Artist Enrichment Grantees

Artist Enrichment 2010 Grantees

Karen A. Balzer (Murray):  $2,000.00  to develop her teaching and choreographic techniques for individuals with special needs at the university level. The special needs students will be included in performances with the Jackson Purchase Dance Company, made up of young dancers, primarily women, ages 9-40. The special needs students will be trained to dance and perform, and audiences will be enriched by watching the artistry of the special needs students.

Natalie Baxter (Lexington):  $1,000.00  for a video, audio and photography project exploring the feminine side of Appalachia through documented stories told from women who have committed themselves to the place. Her work will provide an alternative to films about Appalachia focusing primarily on male coal miners.

Soreyda Benedit Begley (Lexington):  $1,300.00  to create a collection of clothing that speaks to the fashion industry’s exploitation of women and the alternative of small scale, non-industrial and ethically produced clothing. She will document the creative process and make a documentary showing fashion design as a legitimate art form, raising questions about the fashion industry, and examining the role of consumers.

Laura Rose Benton (Lexington):  $1,000.00  to create a 30-page collection of poetry that emphasizes the role of Kentucky women and their relationship with female Irish writers. She will travel through Ireland, write poems about her experience and encourage Kentucky women to seek artistic and social agency within their communities.

Nickole Brown (Louisville):  $1,825.00  to complete her second manuscript, a novel-in-poems entitled “A Book of Birds."

Sarah Elizabeth Burkey (Kevil):  $2,120.00  to compose songs inspired by the wisdom and life experiences of the International Council of Indigenous Grandmothers. The completed music and lyrics will illuminate the contributions of Native Women Elders, who are strong feminist role models, environmental activists, leaders, teachers, storytellers and cultural preservationists.

Vickie Hucker Cimprich (Fort Mitchell):  $1,825.00  to travel to Burgundy, France, home of the Cistercian order, have an exchange with persons at the Citreaux monastery, visit the first monastery of Cistercian women, and draft poems and notes to create a book-length collection of poems entitled “The Annals of Citreaux.” This will develop her writing skills and focus, and she will reflect on possible comparisons between 12th and 21st century transitions on biodiversity, eco-agriculutre and social justice.

Debra Clem (Louisville):  $2,000.00  to create a new body of work, a series of large-scale, mixed-media paintings that combine images of environmental degredation with images of women. The work will expose the realities of lives that are affected by damaging environmental conditions, and will remind people of their responsibilities to their communities.

Barbara Crawford (Louisville):  $3,000.00  to continue her photographic work depicting positive images of the female form. Funding will help her transition from film into digital photography, and prepare for her exhibit celebrating 40 years as a fine art photographer.

Renée Culver (Louisville):  $2,500.00  to attend a writing workshop, polish her writing, and submit short stories for publication about what it means to be a feminist in a rural community at this time.

Marie Davis (Louisville):  $1,825.00  to research and write brief biographies and create a companion web site of remarkable women in KY history. The project will help her learn about women’s history and become a feminist author, and her work will preserve stories that are in danger of being lost.

Nancy J. Dawson (Russellville):  $3,000.00  to collect and audio record the voices of six African American women aged 70 and older singing spirituals and incorporate the songs into her play, “Stories From Da Dirt.” The recordings will help her translate her research into theatrical productions, preserve this musical tradition, uplift elder artists and deepen understanding of the experiences of enslaved women.

Laura Anne Doll (Louisville):  $1,000.00  to create a body of performance work of Professional/Grade 1 drumming, mentor aspiring women percussionists and help transform Scottish drumming to recognize and celebrate women musicians. Through this work, she will increase her own knowledge and abilities in drumming techniques and foster engagement in Scottish drumming among women of all ages.

Kathleen Driskell (Louisville):  $2,000.00  to work with a local artist to develop, illustrate and publish 200 copies of a book, featuring a four-color graphic poem, incorporating the text of her long poem “Overture,” exploring the mysteries of motherhood. Creating a graphic poem will place her at the forefront of an innovative new genre, provide a model for others and potentially widen poetry readership.

Isabel Duarte-Gray (Murray):  $2,600.00  to compose a novel for young adult readers, depicting three underprivileged girls in rural KY developing their artistic gifts. The project will improve her skills as a creative writer, and the novel will provide positive models for creative Southern girls, seeking outlets and encouragement.

Jennifer Fairbanks (Murray):  $1,000.00  to interview women from diverse backgrounds and create a large-scale painting exploring the influence of culture on women’s role and identity. The work will help her develop as a feminist artist, help women have a greater understanding of themselves, and create a stronger sense of unity and support among women of different ages and backgrounds.

Frankie Finley (Lexington):  $2,000.00  to purchase equipment, attend workshops and retreats and complete a draft of a creative memoir about her experiences as a non-biological lesbian parent with no legal rights to care for her child. Writing the memoir will allow her to explore the relationship between creativity and planning, take her approach to activism to a wider audience and humanize the issues of parental rights for lesbians.

Carrie Greenand Lori Larusso (Lexington):  $3,000.00  to publish and promote a chapbook of original paintings and poems exploring the tensions between domesticity and domestication by focusing on birthday cakes as a traditional female domestic art. The project will develop their artistic collaboration and marketing skills and raise awareness of women’s creativity in cake baking and decorating.

Dionne Griffiths (Louisville):  $1,500.00  to attend the Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute in New Orleans to learn more dancing and choreography skills, and attend their social activism workshops. The Institute will give her more resources and tools to use in future dance classes for women and girls, and to inspire young African-American girls through the choreography she will create.

Joanna Thornewill Hay (Frankfort):  $3,000.00  to create a website for her oral history documentary project about a theatre in Frankfort, KY during the era of segregation. The website will advance her career as a feminist artist making social change work, make the stories easily accessible to the community, increase dialogue and understanding about the era of segregation, and encourage social change.

Julie Hensley (Richmond):  $2,000.00  to craft a collection of narrative poems of a couple’s descent into domestic violence as they construct their dream home, and the strength of the woman who escapes the violence. Writing the poems will help her develop as a poet and deepen her feminism by looking at this subject, and readings of the completed work will help break the silence on this subject.

Josephine Sculpture Park  (Frankfort):  $2,380.00  for the artistic director of the Park to collaborate with a team of up to 10 theatre artists to create a feminist-centered environmentally-inspired production of Macbeth around a sculptural installation. The production will provide learning opportunities for the participating artists and will be unique in exploring feminist themes and providing training for women theatre artists.

Harriet Leach (Louisville):  $4,000.00  to finish and initiate marketing of two novels; one about a woman with bipolar disorder and the other about a lesbian in a cross-political international relationship. By telling these stories, the first of which is autobiographical, she intends to transcend stereotypes, confront stigmatizations, forgive flawed human nature and envision inclusiveness.

June Leffler (Louisville):  $1,000.00  to publish this do-it-yourself publication written by and for youth, especially young women. The zine highlights issues of importance to youth, such as bicycling, photography, and LGBT issues, promotes innovative youth in the area, and engages youth in this community-based project.

Gracie M. Lewis (Louisville):  $1,000.00  to publish a collection of her writings that bridge the gap between the community and social justice activists. The publication will inspire people from all walks of life to get involved and pave the way for the next generation of leaders.

Catherine Llewellyn-(Varillas) (Lexington):  $1,000.00  to create and prepare for exhibition a body of silver gelatin prints reflecting realities of what she observes in life through a feminist lens. The completed work will fine tune her knowledge of photographic techniques and will help change stereotypes about Kentucky by presenting alternative feminist inspired images.

