Each
year, KFW awards $200,000 in grants;
$100,000 is given for each program.
ARTIST ENRICHMENT 2009 GRANTEES
Kimberly Ellen Anderson Louisville, KY
$1,000
to complete and revise the first draft of her memoir about her journey of feminist and spiritual self-discovery, incorporating a history of sexual abuse, forging a feminist path in corporate America, the circumstances surrounding a stillborn child, and mental health oppression.
Appalshop, Inc.
Whitesburg, KY
$2,000
to document and support the creation of new work reconnecting internationally recognized photographer Wendy Ewald and women with whom she worked in a community arts-based program in eastern Kentucky in the 1970s and 80s. The women will reflect on their past work and create new images that can help change public perceptions of Appalachian women.
Trish Ayers
Berea, KY
$2,500
to revise her full-length play Taking Stock, focusing on a woman facing a difficult choice to protect her family. Each scene will be discussed by a group of women playwrights, and the revised play will be presented as part of a public program sponsored by the Berea Arts Council.
Pamela Lyons Brinegar
Lexington, KY
$5,168
to research four mid-nineteenth-century central Kentucky African American women in the slavery and post-slavery eras. The research will provide information about the immediate and long-term impact of slavery on these women and can be published and used in other formats to raise public awareness.
Maryelizabeth Christine-Pope
Louisville, KY
$3,500
to create a full-length book of poetry focusing on the experiences of rural women who fight to live within the cycles of poverty. The poems will be published individually and collectively to show the impact of the rural landscape on women’s physical and psychological development.
Tammy Clemonsand
Timi Reedy Big Hill, KY
$1,000
to support a documentary project about bluegrass musicians Frances and John Reedy, focusing on Frances’ musicianship, songwriting and lead vocal talent. The project will strengthen the applicants’ collaboration and filmmaking skills, help them develop a collective artistic vision and expand their experience as grassroots Appalachian activists.
Karoda, Karen R. Davis Louisville, KY
$2,830
to attend two quilt textile workshops led by her English mentors while they are visiting the US to learn their processes for surface design on cloth. Attending the workshops will strengthen her skills and techniques and help her express her identity, culture and world view.
Nadia DeLeon Bowling Green, KY
$1,000
to improve and expand her current practices in Belly Dancing and Dance Therapy. The learning opportunities will develop her performing, teaching and feminist analysis of belly dance, which she will publish on her blog.
Arwen Donahue
Carlisle, KY
$2,500
to create an illustrated feminist creation myth in which female characters are responsible for creating the world. The visual book will be used by arts educators and activists to inspire young girls to tap into the power of their own creativity.
Margaret Frozena
Richmond, KY
$2,000
to complete a manuscript of poetry that explores the meaning of domesticity. The poems will challenge readers’ conventional views of domestic labor in a capitalist, patriarchal culture and will redefine domestic work and its value in our culture.
Karen L. George
Florence, KY
$2,500
to create a collection of short stories centered around women that reflects issues of body image, sexuality, relationships, health, aging and reproductive rights. Her goal is to empower herself and other women to explore, question and redefine female roles and rights.
Rachel Grimes
Louisville, KY
$2,500
to participate in a collaborative creation process and design music for the woman-led feminist theatre company SITI directed by Anne Bogart. This collaborative creation process will culminate in an integrated set of recorded music that SITI can use to create new stage work and in their educational workshops.
Joanna Thornewill Hay
Frankfort, KY
$1,150
to work with a mentor to develop her oral history project Stories from the Balcony into a documentary film about the Grand Theatre in Frankfort and its history during the era of segregation. Making the video will develop her skills as a media artist and promote interracial dialog in her community.
Diane Kahlo
Lexington, KY
$6,000
to create a “memorial wall” visual installation incorporating individual portraits of the disappeared and murdered women of Juarez, Mexico. The traveling installation will raise awareness in Kentucky and beyond about violence against women and explore the intersections between sexism, classism, exploitation, violence, poverty and immigration.
