site
for contemporary art, and
foster an environment where artists and businesses can sustain economic
success over the long-term through cultural economic development
opportunities.
Lara Lepionka’s Talking Towel Project, in partnership with
the Cape Ann YMCA, will result in towels embroidered with messages
from Y members and staff on their feelings and thoughts on Gloucester
and the work they do here and beyond.
Lepionka’s work will be featured in the upcoming anthology,
The Object of Labor: Critical Perspectives on Art, Cloth, and Cultural
Production, a collection of essays and projects on labor published
by SAIC Press, Chicago. She is the recipient of several awards and
residency fellowships, and has exhibited in numerous solo and group
shows. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute
of Chicago and her BA from Bard College.
The Talking Towel Project will debut at the Gloucester New Arts
Festival on Saturday, August 13th, at 7:30 p.m. at the Cape Ann
YMCA located at 71 Middle St., Gloucester, and will continue on
as the embroidered towels mingle with regular ones distributed to
Y members for workouts.
Sarah Slifer has partnered with Cape Pond Ice to organize two events
to be held at the ice manufacturing plant. The Icehouse Series will
feature various artists creating short installation pieces in the
ice house itself. Because visitors will only be able to tolerate
the cold a few minutes, artists will make work that can be viewed
in that time, while the business’s employees will continue
with their work. Cape Pond Ice will also be the site of a poetry
reading.
Teaming with this waterfront business, which provides ice for
commercial fishing boats, shows how business owners suffering from
the devastation of the fishing industry can benefit from the energy,
ingenuity, and economic stimulation that artistic activities bring
to any site.
Slifer is a dancer whose work is inspired by the socio-cultural
fabric in which we live. She danced for many years with the Maida
Withers Dance Construction Company in Washington D.C., and with
Vincent Cacialano in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She has taught
at the George Washington University (D.C.), the School for New Dance
Development (Amsterdam), and Dance Base (Edinburgh, Scotland).
The Cape Pond Ice events will begin at 5 p.m. on Friday Aug. 12,
2005, at 104 Commercial St., Gloucester. They will also be part
of the Gloucester New Arts Festival. Discussions with Cape Pond
Ice for future collaborations will continue after the event.
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For more information call: Susan Erony, Executive Director, 978-282-1992
or erony@searts.org
This program is funded in part by a Massachusetts Cultural Council’s
Adams Arts Fund for Cultural Economic Development. |