Looking for Lilith Theatre Company  (Louisville):  $1,000.00  to remount their original production about the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and honor the centennial of this event with performances in Louisville and New York. Taking part in the centennial remembrance celebration of the fire which galvanized the Women’s Labor Movement will help them reach feminist artists of all backgrounds, culture and aesthetics and enable the actors and the company to grow individually and collectively.

Sara Buchanan MacLean (Louisville):  $1,500.00  to compose and record a high quality, complex work for orchestra, and to bind the score to send to orchestras for performance consideration. The work will expand her compositional repertoire, give her more credibility as a composer, and explore her capacity for musical expressiveness, while challenging current stereotypes that composers for orchestra are males.

Anita Majors (Louisville):  $2,000.00  to improve her home recording studio where she produces her television show, “The Tax Lady Sings,” combining financial education with original music. The studio will enable her to continue producing the show, create original content, and bring feminism, financial literacy and empowerment to her female viewers.

Media Working Group, Inc.  (Lexington):  $2,000.00  for Jean Donohue to complete a short film about the journey and transformation of a lesbian writer, performance artist and mountaintop removal activist who returns home to heal herself and the land on her small Kentucky farm. The film will allow Donohue to explore a different filmmaking style, examine the intersections of feminism and environmentalism, and present a story of survival, healing and hope to young people in small Kentucky towns who face similar challenges.

Kelly Moffett (Independence):  $1,700.00  to stay at a Trappist monastery for ten days to develop her skills as a poet and teacher, and to deepen her understanding of silence as it relates to her life and her work. She will use this experience to create new work that explores women’s complicated relationships with silence and finding their voice.

Leslie Moise (Louisville):  $1,825.00  for one week of research at the University of Kentucky Young Library on pre-Judaic culture circa 600 BCE for a novel based on the apocryphal Book of Judith. The research and revisions will enrich her capacities as a writer, and the novel will raise awareness of the universal vitality of feminine courage and friendships.

Dijana Muminovic (Rockfield):  $1,700.00  to continue developing a photography exhibit, including audio and video, of Bosnian refugee women living in Kentucky. The exhibit will give voice to the experiences of these women, beginning with the genocide they experienced over fifteen years ago and how it still affects them today, and help them bring closure to their lives.

AFua Janice Nessibou (Louisville):  $1,500.00  to purchase a computer that can combine acoustic and electronic elements, fusing traditional and modern music. The computer will allow her to upgrade her technological skills and inspire other mature women to continue development of their creative skills.

Leslie Nichols (Bowling Green):  $4,200.00  to develop a series of works on paper based on a variety of early feminist texts, and to attend the Vermont Studio Center. Creating the work will help her develop her feminist voice and artistic skills, and the exhibition will raise consciousness about the roots of feminism and feminist concerns while advancing her career as a visual artist.

Neli Ouzounova (Bowling Green):  $4,000.00  to combine monotype printmaking and digital printing to create a body of large-scale digital prints. She will explore the desire to find a sense of belonging to a place or community, through a depiction of a house as symbol for memory and a source of identity. The art will inform viewers of Bulgarian culture and show examples of inspiration and opportunities for artistic expression available in Kentucky.

Patti L. Parsons (Lexington):  $1,500.00  to produce a documentary film about the life and death of her mother, Sue Logston, including her feminism and social change efforts, and how her death affected her family and community. The completed film will further the artist’s filmmaking career and encourage others to think about their own values and strengths, and what they can do to make a positive impact on society.

Adele Prager (Lexington):  $1,350.00  to photograph existing work and create a website featuring images created over her life span. At age eighty-three, exhibiting her work to a large audience will inspire other women to gain confidence in their art. She will also teach a drawing course for low-income women where she lives.

Safiyyah Rasool (Louisville):  $2,000.00  to develop her hip hop dance style by taking classes from women choreographers around the country. She will use the skills learned to give back to underprivileged young females in her community by presenting hip hop dance in a healthier light while giving them tools to instill self-confidence, self-esteem and cultural enrichment.

Jennifer Recktenwald (Louisville):  $2,000.00  to attend a week-long fiction writing workshop and use that opportunity to workshop short stories focused on the formative years of an adolescent girl, and receive feedback from a faculty mentor. The strong female literary figure in the completed work will impact society’s attitudes about gender roles and challenge younger women to rethink their own options and futures.

Staci R. Schoenfeld (Frankfort):  $1,500.00  to attend writing workshops and a retreat to write a poetry manuscript exploring the impact, both positive and negative, of silence and silencing she has experienced in her life as an abuse survivor, a mental health consumer, an out lesbian, a Jew, and a woman. The completed work will help her find healing for herself and the ability to help other women who have been silenced begin the process of finding their own voices.

Angela Shoemaker (Louisville):  $1,000.00  to develop a body of work that documents the experiences of female veterans who have served overseas. The project will strengthen her skills as a documentary photographer and raise awareness about the challenges these women face, the sacrifices they endure, and their contributions to the United States.

Bianca Spriggs (Lexington):  $6,000.00  to spend twenty consecutive weeks working full time to complete a collection of poems about women in states of transformation, transition and reinvention, prepare a manuscript for publication, and deliver selected poems at a public poetry reading for Kentucky writers. The work will spark emotions in readers and people who hear her work read, that they will act on to create social change.

Melissa Ann Vandenberg (Lexington):  $5,000.00  to create a series of mixed media artwork that explores identity in the areas of the former Mason Dixon Divide. The life-size fiber sculptures of Civil War era gravestones, a cannon and cannonballs will help elevate fiber arts, a historically female craft, to the same level as other visual arts, and will elicit dialogue regarding current politics, war and mortality.

Jennifer Zingg (Frankfort):  $3,750.00  to push her art forward by attending a specialized class in inlay on gourds from an internationally recognized artist in Arizona. She will use the trip to learn more about various ways that gourds are used in art, and to continue her research on women in creation myths. She will incorporate these new skills and research into new work about women as mothers, gatherers, and creators of the world.

back to top

Artist Enrichment 2009 Grantees

Kimberly Ellen Anderson (Louisville):  $1,000.00 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):  $2,000.00 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):  $2,500.00 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): $5,168.00 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): $3,500.00 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):  $1,000.00 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):  $2,830.00 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):  $1,000.00 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):  $2,500.00 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):  $2,000.00 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):  $2,500.00 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):  $2,500.00 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):  $1,150.00 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):  $6,000.00 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):  $2,000.00 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): $2,066.00 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): $2,500.00 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):  $1,000.00 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):  $3,225.00 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):  $5,300.00 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):  $1,000.00 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):  $1,000.00 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):  $4,850.00 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):  $1,000.00 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):  $1,000.00 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):  $2,497.000 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): $3,225.00 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): $2,500.00 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):  $5,453.00 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):  $4,000.00 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):  $1,000.00 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):  $1,000.000 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):  $1,000.00 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):  $1,000.00 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):  $2,576.00 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):  $2,500.00 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):  $1,150.00 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): $3,790.00 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):  $2,840.00 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):  $2,380.00 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.

back to top

Artist Enrichment 2008 Grantees

Sylvia Ahrens ( Edmonton): $4,000 to travel to England to research Dorothy Wordsworth at the Wordsworth museum in order to create a manuscript of poems that reflects Dorothy Wordsworth’s voice and that will inspire the creative voices of Kentucky women.

Nancy Kelly Allen ( Hazard): $1,000 to research and complete a children's novel about a young girl who follows a nontraditional path to become a beekeeper, which will provide a positive role model for young women to imagine the possibility of pursuing alternative careers.

Appalshop ( Whitesburg): $4,835 to support emerging filmmaker Natasha Watts to begin directing and producing a 26 minute video documentary, “DIRT”, about how people in a small Appalachian community interact with the soil on a daily basis.