Leatha Kendrick
East Point, KY
$2,000
to attend two writers’ colonies and rewrite her novel, Leavings, focusing on a woman confronting failed social policies and subordination of marginalized people. Her goal is to have a publishable manuscript and to learn through her writing who she is and how she can make a difference.
Suzanne Lamb
Central City, KY
$2,066
to finish writing and begin revising a novel about a young woman’s personal experiences with alcoholism and unintended pregnancy. The novel will challenge stereotypes about women and alcoholism and promote awareness of women’s reproductive rights in Kentucky.
Phoenix Lindsey-Hall
Louisville, KY
$2,500
to create a photographic body of work, informed by feminist ethics, about the foreclosure crisis and its disproportionate impact on women, minorities and low-income families. The project will give a human face to families in foreclosure by exhibiting this work to the community.
Louisville Youth Choir
Louisville, KY
$1,000
to sponsor female singers who possess the talent but need financial assistance to participate in Louisville Youth Choir ensembles. Through their participation, the young women learn choral skills, cooperation, discipline, focus and leadership.
Christina Lovin
Lancaster, KY
$3,225
to participate in a four-week residency at the Vermont Studio Center to begin work on a book of poetry about the lives of women who served time at the Alderson Women’s Prison, started in the 1920s. Writing the poems will increase her awareness of what women prisoners have endured, and this understanding will be expressed in her poetry
Sarah Lunnie
Louisville, KY
$5,300
to complete a collection of short stories that explore questions of identity, self-definition, memory and belief. This work will catalyze the creative life and career of this young feminist writer.
Anita Majors
Louisville, KY
$1,000
to produce a collection of CDs and DVDs for national distribution of her cable television show, The Tax Lady Sings. The show combines tax tips with original and classic R&B songs and empowers women by giving them the facts they need to address financial issues in their lives and small businesses.
Jennifer Hester Mattox
Paris, KY
$1,000
to purchase a laptop and participate in the Kentucky Women Writers Conference which will help her complete a suspense novel about a female journalist in a small town who uncovers corruption surrounding the fate of a historic horse farm. The novel portrays a feminist main character, explores classism and presents a new version of Kentucky.
Elissa Morley
Lexington, KY
$4,850
to create a series of large-scale watercolor and tracing paper installation works exploring women’s paradoxical experiences, such as vulnerable/ powerful, and delicate/forceful. The exhibit will create a shift in how women define themselves and are defined by society by giving space, form and importance to internal paradoxes.
Beth Newberry
Louisville, KY
$1,000
to conduct family interviews and research, attend a writer’s retreat, and complete the first draft of a series of linked essays that explore the roles of women and girls in grieving the death of the family’s mother. The completed work will shift expectations of women in the midst of tragedy, and will allow for critical analysis of how women deal with grief individually and across generations.
Allison Ogden
Louisville, KY
$1,000
for equipment to help her develop as a solo computer improviser in the field of computer and electroacoustic music. Establishing herself as a solo artist will inspire other young women to pursue this highly male-dominated field as a tool for their own artistic expression.
Monica Pipia
Lexington, KY
$2,497
to build an ecologically friendly studio that will help further her work in large scale paintings dealing with a variety of feminist social change concerns such as ecology, women's leadership and empowerment, gender roles, Appalachia and political issues. The studio will also help her continue mentoring younger feminist artists in Kentucky.
Lynn Pruett
Salvisa, KY
$3,225
to complete a novel about a group of women in the 1890s who challenge divorce law and establish a public library, suggesting parallels with the current legal system and library funding issues in the state today. Finishing the novel will help her develop her artistic sensibilities in writing prose, and the completed work will explore social issues of gender inequity that are ingrained in society's institutions.
Jennifer A. Reis
Morehead, KY
$2,500
to research, create, promote, exhibit and digitally archive a body of embellished textile assemblages that explore the “symbolic vernacular” of contemporary Appalachian popular culture and religious symbols. The body of work will challenge viewers, both inside and outside of Appalachia to examine their surroundings, beliefs and stereotypes.
