NEWS/ARTS DK M PHOTOGR APHY
ARTS/VISUAL
Idaho Shakespeare Festival put its grant to very good use.
WE GRANT YOU $3.55 MILLION WORTH OF WISHES Speaking of grants, twice each year, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation awards hundreds of thousands of dollars to nonprofits in the five Pacific Northwest states, including several in Idaho. 2010 marks the foundation’s 20th year and Vice President Sue Coliton Senior Program Officer Jim McDonald discussed just how much the foundation has awarded during those two decades. “Since inception, we’ve given out about $400 million to non-profit organizations across the five-state region. Specifically in Idaho, we’ve given $3.55 million,” Coliton said. It’s a total that’s funded 72 grants. Of those, 42 percent has gone to art and culture, about 36 percent has gone to health and human services and the remainder has gone to education, library and science projects. Boise Art Museum, Boise Contemporary Theater, Company of Fools, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, The Cabin and the Sun Valley Center for the Arts have all received art grants ranging from $5,000 to Company of Fools for a production of Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, to $150,000 to BAM for a three-year programming plan. But the largest single grant from the foundation was $230,000 to the Idaho Food Bank, which will use the money to update its inventory management system. “It’s part of a category we established during the recession, called ‘Economic Relief,’” Coliton explained. “It’s really focused on providing funding to organizations that are serving people who are really being impacted by the recession, who are unemployed, out of work and really facing challenges.” McDonald, who joined the foundation about a year ago, wanted to know more about the arts organizations the foundation would be funding, so he visited the organizations that received grants. “When I got to Ketchum, Company of Fools was starting the first production of their season, which was The 39 Steps. It was one of the few chances that I got to see exactly what we’re supporting.” McDonald then came to Boise and met with ISF, BAM, BCT, Opera Idaho and The Cabin. He was impressed with the collaborative nature of these organizations. “In the fall of 2009, we awarded $75,000 to Idaho Shakespeare, but it was for a project between BCT and Idaho Shakespeare … to help BCT go web-based with their behind-the-house work (IT, box office),” McDonald said. “In Hailey, when they heard I was going to see Mark [Hofflund] at Shakespeare, they said to say hi to him. [In Idaho] it’s all quality work and great people.” —Amy Atkins
30 | SEPTEMBER 1–7, 2010 | BOISEweekly
A LITTLE GRANT GOES A LONG WAY Checking in on some BW Cover Grant recipients AMY PENCE-BROWN Earlier this year, local artist Brooke Burton used a $525 grant she received through the Boise Weekly Cover Auction to help purchase materials to create three huge topographic maps loosely based on the Hawaiian islands. The gigantic sculptural maps are each 8-feet tall by 4-feet wide and are created from her favorite media: green and white packaging peaMichael Cordell’s Farah, c. 1985, from Kodachrome transparency slide. nuts, foam core and plastic shrink wrap. The materials are unusual, oddly expensive and the residency program is to inspire artists via “There were all these great ideas floating difficult to come by in large quantities in Boise. solitude combined with awe-inspiring natural around on how to promote and sustain music Burton recently graduated with a MFA wonders, in exchange for a completed artwork from Boise State and is dually fascinated and in Boise but without a group to manage them, for the park’s permanent collection and a they would’ve fizzled out,” Ward explains. dismayed by scientific classification systems free public lecture for park visitors. But when In 2009, she founded Go Listen Boise with and artifacts of popular culture. Burton’s Furlong discovered the travel and food costs Stephanie Coyle who, according to Ward, is quirky aesthetic landed her a recent artist“Boise’s biggest music fan.” Together they pro- were not only expensive and the responsibility in-residency in the 8th Street AIR program, of the artist, but she was worried she’d have to duced Grand ’Ol Time, a six-month series of where she was able to expand her work in local old time strummin’ bands combined with decline. With the help of a $1,000 BW grant, a much larger way, as her new gallery space swing dance lessons held at the Linen Building. she was able to make it work. was quadruple the size of her home studio. “The extreme amount of daylight hours Thus far their $2,500 BW grant has been used In March of this year, a group of arts and the overwhelming power of the physical to pay the musical acts. professionals—including myself—gathered in But it was the introduction of the PJ Dean landscape there … it just blew me away,” says the BW conference room with the goal of disFurlong, who spent her July residency soaking persing the proceeds from the 2009 BW Cover Artist Grant that most intrigued the panel. it all in. She also made preliminary aids for Originally earmarked as a $1,000 award to Auction (which is held each November) in the a body of work to be shown in a fall 2011 be presented to one artist, form of grants to arts organiexhibition at the Linen Building. the panel was so impressed zations and, for the first time, Michael Cordell has been an active particiwith the applicants they individual artists like Burton. pant in Boise’s creative community for more decided to award money to All told, 19 applications were than 30 years. He, too, received a $1,000 three artists in the grant’s evaluated and more than grant to help preserve and document a large inaugural year. $14,000 was granted to nine body of work he made between 1981 and “The Boise Weekly has projects that the panel felt 1988: around 1,300 photographs of Boise’s been a long-time supporter had the most ingenuity and drag queen culture. Friends with many in the of the arts locally, and it’s community impact. gay community, Cordell was a regular at a great to see their new grant Six organizations received variety of coronations and pageants staged supporting individual artists funds for specific projects: at such iconic landmarks as Shucky’s Bar and in their quest to just make Trey McIntyre Project for the Mardi Gras ballroom. Cordell has since work, take risks and be Spurban dances, Boise Art moved from photography to sculpture, and creative,” says Karen Bubb, Walks for downtown walkthe big box of slides containing this work was public arts manager for the ing tours, TRICA for arts put out of his mind until recently. Luckily, he City of Boise Department of education, Has Bin Project realized the importance of the body of work, Arts and History. to create public art from not only artistically but historically and began Kirsten Furlong, a recycling bins, BOSCO for investigating local resources and institutions printmaker and the direcartist open studios tours and to conserve it. Cordell has made arrangements tor of Boise State’s Visual Go Listen Boise, a volunteerfor the collection to be gifted to the Boise State Arts Center gallery, found run group whose goal is to Brooke Burton’s Green on White Special Collections, which houses all sorts of out earlier this year that she foster and promote a diverse with Islands. unique rarities pertaining to Idaho history. received a prestigious grant musical culture. This year’s BW Cover Art Auction They already hold a number of documents rethrough Denali National Park Go Listen Boise wanted is Wednesday, Nov. 17, at Idaho lating to Boise’s LGBT history and community, in Alaska to be an artist-into educate and “create active State Historical Museum. so the photographs will become a superb asset. residence this summer. Only listeners instead of passive three artists a year are chosen Pursuing projects like Cordell’s as an individual listeners,” says Ali Ward, artist is difficult. Bubb agrees. for the program, which includes two weeks co-founder of the group (and percussionist in “These grants financially and morally supin the park’s remote and rustic East Fork Boise’s own Hillfolk Noir) so she began brainport the artists’ journey as creators in our comstorming ways to organize major players in the Cabin, which was built in the 1920s and has munity and are much-needed,” she says. local music scene, from singers to shop owners. no running water or electricity. The basis of WWW. B O I S E WE E KLY. C O M