Crystal Marie Bonnean-Kaya ( Bowling Green): $1,000 to attend a conference and two Tango workshops to improve her dance technique and learn new ways of incorporating dance into creating positive social change for women in her dance classes, such as increased self-esteem, improved body image, and overall empowerment.

Mary Carothers ( Louisville): $4,600 to produce text/photo postcards incorporating women's words and to create a photographic quilt from imagery collected during her journey along the Pony Express route, which will reexamine the history and mythology of this historic and contemporary national landscape and serve as a conduit to reveal what it can mean to be a woman traveling upon the American landscape.

Janis Carter ( Louisville): $3,600 to produce an interactive performance of a musical called “Girlfriends,” as a tribute to female jazz vocalists since the beginning of jazz.

Judy Rae Cavagnero ( Lexington): $2,000 to create a chapbook of poems developing a complex female character which can stimulate dialogue and create change.

Sherry Chandler ( Paris): $2,000 to work with a mentor to improve her writing craft, and to create a collection of poems that highlight the roles women have played in Kentucky agrarian history and culture.

Stacey R. Chinn ( Lexington): $3,000 to create and exhibit a series of “breast sculptures” as a single installation, which will contribute to her development as an artist, reflect her personal experience as a female sculptor and challenge the field of sculpture.

Nadia DeLeon ( Bowling Green): $1,500 to attend trainings in yoga and belly dance to improve her skill in these areas so that she can share them as therapeutic and eduational tools for women and children.

Minna Dubin ( Lexington): $1,000 to develop as a writer by completing a book of autobiographical essays on topics surrounding identity politics, which will stimulate discussion and promote social change.

Amanda Matthews Fields ( Pewee Valley): $4,800 to create an interpretive bronze sculpture of Lilith, who, according to folklore and mythology was Adam’s first wife and recognized herself as his equal, which will stimulate discussion and re-evaluation of traditional gender roles in relationships and society.

Robin Rainbow Gate ( Lexington): $6,500 to continue a documentary exploring the Hispanic and pre-Hispanic roots of the Mexican ceremony “Qince Años” (“15 years”) which, when completed, will invite Latina girls in Kentucky to realize and reflect on the cultural, universal, and personal significance of this and other rites of passage.

Krystal L. Gober and Kendis L. Dave ( Louisville): $1,000 to expand their mother’s legacy by publishing a second edition of her children’s book focused on helping children to write poetry.

Nellie Carson Gooden ( Glasgow): $1,000 to develop her playwriting skills by attending workshops and rewriting a play about Abraham Lincoln, his wife and two fictional friends exploring nineteenth century social issues and showing how individual women have the potential to affect social change.

Rae Goodwin ( Pikeville): $3,000 to create a series of performance artworks in which she will use ironic humor by following 130 pieces of advice she received about hiking alone in the woods, which will raise awareness about safety, fear, and knowledge of women’s issues in her rural community.

Donna Ison ( Lexington): $1,000 to research and learn about interactive/immersion theatre and to write plays and host workshops using this new feminist form that will encourage nontraditional audiences to explore and discuss issues facing women today.

Carolyn Kimball and Ellyn Lichvar ( Louisville): $3,655 to create and produce an edition of hand-bound books of poetry and multi-plate etchings celebrating the untold stories of everyday women across several generations of American and Kentucky history.

Lori Larusso ( Lexington): $6,800 to create a new body of two-dimensional works that explores issues of domesticity, consumption and body image, and will challenge the belief systems of mainstream culture.

London Writers Group ( London): $2,345 to conduct a writing workshop for its participants with two qualified workshop leaders to help women writers in Laurel County improve their skills and to help them think of themselves as writers.

Looking for Lilith Theatre Company ( Louisville): $1,000 to produce their first Shakespeare piece, which will provide three company members with their first classical Shakespeare training, and to perform the piece to KY high schools, exposing students to the study of Shakespeare through the perspectives of women.

Debra Lott ( Louisville): $3,500 to attempt new and varied compositions by creating and displaying a series of large scale oil portraits of young girls from various backgrounds, focusing on revealing their inner beauty and spirit, which will advance the status of young girls in Kentucky.

The Louisville Youth Choir, Inc. ( Louisville): $3,000 to provide scholarships for young female singers to participate in the youth ensemble, which will teach them choral music skills, cooperation, discipline and leadership skills that will help them actively engage in the community.

C.C. Maupin ( Bowling Green): $1,000 to attend the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators conference to develop her skills as a writer and to make contacts for publishing her novel about a young girl who plays soccer and her efforts to bring feminism and change to sports.

Erica A. Meuser ( Lexington): $3,000 to publish a book of her artwork of black and white monotypes about America’s history of war and its effects on women and children, which will help her extend her feminist voice to a larger audience, will bring awareness to ending the war in Iraq and will help to change society’s patterns of resolving conflict.

Judith C. Owens-Lalude ( Louisville): $2,000 to expand her performance piece, “The Long Walk: From Slavery to Freedom,” into teaching tools to reach audiences across Kentucky, involving a historical DVD based on her family’s history, a fictional storytelling piece about a woman and her child who escape enslavement in search of the Underground Railroad, and a novel and teacher’s guide on the same theme, all of which show the strength and endurance of women and their impact on their children, their communities, and society.

Betty Lynn Parker and Susan Knoer ( Louisville): $3,000 to research and and write biographies of Kentucky women artists and to make her research available in a number of multimedia formats in order to offer these biographies as inspiration for other women artists, teachers, and students in our state.

Lori Perkins ( Columbia): $1,000 to attend a workshop to strengthen her writing skills and to rewrite a novel about a woman who works as a “madam” at a place of prostitution in the 1880s, the ways she can and cannot engage in the feminist movement of that time, and how she uses her strengths to overcome adversity.

Yvonne Petkus ( Bowling Green): $5,454 to visit museums and galleries in New York that will inform her work and her teaching, and to conduct studio research through a series of paintings depicting the effects on women of the contemporary societal issues of anxiety, the residues of violence from war, oppression, and abuse.

Laura M. Poulette ( Irvine): $3,000 to build a small, environmentally friendly studio, guided by eco-feminist principles, in which she can have a work space incorporating a permanent dye kitchen so she can more efficiently create fiber works inspired by her life as a mother, individual, and a woman.

Linda Pugh ( Lexington): $5,000 to work with a mentor on her writing craft and to research and write a book proposal focusing on the process that individuals go through when they begin to listen to their inner call for meaningful service in the world and become powerful agents of social change.

Sharon Mauldin Reynolds ( Lexington): $1,600 to participate in a writers’ conference to complete a collection of short fiction exploring the struggles of Southern women to overcome the narrow role imposed on them by society, which will inspire women readers to re-discover and re-value each other.

Kelly Saderholm ( Summer Shade): $1,000 to attend workshops to develop her writing, and to begin research on a collection of personal essays and stories dealing with perceptions of Appalachian women throughout U.S. history, and how these perceptions shape the way Appalachian women view themselves today.

Melanie Sunbeam Smith ( Midway): $1,046 to create and prepare for exhibition a new body of mixed media and collage work focused on correlating the work with selections of jazz and classical music and showing her determination to achieve her artistic goals despite adversity.

Joyce Pipkin Thomas ( Louisville): $2,000 to complete a book about her life and family history in Gamaliel, Kentucky, and to display historic documents and ensure guided tours of the “Old Log Church” built by her grandfathers in the 1800s for free slaves to attend and worship.