Mary S. Rezny
Lexington, KY
$5,453
to participate in a bookmaking workshop, mentor with a bookmaker and create an art book of her feminist photogram series of flowers and fruits. Learning new bookmaking skills will allow her to put her images in a new form, expand her audience, and teach a bookmaking class to other women in her area.
Margaret Ricketts
Berea, KY
$4,000
to participate in two writers’ workshops to improve her skills as a writer of narrative nonfiction about her experiences with clinical depression and cerebral palsy. Her goal is to publish fiction and essays illuminating realities such as mountain top removal.
Sarah Roush
Paducah, KY
$1,000
to continue learning digital computer software and technology so that she can combine her paintings and photographs with images of her recent MRIs from her struggle with breast cancer. These images will convey the challenges of being an artist, a mother, and a businesswoman while trying to maintain her work during this illness, and will provide inspiration and courage to other women.
Mitzi Sinnott
Flatwoods, KY
$1,000
to support the development of her screenplay depicting the effects of her father’s draft into the Vietnam War, which led to her growing up in a multi-racial, single-parent family in Appalachia. The resulting film will bring awareness to current issues affecting Vietnam veterans and inspire honest conversations about race among Americans.
Sirens
Louisville, K.
$1,000
to create a debut CD that blends folk, hip-hop, soul and spoken word genres with feminist lyrics. Recording their own music will give them creative control of their music, and recording skills to use on future projects and with other women artists
Tonya R. Smith
Louisville, KY
$1,000
to develop her black and white photographic work by incorporating digital imaging with traditional techniques. The completed work will encourage teenage girls and women to embrace the term "feminism" and promote self-awareness, independence, and confidence.
Norma Spencer
Lexington, KY
$2,576
to create hand-bound editions of her poetry as a resource for her work with women students in the Bluegrass Literacy's service-learning program. The hand-bound book will be used as a model in small groups of women for their own writing, and will stimulate dialogue, discussion, and promote social change related to rites of passage in women's lives.
Zoé Strecker
Harrodsburg, KY
$2,500
to complete a 20-minute documentary video about renewable energy in Kentucky, focusing on the renovation of the Mother Ann Lee Hydroelectric Station. Her goal for the video is for viewers to re-value personal freedom and responsibility for what the world is becoming.
Cynthia Torp Louisville, KY
$1,150
for pre-production support for The Seven Journeys of Lucy Higgs Nichols, a video documentary about the life of a formerly enslaved African American woman who received a government pension for her service to the Union during the Civil War. Funds will cover archival, image, and oral history research to create the basis for a treatment and script.
Rebecca Schaffer Wells
Taylor Mill, KY
$3,790
to transcribe and analyze jazz solos created by five women musicians between 1910 and 1955 and place the solos within the musical and social contexts of the day. Transcribing the solos will influence her work as a jazz musician, and bring awareness to the presence of women jazz musicians in the early 20th century.
Mariam Williams
Louisville, KY
$2,840
to complete a series of nonfiction personal essays honoring her grandmothers as elders in the community. She will publish the essays on a new blog to raise the artistic quality of blog posts, celebrate and empower black women, and provide a place for more unique, young black voices in the growing field of alternative media.
Sabrina Pena Young Murray, KY
$2,380
for travel expenses and production costs for a 60-member women’s chorus to perform her multimedia oratorio, Creation, which celebrates women, humanity, and life. As a female composer of Cuban-Dominican heritage, her goals are to obtain other large-scale commissions to dispel misconceptions about women composers, record the performance and provide the audience with a unique musical experience.
ART MEETS ACTIVISM 2009 GRANTEES
Appalachian Heritage Alliance Campton, KY
$6,000
for a series of writing retreats for women and teenage girls led by four Kentucky feminist authors to give women the time, encouragement and inspiration to write about their thoughts and experiences, which will facilitate personal, political and social change.