Doris C. Thurber ( Frankfort): $1,000 to further her technique and style in batik fiberwork by creating and documenting a new body of work, focusing on her connections with feminine spirituality and with the environment.

Carla D. Winn ( Lexington): $3,765 to photograph the realities of women migrants and the lives they have built in Kentucky to help change the issue of immigration from a political voice to a humanitarian voice by showing the migrants as people rather than as statistics or intruders.

back to top

Artist Enrichment 2007 Grantees

Appalshop, Inc. ( Whitesburg): $1,000.00 to provide an opportunity for filmmaker Elizabeth Barret to expand her media work by producing an audio CD of cultural activist Jean Ritchie's 1981 album, Sweet Rivers, which will make this feminist music available to a wider audience.

Lauren Argo ( Cynthiana): $2,250.00 to develop a multi-media play based on her public art performance living on display in a downtown Louisville storefront window, which will create a new outlook on the role of public and feminist art in the Kentucky community and beyond.

Kristina Arnold ( Bowling Green): $4,000.00 to participate in an artist residency at the Worcester Center for Crafts in Massachusetts where she will study blown and flame worked glass with a noted female glass artist and incorporate these techniques into new work.

Ashland Terrace Retirement Home with Ric McGee ( Lexington): $1,000.00 to market a book to show the independence, spirit, and flexibility of women in their later years, and their positive influence on youth.

Kelli McAllister Bailey ( Louisville): $1,000.00 to write a collection of oral histories of women from the “Silent Generation” (born between 1933-1943), to give them a voice and visibility while showing younger generations that the feminist movement offers the opportunity to create rich and meaningful lives.

Sonya G. Baker ( Murray): $2,250.00 to produce a CD in tribute to Marian Anderson, the first African-American to sing a lead role with the Metropolitan Opera, and to produce an educational one-woman theatrical performance based on the story of Anderson's historic concert at the Lincoln Memorial after being denied use of Constitution Hall because of her race.

Nancy E. Bowden ( Whitley City): $2,200.00 to complete the first draft of a novel tracing three generations of sisters as they encounter and react to cultural and personal barriers that threaten their sense of self-worth and their ability to achieve self-fulfillment.

Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning for KaBoom, a Women's Writing Collective ( Lexington): $2,200.00 to publish an anthology of this feminist writing group's mature work in order to learn the process of producing a book, which will affirm the power of collective female creative experience.

Mary Cartledgehayes ( Louisville): $1,500.00 to complete a memoir/natural history book based in a Kentucky wetlands preserve, which will speak to the renewed vitality of women in late middle age.

Ashley Cecil ( Louisville): $1,000.00 to create portraits of 15 female Kentuckians who have received services or aid from state nonprofit organizations resulting in a positive life transformation, exhibit these portraits, and donate a portion of the sales to a scholarship for a female Kentucky resident.

Kathy Crutcher ( Lexington): $2,200.00 to research and write a novel set in Lexington spanning the eras between WW2 and today, which will focus on race relations and women's roles in local integration efforts, and will raise questions about the media's responsibility to its community.

Olga-Maria Cruz ( Louisville): $1,000.00 to complete her manuscript about her experiences as a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary from a distinctly feminist perspective.

Karoda (Karen R. Davis) ( Louisville): $2,000.00 t o participate in 3 workshops and rent studio space at the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts for 5 months where she will create complex cloth and 4 art quilts for juried exhibitions to widen the perception of what it means to be an African American quilter and to examine African American aesthetics.

Laura Eklund ( Olive Hill): $1,000.00 t o create 10 abstract paintings per month for one year in oils, acrylics, and mixed media concerned with feminist spirituality and to continue to build a regional, state, and national audience for her work as a feminist artist.

Kathi E.B. Ellis ( Louisville): $1,000.00 to continue her research on actress Fanny Kemble and Kentucky actress Frances Ann Drake to add to our understanding and appreciation of these two strong career actresses at a time when most women did not pursue careers.

Linda Erzinger ( Louisville): $1,500.00 to create at least seven major paintings exploring fundamental feminine and environmental perceptions along with new mythologies and iconography for a community exhibition prompting people to examine their beliefs about women, birth, and nurturance.

Susan Fatdove ( Monticello): $1,000.00 t o purchase new tools to increase the size of her sculptures depicting women and nature, use digital photography to make prints and postcards, set up a web site to promote art, feminism, and social change, and attend more arts and cultural events.

Madeline Flannery ( Whitesburg): $2,200.00 to complete an historical novel set in the 1900s and 1970s that tells the story of a woman who was raped and murdered in eastern Kentucky at the turn of the century, and her great-granddaughter who uncovers the story, breaks the silence, and imagines a different future.

Cynthia Fletcher ( Louisville): $1,000.00 to research, travel to Appalachia, and conduct an ethnographic study of African American women dulcimer players to show that African American women hold a strong presence in traditional Appalachian folk music.

Brenda Flynn and Carol Shutt ( Flemingsburg): $2,000.00 t o create a brochure, website, and photography exhibit of Fleming County's barn quilt trail to preserve the heritage, history, and stories of quilting in eastern Kentucky.

Valerie Sullivan Fuchs ( Shelbyville): $2,725.00 t o create new video and installation feminist artwork, beginning with a series of video installations focusing on women who have contributed to social change during times of war and civil conflict.

Shifen Gong ( Louisville): $1,000.00 to research and complete an historical book about the battle of Hengyang during WW2, her personal story of its impact on a Chinese mother and daughter, and about the impact of war on women of military families.

Suzanne Gonsalez ( Lexington): $2,950.00 t o complete and market a body of work combining techniques learned in her childhood, embroidery, quilting, jewelry making, beading, and collage, to express her grieving process over the death of her partner and examine the feminist, social, cultural, and humanistic impact of surviving death.

Joy Gonsalves ( Lexington): $5,005.00 to purchase a computer and to research photographs and artwork of early American black culture, which will enable her to complete her first full-length poetry collection, which deals with themes of connecting her life to other black women in literature and art.

Marie Hochstrasser ( Lexington): $2,000.00 t o learn digital photography skills, create a brochure with images of her fiber works, attend the Handweavers Guild of American Biennial Conference and an American Tapestry Alliance seminar to develop her skills as a feminist art educator.

Michelle Jones ( Louisville): $1,000.00 t o continue a photography and oral history project that explores the struggles and successes of women farmers in Kentucky.

Hallie DeCatherine Jones ( Louisville): $4,500.00 t o create a new body of feminist-themed conceptual visual artwork, confronting the male gaze, the war at home, and demystification of the male-dominated mono-sexual media culture, which will be displayed and marketed at the artist's first career solo exhibition.

Courtney Kessel ( Morehead): $1,000.00 t o reconstruct a garage into a studio space as a safe place in which to develop ideas, practice skills, reflect directions, play, and experiment, specifically with steel and bronze in making metal feminine.

Amelia Kirby ( Whitesburg): $4,500.00 to research and produce a video documentary focusing on her family's Appalachian musical history, which will be an exploration of the evolutions of family and culture in the last 120 years in Appalachia and in her family.

Living Arts and Science Center for the Kentucky Women Photographers Network ( Frankfort): $4,640.00 to hold and attend a workshop to explore aesthetics and techniques for using the camera to express personal vision, and to exhibit work across Kentucky to inspire women and girls to use photography for effective communication.

Debra Lott ( Louisville): $1,500.00 t o create and display a series of large-scale portraits revealing the beauty of elderly women, especially in Kentucky, and engage viewers with the portraits and a short personal life story revealing each woman's courage, strength, and character.

Christina Lovin ( Lancaster): $5,030.00 to attend a residency center to continue work on a book of poetry that focuses on the social, cultural, and political environment of the 1950s and 1960s, and how this era was a turning point for women in America.

Bonny "Bonfire" McDonald ( Bowling Green): $3,000.00 to perform spoken word performance poetry that generates awareness about gender roles, eco-feminism, racism, and the possibility for change in community, and to help other young women artists do the same.

Denise R. McKinney ( Berea): $1,000.00 to revise and lengthen a play about the life of her Cherokee grandmother and her struggles with poverty, discrimination, and loss, which will teach others about the dignity of life in spite of hardships.

Diana McQuady ( Bowling Green): $2,200.00 to rewrite and edit a novel that explores the value of generational history, passed from a Kentucky woman to her great-granddaughter, which helps the young woman understand the importance of becoming a strong woman.

Marie Mitchell and Rebecca Mitchell Turney ( Richmond): $2,200.00 to publish the first book the Kentucky Girl series, which depicts young heroines in historically accurate Kentucky settings.

Kelly Moffett ( Owensboro): $1,500.00 to attend a writing workshop at Naropa institute to complete a collection of poems about objects not traditionally seen as having a “soul,” and to develop her skills as a teacher and as the Director of the Kentucky Retreat for Women Writers.

Andrea O’Brien ( Versailles): $2,000.00 to begin writing her second collection of poems working in fixed form to challenge and develop herself as a writer, evoking images that are seemingly opposite on themes such as the female body, redefining spirituality, the natural world, language, and women's choices.

Ann W. Olson ( Olive Hill): $2,000.00 to develop her photographic skills through a series of lessons from Kentucky photographers, to reconnect with a group of women she brought together in 1966 as eigth graders, reflecting with them on the choices that have shaped their lives, and to create a photo exhibit and DVD from these conversations.

Mimi Pickering ( Whitesburg): $1,000.00 t o explore new technologies for creating and presenting social change media, and to collaborate with a group of middle aged, working-class women from eastern Kentucky to produce media pieces that will inspire others to increase public engagement and address problems in their communities.

Susan Pope ( Danville): $2,250.00 to develop a solo, autobiographical physical theatre play about the relationships in a violent family and to generate related workshop materials, which will help her transition into creating new work, and will further community dialogue about family violence in Kentucky.

Laura Poulette ( Irvine): $2,000.00 t o continue a series of sculptural fiber pieces that create a visual representation of the artist's struggle to conjure time for herself while as a mother she is intensely involved in nurturing the next generation.

Dr. Gloria Pressley-McGruder ( Louisville): $2,250.00 to develop an original full-length play about a woman who struggles from childhood to adulthood to become empowered as a survivor of child sexual abuse, which will provide a vehicle for community dialogue on child abuse.

Cynthia Reynolds ( Louisville): $3,750.00 t o produce a sculptural installation that reflects the artist's agoraphobic experience of bodily and architectural space and contribute her perspective as a feminist visual artist to the current female-focused discourse concerning agoraphobia, also called “housewife's disease.”

Rachel E. Seed ( Louisville): $1,000.00 t o expand and complete a documentary project photographing motherless women from all walks of life who convey a universal message of hope.

Margaret Stewart ( Louisville): $1,000.00 to develop and enhance her playwriting and poetry skills by working on the creation of a poetic play about mountaintop removal in Appalachia and its impact on the earth, on women, and on all people in the region.

Leslie Smith Townsend ( Louisville): $1,500.00 to attend a conference and to complete a revision of her memoir about her family's story of depression, addiction, and redemption, incorporating the conflicting point of view of her mother, challenging traditional assumptions about truth.

Marianne Worthington ( Williamsburg): $2,200.00 to complete a poetry manuscript that explores women's inventiveness and gender roles in traditional country music, especially traditional ballads.

back to top

Artist Enrichment 2006 Grantees

Constance Alexander ( Murray): $2,000 to complete the final draft of her first novel, in which the female protagonist deals with the death of her mother, from breast cancer, and her father, from AIDS.

Nancy Kelly Allen ( Hazard): $2,000 to complete and revise a children's novel that focuses on a ten-year-old girl who practices carpentry as she assists her grandfather in the upkeep of a covered bridge.

Merle Lyn Bachman ( Louisville): $2,000 for interviews, research, and travel to write creative non-fiction about the concept of “home” among Kentucky women who are Jews and Palestinians.

Karen A. Balzer ( Murray): $1,000 to choreograph excerpts from the classical ballet Sleeping Beauty for a company of young female dancers.

Beverly Bartlett ( Louisville): $2,000 to complete a novel that explores women's struggles with their sense of identity as work and family responsibilities compete for priority.

Marie Bradby ( Louisville): $3,150 to complete her children's novel, Harriet's Lost Diaries, which focuses on the young life of Harriet Tubman.

Thea Browning ( Louisville): $1,000 for a video biography of the life of Kentucky native Mary Tacoma Maupin, who is a descendant of former slaves and survived the Tulsa race riots.

Robin Burke ( Louisville): $2,000 for a documentary about a group of Louisville women working to transform an inner-city property into a community center and teaching garden.

Anne Congleton ( Richmond): $1,000 to revise her play that explores the ways in which religion and marital choices affect women and their children.

Erica Ann Cooper ( Highland Heights): $1,000 to research and create a series of drawings and paintings that explores the struggles of young, single mothers in northern Kentucky.

Diane Deaton-Street ( Louisville): $1,500 to create a body of photographs that places a female figure in various abandoned environments in Kentucky.

Anita Douthat ( Alexandria): $3,500 to develop and refine a series of photograms that addresses the role of clothing in perception of the female body.

Normandi Ellis ( Berea): $3,000 to research and begin writing a novel that explores the paradigm of abortion and women's self-esteem at the turn of the last century and today.

Jessica Farquhar ( Louisville): $2,030 to complete, revise, and submit to literary magazines a manuscript of poems that addresses the natural animal aspect of humans, particularly pregnant women and mothers.

Cynthia Ganote ( Louisville): $1,000 to attend a Theatre of the Oppressed workshop, with the goal of expanding her acting and teaching repertoire.

Robin Rainbow Gate ( Lexington): $1,000 to create a documentary film about indigenous Mexican healing practices and paradigms, which will be used as a teaching tool with healthcare providers in Kentucky and nationwide.

Sarah Gorham ( Prospect): $2,000 to develop a series of lyric essays that fuse poetry and prose as they explore the concepts of “good girl” and “bad girl” in family dynamics.

Nicole Hand and Judy Shearer ( Almo): $1,500 to collaborate, using etchings, lithographs, and nonfiction writing, to produce an artist book about feminism.

Stephanie C. Horton ( Louisville): $3,750 to complete a novel that explores the mother/daughter relationship and analyzes sexual abuse from a critical womanist/feminist perspective.

Jennifer A. Hunt ( Brandenburg): $1,500 to create a one-woman touring production for classrooms using various forms of puppetry to perform several of Shakespeare's female characters.

Juneteenth Legacy Theatre ( Louisville): $2,060 to conduct three Intensive Black Theatre Art workshops, which will provide Kentucky women artists advanced training in acting, using scripts from Juneteenth's archive of social change plays that explore images of women.

Cynthia Ryan Kelly ( Lexington): $1,000 to continue a body of paintings that focuses on mountaintop removal and its effects on women and their families in eastern Kentucky, and to create a website that features this work.

Leatha Kendrick ( East Point): $2,500 to research and begin writing a novel that tells the story of a middle-aged woman in the 1990's who is claiming a life of her own.

Regina Lang and Antoinette Oglesby Taylor ( Louisville): $1,600 to collaborate on the development of a one-woman play called The Cleaning Lady that explores feminist values and social change ideas.