Appalshop (Julia Taylor) Whitesburg, KY
$4,300
to support a playwriting, radio and web project that engages incarcerated women in eastern Kentucky in a community-based theater process that will build self-esteem and bring the women’s stories to a larger community to raise public awareness about the growing number of incarcerated women.
Pat Banks Richmond, KY
$4,000
to present a workshop for feminist artists to learn about the Kentucky River watershed and provide opportunities for them to paint, sketch, photograph and journal about the effects of pollution on the river, to inspire them to become advocates for their watershed and the right of women and children to a clean water source.
Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning Lexington, KY
$5,000
to continue the Young Women Writers Project, which provides opportunities for diverse and talented young women writers age 13-18 to explore writing and literary performance techniques while examining issues of concern to them. In addition, the young women will serve as mentors and perform their work, helping them to discover their own voices with confidence and self-respect, leading to their empowerment as women.
Center for Women and Families Louisville, KY
$1,000
to provide Healing Mosaic Workshops for clients and staff at the center to raise awareness about violence against women, reduce gender-based violence and encourage community and client healing.
Chrysalis House, Inc. Lexington, KY
$1,000
for women at the center to participate in the Clothesline Project, an annual t-shirt making event that raises awareness about violence
Clear Creek Festival Big Hill, KY
$4,000
to support the 2009 rural community arts festival, which is led by feminist activists and will offer a variety of feminist artistic performances including music, theatre, dance, storytelling, spoken word, readings and films, and will help the community challenge injustice and work for social change.
Contented Heart Quilt
GuildMonticello, KY
$3,000
to purchase computers and software that will enable the guild to continue and expand their quilting classes for young and old women, to encourage the women to become economically and personally independent and to see their quilting as an artform rather than a pastime.
Linda Erzinger Louisville, KY
$2,000
to present a workshop for residents in a Germantown neighborhood to increase self-awareness and empowerment through art-making, community building, and healthy food. Participants will create a mosaic art piece using recycled trash collected from the neighborhood that will be installed on the exterior of their local community center.
Christa Faulkner Louisville, KY
$6,960
to display visual artwork of feminist artists on billboards with a link to an internet site highlighting each artist, to increase public awareness of the artists’ social concerns and promote local female artists.
Wendy Fosterwelsh Ashland, KY
$3,700
to provide weekly mixed media art workshops for women at a domestic violence shelter to help the women express their emotions, build their self-respect and contribute to their personal development and empowered.
Melissa Fry Fort Wright, KY
$1,000
to provide artist stipends, art materials and partial costs of a field trip to engage students in hands-on art activities in an Appalachian art and literature class at the Urban Learning Center. The KFW funded activities will focus on how Appalachian women’s art supported their families to empower students with Appalachian heritage to recognize and honor the accomplishments of these women.
Clare Hirn and Laura Malbasa Louisville and LaGrange, KY
$5,650
to lead a mural project focused on healthy foods for girls ages 10-14. Participants will learn about food choices and sustainable agricultural practices and create a portable mural based on what they learned. The mural will travel to their schools and encourage the girls to promote healthy eating.
Terri L. Holtze Louisville, KY
$2,000
to create a book of photographs and nonfiction writing documenting the history of women’s work in Louisville from the early 20th century to today, to highlight the contributions women have made to the city’s growth and development and recognize the value of women’s work.
for two Appalachian feminist artists to engage a group of middle and high school girls from this underserved rural area of southeastern Kentucky to participate in a series of story-sharing, songwriting and mixed media journaling workshops to build the girls’ self-worth, help them develop confidence and encourage them to become fully engaged in their communities.
Kentucky Center Arts Reach Program Louisville, KY
$3,000
to provide a program for girls ages 10-13 at the Chestnut St. YMCA using traditional African drumming and dance, to help the girls develop self-confidence and form a circle of support to help each other develop as women and leaders in their families and communities.