Sharon Howerton Leightty ( Louisville): $1,500 to learn construction skills traditionally associated with the “masculine,” and to push her artwork toward a clearer language of social change.

Looking for Lilith Theatre ( Louisville): $1,000 to develop in-school curriculum for their play about American women in World War II, and to take the tour to several under-funded schools.

Christina Lovin ( Lancaster): $2,920 for a writing residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, during which she will develop a book of poetry exploring American women's history from the end of World War II to 1964.

Thea Lura ( Louisville): $3,658 to create a mixed media installation that challenges implied superiority when the female artist assumes the power to spiritually alter the exhibition space.

Madison County Extension Homemakers ( Richmond): $5,000 to develop large-scale paintings of quilt squares created by women of Madison County, and to display them on tobacco barns throughout the community.

Julia Martin ( Crestview Hills): $3,640 to create, document, and exhibit a body of fabric and mixed media artwork that deals with a woman's subconscious.

Kristina McGrath ( Louisville): $2,500 to research and develop her third novel and facilitate publication of her second, both of which focus on working class lesbian characters in unusual situations.

Janice Miller ( Wilmore): $2,000 to create a studio and classroom in her basement, which will expand her own skills and her teaching capacity.

Marie Mitchell and Rebecca Mitchell Turney ( Richmond, Park Hills): $2,000 to create the second volume in a series of books for girls that depicts young heroines in historically accurate Kentucky settings.

Mary Owens ( Crab Orchard): $1,500 to write a full-length play that tells the story of a Kentucky woman who becomes an advocate for agro-ecology and gender equity through her work with Heifer International.

Laura Parker and Jill Frank ( Louisville): $1,200 to produce a mixed media art exhibit focusing on female adolescence in the 1990's.

Esther E. Randall ( Berea): $7,140 to create half-life sized figurative sculptures exploring the psychological and physical state of the middle-aged woman.

Margaret Ricketts ( Berea): $2,100 to write a memoir in the form of prose poems about a life shaped by physical disability and medical ambiguity.

Maggie M. Sasso ( Murray): $3,220 to complete a series of mixed media / video objects that will analyze stereotypes of women from many generations by combining “women's crafts” with technology.

Emily Schuhmann ( Louisville): $2,942 to create a body of wearable art that explores the meaning of beauty and how it is manifested in women's lives.

Roberta Schultz ( Wilder): $1,500 to create a collection of songs about how women and girls in our society face aging.

Pam Swisher ( Louisville): $1,500 for equipment and a workshop to improve her craft as she works to increase exposure of female video artists in Kentucky.

Karen M. Telford ( Wellington): $3,600 for a traveling exhibition of photographs that integrate the image of the archetypical feminine and the natural world.

Toby Wilcher ( Berea): $1,000 to develop a short play that addresses poverty, environmental degradation, drug abuse, and other issues that affect women and families in eastern Kentucky.

Pamala G. Wiley ( Louisville): $1,640 to study folklore, drumming, and dance, and to create a dramatic performance that expresses women's role in society.

Mariam Williams ( Louisville): $1,000 to convert her screenplay Mary, Mary, about a woman who defies God’s calling to be the second Virgin Mary, into a stage play.

back to top

Artist Enrichment 2005 Grantees

Dobree Adams ( Frankfort): $4,000 for equipment and a workshop that will enhance her skills as a digital photographer as she begins to build a community of Kentucky women photographers.

Jeanie Adams-Smith ( Bowling Green): $1,000 to create and exhibit a series of portraits and a DVD presentation of regional women who have been raped or sexually abused.

Nancy Kelly Allen (Hazard): $1,000 to revise a children’s novel with a female protagonist who overcomes the upheaval in her life during World War II.

Janet L. Boyd ( Louisville): $1,700 to compile and publish a collection of her feminist newspaper column "Don’t Get Me Started," with the dual goal of promoting her writing and returning the column to circulation.

Nickole Brown ( Louisville): $3,700 to complete a novel-in-verse based on her life experience and addressed to her younger sister as she grows into womanhood.

Beth Burden ( Lexington): $1,050 to produce and market Mother Jane’s new CD of original acoustic pop music reflecting the life and observations of a Kentucky woman.

Mary Carothers ( Louisville): $1,000 to produce a mobile laboratory for engaging the public with paradigms of women depicted in Hollywood movies, and to produce a multimedia presentation to be projected in planetarium format.

Caroline Curry (Shepherdsville): $1,000 to research and write the second volume of a series designed to encourage women who have been abused to maintain hope and a sense of community.

Erika Eagan ( Louisville): $5,000 to produce ten large-scale paintings of Kentucky women that portray their own perceptions of beauty and gender roles.

Laura Eklund (Olive Hill): $1,900 to create and promote a series of paintings that express the worldview of a feminist Appalachian artist.

Kathi E. B. Ellis ( Louisville): $1,000 to research women who have had a significant impact on American theatre history, but whose legacies are largely unrecognized, with the goal of creating theatrical works based on the information.

Randi Ewing (Lexington): $1,000 to research and write a novel about an undocumented Mexican woman living in Kentucky who goes in search of the one witness to her son’s American birth.

Linda Fifield (McKee): $1,635 to participate in two national woodturning conferences, at which she will enhance her skills and her profile as a female woodturner.

Phyllis Free ( Louisville): $3,000 to attend two workshops that will enhance her skills as a drummer and her knowledge of traditional world music percussion techniques.

Nancy Gall-Clayton ( Louisville): $1,800 to produce 6 Women Turning 60 in 2006, a festival of staged readings that celebrates the older woman artist.

Suzanne Gonsalez ( Lexington): $4,000 to complete and exhibit a body of digitally produced montages based on genetic coding and the artist’s own family archetypes.

Hillary Harrison ( Louisville): $1,000 to improve the quality and content of her feminist publication Bejeezus, and to produce marketing materials and a website.

Heather Henson (Harrodsburg): $1,000 to complete a novel, geared toward teenage girls, that celebrates self and place.

Suong Nhi Huynh ( Richmond): $3,000 for final editing and submission of her manuscript that deals with a courageous woman who escapes her abusive husband and a corrupt, oppressive government in order to raise her daughter.

Carridder M. Jones ( Louisville): $1,000 to prepare her short stories for publication by enlisting an artist to draw illustrations and an editor.

Juneteenth Legacy Theatre ( Louisville): $2,500 to create a new full length work of theatre based on the Louisville police shooting death in 2004 of African-American youth Michael Newby.

Cynthia Ryan Kelly ( Lexington): $3,750 to create a body of paintings that focuses on mountaintop removal and its effects on women and their families in eastern Kentucky.

Jamie C. Kuli ( Georgetown): $1,000 to create a series of prototypes for a line of women’s undergarments that address body image, particularly for women who have had mastectomies.

Kate Larken ( Louisville): $1,050 to compose and record original music that addresses social injustice themes by putting a face on the issue.

London Writers Group ( London): $2,500 to provide a writing workshop designed to enhance the artistic ability of middle-aged and older writers in and around Laurel County.

Cynthia McCloud ( Lexington): $2,000 to produce a CD of her compositions about the healing process of young girls who are survivors of sexual abuse and illness.

Elizabeth Mesa-Gaido (Morehead): $4,990 to create fabric sculptures for her ongoing Couture Series and to promote her artwork.

Erica A. Meuser ( Lexington): $1,000 to create and exhibit a series of paintings and monoprints about war, mothers, and sons, with the goal of raising the consciousness of Kentucky women about the Iraq war.

Janice Nessibou ( Louisville): $1,000 to develop and produce a series of original compositions made up of intergenerational women’s expressions.

Elizabeth Oakes ( Bowling Green): $3,700 to complete her volume of poems on Emily Dickinson that deconstructs and examines her iconic status and the image of the female poet.

Regina Lang (Louisville): Elizabeth Orndorff Danville): $1,000 to create an actress-centered one-act version of the play The Bathroom Cleaner that will be suitable for touring across Kentucky.

Pat Ramsey ( Louisville): $1,000 to teach a theatre workshop for women who are homeless or in rehab, and to write a monologue based on the women’s stories and their personal exploration.

Jennifer A. Reis (Morehead): $1,000 to create promotional materials for use as she establishes herself as a national and international teaching artist.

Margaret Ricketts ( Berea): $2,500 to attend a workshop to develop her book of narrative poetry about a woman’s view of injustice in Lexington, Kentucky, and Washington D.C.

Valerie Salley ( Louisville): $1,000 to develop four creative nonfiction vignettes about growing up in rural Kentucky.

Kate Sedgwick ( Louisville): $2,786 to create a series of large-scale photographic prints depicting a female mental health patient in dramatic scenarios with several doctors.

Angela Shoemaker ( Louisville): $1,000 to develop a photographic essay that documents one of the last active female tobacco farmers in Kentucky.

Rosemary Topie Jacqueline Slone (Covington): $2,575 to produce a series of shrines and altars called Self Storage, which explores the way women "shelve" their true selves in the face of family and societal pressures.

Squallis Puppeteers ( Louisville): $1,000 to create a multifaceted soundtrack for their new touring puppet play that celebrates imagination in response to result-oriented education.

Zoe Strecker (Harrodsburg): $7,500 to create a series of conceptual sculptural women’s garments to be used in installation/ performance pieces and video segments.

Tina Tammaro (Covington): $3,750 to create for exhibition several large-scale figurative paintings that depict the moment when a woman chooses to continue a relationship or begin a new life.

Anne Severn Williamson (Booneville): $2,500 to write a nine-part novel series for pre-teenage children featuring a young Appalachian heroine who exists both in rural Kentucky and in the realm of ancient goddess-centered theology.

Women Who Write ( Louisville): $2,500 to co-sponsor, with the University of Louisville Women’s Center, a two-day book festival featuring Kentucky women authors.

The Women Writers Conference ( Lexington): $2,000 to fund the second annual Sonia Sanchez Lecture Series, which will feature the founding artistic director of the New York-based Urban Bush Women dance company.

Mary Yates ( Louisville): $1,614 to further her professional development by creating new photographic artwork and marketing this work to galleries and museums.

Katy Yocom ( Louisville): $1,000 to support research for her second novel, which deals with female mentor relationships and collaboration among women of different cultures in the struggle to save tiger habitats in India.

Aimee M. Zaring ( Louisville): $1,000 to revise and complete her first novel, which is set in rural Kentucky and explores a married woman’s choice to remain childless.

back to top

Artist Enrichment 2004 Grantees

Nancy Kelly Allen ( Hazard): $1,000.00 to attend two workshops with the goal of revising a biography for young women about Alice Slone, an Appalachian woman who started a settlement school in Knott County .

Appalshop, Inc. ( Whitesburg): $4,000.00 for an international cultural exchange and series of follow-up activities focused on creating feminist media as well as feminist art and social change theory.

Sonya Gabrielle Baker ( Murray ): $1,000.00 to finalize production and distribute a CD of vocal music recordings of American women composers.

Theresa Anne Beaumont ( Louisville ): $2,800.00 for an apprenticeship with a Russian iconographer, and to produce icons depicting the sacred feminine.

H.D. Bennett ( Lexington ): $1,105.00 to develop a book of poems exploring how motherhood impacts a woman’s sense of individuality.

Shirley J. Boyd ( Ashland): $1,000.00 to conduct research and complete a biography, to be published by the Jesse Stuart Foundation, that tells the story of Jean Thomas, a champion of Appalachian cultural preservation.

Carrie Burr ( Louisville ): $1,000.00 to create a photographic installation dealing with women's issues such as anorexia, bulimia, and abortion.

Erma Bush ( Louisville): $1,275.00 to present a series of writing workshops that focus on the preservation of traditional and cultural cooking, household tips, and memoirs of female family members, and to develop a book and a one-act play.

Mary T. Carson-Clements ( Morganfield): $2,787.00 to facilitate a series of visual art workshops, which will be accessible to economically and socially diverse women.

Betty L. Carter ( Monticello ): $2,500.00 to complete, illustrate, and give readings from her second book about a young Appalachian woman.

Laura Chenicek ( Hopkinsville ): $1,000.00 to depict the complexity of family relationships and the breakdown of the family unit in large-scale, mixed media, multi-dimensional art pieces.

Stacey R. Chinn ( Lexington ): $5,689.00 to create a series of fifteen to twenty ceramic and mixed media sculptures that will comment on the continued practice of offering dowries and pay tribute to the women this practice affects.

Antoinette Crawford-Willis ( Louisville ): $1,000.00 to develop a modern dance performance to choreo-poems written by abused teenagers, and to take the performance on tour.

Olga-Maria Cruz ( Louisville ): $3,500.00 to complete her first full-length manuscript of poetry, which addresses, from a feminist perspective, themes of family, sexuality, and recovery.

ENID , Generations of Women Sculptors ( Lousville): $4,206.00 to provide ten women sculptors the opportunity to attend the twentieth International Sculpture Conference in Cincinnati .

Freda Fairchild ( Paducah ): $5,000.00 to create a series of printed symbolic garments that represent woman’s private and public selves during specific historical periods.

Natacha Feola ( Lexington ): $3,000.00 for completion of one feature-length film and one short film.

Jenrose Fitzgerald ( Louisville ): $2,880.00 to produce a CD of story songs exploring themes of identity and community, with an emphasis on the personal/political connection and the connections between rural and urban experiences.

Heather Floyd ( Louisville ): $1,000.00 for Alpha Betty, an all female punk band, to make and distribute a CD of their original music.

Mary Hamilton ( Frankfort ): $1,750.00 to record and market a storytelling CD of fairy tales that feature girls and women as active heroines who create their own fates.

Kiya Heartwood ( Stamping Ground): $3,600.00 to produce folk duo Wishing Chair's sixth CD of original music, which is infused with feminist and lesbian themes and commitment to politcial, social, and economic justice.

Mary Johnson ( Louisville): $1,500.00 to develop a series of four articles about women getting older and fearing dependency, offering as couterpoint the views of disabled women activists.

Amanda Johnston ( Elizabethtown ): $2,920.00 for a summer retreat at Cave Canem to develop new performance poetry focusing on multicultural women's encounters with social injustice.

Lisa Kaplan ( Lexington ): $1,000.00 to attend "Healing through Story," a workshop that will enhance her skills as a facilitator of women's healing experiences achieved through telling their own stories.

Kentucky Domestic Violence Association, Inc. ( Frankfort ): $1,029.00 to offer three acting workshops for the cast of its production of The Vagina Monologues.

D. Cameron Lawrence ( Louisville ): $1,000.00 for additional mid-career training in radio and writing that will sharpen her skills as she begins planning new feminist-themed radio productions and a collection of essays.

Lorna Littleway ( Louisville ): $2,466.00 to develop a full-length version of her one-act play Young Sistas, and to make the script available to social change and feminst organizations.

Sarah Lyon ( Louisville ): $2,000.00 to create portraits for a twelve-month calendar featuring real women mechanics photographed in their shop environments.

Barbara McNew ( Louisville ): $1,500.00 for a computer upgrade and writing time to improve her novel about the trauma of child sexual abuse on two adult lives.