Kentucky Jobs With Justice (Kentucky Social Forum) Louisville, KY
$1,000
to incorporate music, performance poetry, and “theatre of the oppressed” sessions into the Kentucky Social Forum, bringing people together from across the state working on a variety of feminist and human rights issues to build community and learn about the root causes of oppression.
Kentucky Women Writers Conference Lexington, KY
$4,800
to bring four featured presenters who are committed to feminist social change: Elizabeth Alexander, Holly Goddard Jones, Gina McCauley and Rachel McKibbens) to the annual conference to present writing workshops, readings, panel discussions, and a spoken-word competition all dedicated to cultivating the artistry of women and girls in Kentucky.
Vanessa Little-Hall Virgie, KY
$5,000
to build a network of support for women in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky and encourage women to engage in a variety of art forms including music, writing, spoken word and digital storytelling to share their knowledge of mountain culture, foster leadership and organize to end the practice of mountaintop removal.
Louisville Visual Art Association Louisville, KY
$1,000
to collaborate with artist Tina Bernstein to facilitate an art program using collage, bookmaking and garden mosaic that engages mothers and children of the Family Scholar House, which supports homeless single parents seeking four-year college degrees, in art-making processes that encourages self-reflection, learning, storytelling and community beautification.
Denise Roberts McKinney Berea, KY
$1,000
to interview and compile a book of stories of “granny women” in the Appalachian region that will give the women an opportunity to share their knowledge, and will be a resource for the community about the “old” ways of sustainability and surviving as a community.
Media Working Group Lexington, KY
$4,000
to collaborate with Gateway Regional Arts Council to present a series of writing and performance poetry workshops for 25 girls ages 13-17 to help the girls find their artistic and activist voices in relation to the natural world, specifically the Appalachian Mountains.
Mari Mujica and Basil Kreimendahl Louisville, KY
$1,000
to create an interactive art exhibit and performance based on oral histories of people who consider themselves transgender, which will bring further awareness, understanding and justice for people who do not conform to traditional gender identity.
Owensboro Museum of Fine Art Owensboro, KY
$2,090
to collaborate with Girls Incorporated and a local feminist artist to provide girls with an opportunity to learn how women have used art to affect social change in the past and encourage the girls express themselves through art.
Portland Museum Louisville, KY
$3,000
for a collaboration between feminist artist Kate Larken and a group of women from the Portland community to create and record an ensemble of monologues representing the voice and experience of women in this historic working class neighborhood.
Janie Render Louisville, KY
$1,000
to partner with fiber artist Penny Sisto to produce a poetry/fiber art exhibit telling the stories of women infected with HIV/AIDS, which will be used to dispel stereotypes and educate the community about women living with HIV/AIDS, and to encourage prevention.
Angela Ramsey Robinson Louisville, KY
$4,000
to facilitate a visual arts-based workshop series exploring birth art and birth stories, and to host women’s circles to connect artists and activists with pregnant women and mothers with infants living in addiction-recovery houses, to promote respect and support for birthing and mothering.
Jen Serra Shean Louisville, KY
$4,500
to use storytelling and spoken word to conduct women’s rites and empowerment retreats for women and girls, which will promote self-confidence, body self-awareness and creative self-expression for participants.
Judy Sizemore and Octavia Sexton McKee and Orlando, KY
$4,000
to collect oral histories from five eastern Kentucky women who have been impacted by mountaintop removal, to create a performance from the women’s stories that combines storytelling and poetry, and to perform the piece for urban women to increase awareness of the cultural and environmental consequences of mountaintop removal.
Union College London Center (Mona Powell) London, KY
$3,000
to incorporate a feminist component into an existing arts-based program for recovering drug addicts, which will use spoken word, music and choreography to help participants recognize and overcome negative stereotypes of Appalachian women to help them develop self-esteem.
To
Contact KFW: Kentucky Foundation for Women
1215 Heyburn Building
332 West Broadway
Louisville, KY 40202-2184 Phone: (502) 562-0045
Toll Free: (866) 654-7564
Fax: (502) 561-0420