Pam Oldfield Meade ( West Liberty ): $1,000.00 to create a body of mixed media visual work that reflects the strength, spirit, and intelligence of females growing up and working on or near the typical small farm in the foothills of Kentucky .

LeeAnn Honeyman Nay ( Louisville ): $1,000.00 to attend workshops in hot glass techniques to expand her skills in the traditionally male-dominated field of glass working.

Jane Olmsted ( Bowling Green): $1,000.00 to complete a collection of short stories which follows the members of one family from central Kentucky as they face issues such as addiction, sexual assault, loss, love, and disability.

MacKenzie Mae Outlund ( Lexington ): $2,000.00 to support research at the Lesbian Herstory Archives for the completion of seven short stories about past, present, and projected lesbian experiences.

Owsley County Arts Council, Inc. ( Booneville): $2,788.00 for a visual artist to work with the community to design and create two large outdoor murals.

Tanya Palmer (Louisville): $1,000.00 to conduct interviews and develop a play about women in the military who have served in Iraq, exploring their feelings about, and experience of, the conflict and their relationship to power within the military.

Abbie Potter ( Louisville ): $1,000.00 to complete a novel about two women from very different cultures and the "chosen family" relationship that develops between them.

Susan Receveur ( Louisville ): $1,000.00 to finish a fantasy novel that shows a central female character in a heroic light.

Sara Reinke ( Louisville ): $1,000.00 to begin research, production, and marketing of a novel based on the life of a fifth century woman from the Eastern Roman Empire .

Anna Sapozhnikov ( Louisville ): $3,000.00 to bring together several feminist choreograhers to create modern dance works focusing on the depiction of women in media, relationships, and history.

Joanne Seiff ( Bowling Green ): $5,080.00 to complete, edit, and promote a non-fiction book that promotes knitting as an avenue towards women's intellectual stimulation and health.

Anne Shelby ( Oneida ): $2,500.00 to research and write several columns that employ Appalachian voices and experiences to challenge the culture's conservative attitude toward women and other marginalized groups.

Angela Shoemaker ( Louisville ): $2,000.00 to develop a photographic essay that explores the societal pressures on aging women to retain youthful beauty, through documentation of the Ms. Senior American Pageant.

Judy Sizemore ( McKee): $5,500.00 to write and edit a book of poems which reconnect women to the forest.

Kate Sprengnether ( Lexington ): $1,000.00 for a residency at the Mary Anderson Center , during which she will create a new body of ceramic sculpture work.

Kopana Terry ( Lexington ): $2,000.00 to create for national exhibition 25 photographs that draw attention to working women in the thoroughbred horse industry in Kentucky .

Vision for Education, Inc. ( Louisville ): $1,000.00 for its Youth Cultural Theatre Institute to begin research and production of a series of plays about individual minority women with connections to Louisville .

Jennifer Zingg ( Frankfort ): $1,625.00 to professionally photograph and display her artwork on a website with the intention of communicating to others what is means to be a female American folk artist.

back to top

Artist Enrichment Grantees for 2003

Constance Alexander and Jeremy Beck ( Murray ): $ 2,000 to create a chamber opera about women’s health and end-of-life issues.

Ann Stewart Anderson( Louisville): $ 2,500 to produce and distribute postcards made from a series of her paintings, Mythic Women, Ancient and Modern. 

Sonya Gabrielle Baker( Murray): $1,440 to complete, produce, and distribute her debut recording as a vocalist of classical music, including songs by five American women composers.

Martha Barnette( Louisville): $2,500 to write at least five short essays for newspapers across the state examining the ways lesbians in Kentucky are adversely affected by sex discrimination in marriage law.

Terena Elizabeth Bell( Louisville): $1,000 to research and complete a book-length manuscript of short stories, based on the everyday lives of rural Kentucky women.

Joan Brannon( Lexington): $2,500 to purchase a broadcast quality video editing system to edit a number of documentaries and short films about the lives of African-American women and girls in Kentucky .

Megan Burnett( Louisville): $4,000 to develop the Anne Ludlum play, Shame the Devil! An Audience with Fanny Kemble, into a one-woman show that she will tour among schools and professional venues throughout the state.

Nancy Cassell( Union): $1,400 to create new artworks, including a collection of women’s responses to nature, for "a natural response," her exhibit at the Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati, OH in April 2004.

Judy Rae Cavagnero ( Lexington): $2,500 to write a collection of poems on the subject of what women inherit, socially and psychologically, from their mothers, grandmothers, and preceding generations.

Vickie Cimprich( Fort Mitchell): $1,050 to be in residence for five days at Pleasant Hill Shaker Village, to research and develop a series of dramatic monologues.

Cynthia Lovan Del Bianco ( Louisville): $1,000 to produce two episodes of a children’s television/video series, focusing on "Miss Peacock," who collects cats, champions individuality, battles discrimination, and breaks stereotypes.

Monica Duncan and Annie Langan ( Louisville): $1,000 to enhance their abilities to teach, create new work, and engage in collaborative activities by establishing a residency workshop for women artists in video and digital print technologies.

Gaela Erwin( Louisville): $2,500 to complete a series of large-scale paintings presenting a feminist version of religious icons that, for centuries, have been left in the hands of male artists.

Jenrose Fitzgerald( Lexington): $4,660 to record and produce a concept album - an original CD of story songs, focusing on themes of identity, family, and community from a progressive, queer, feminist perspective.

Valerie Sullivan Fuchs( Shelbyville): $1,000 to create a multi-channel video project installation, exploring the undervalued presence of women and their work throughout history, to be a part of an exhibition planned for the Speed Museum of Art.

Angelique Cain Galskis( Lexington): $3,200 to research and complete a first draft of The Idiot’s Daughter, a nonfiction book about her family, investigating the complex lives of its women and the men to whom they deferred.

Julie A. Gawne( Morehead): $1,000 to complete a digital video production on memory, history, and the memorializing process, with a particular focus on women and their role as family "record keepers" and on the artist’s own personal memories.  

Suzanne Gonsalez ( Lexington): $2,000 to develop and exhibit a series of nine photographic and mixed-media works in the format of the traditional Hispanic/Catholic altar.

Nicole Hand( Almo): $2,500 to create a series of six etchings deconstructing traditional ideals of femininity and gender roles by juxtaposing images with text drawn from a 1971 etiquette book.

Amanda Johnston ( Elizabethtown): $2,300 to develop new slam poetry focusing on multicultural women’s encounters with violence and its intergenerational impact.

Carridder M. Jones ( Louisville): $3,000 to research, develop, videotape, and provide on-camera narration for a television documentary entitled The Black Hamlets of Lexington .

Diane Kahlo( Lexington): $1,000 to paint eight to twelve full-length portraits of Kentucky women artists, each of whom has suffered experiences of violence in her life, yet emerged as a survivor through her own creativity.

Leatha Kendrick( East Point): $2,500 to write and publish a series of essays exploring the tensions between achievement and nurturing in women’s lives.

Christine Kuhn( Lexington): $1,000 to participate in a two-month artist residency at the Dharmapala School of Thangka painting in Kathmandhu, Nepal, where she will learn ancient techniques for painting female deities.

Mary K. Lewis( Glasgow): $1,000 to self-publish a collection of short stories, chronicling six generations of Kentucky women who rose from adversity to triumph and have proven influential in her life.

Liz Mandrell(Morehead) $1,000 to research the unheralded work performed by thousands of women in the Kentucky tobacco industry.

Karen J. Mann (Louisville): $4,200 to assemble and revise a manuscript that tells the story of the artist’s grandson, whose birth defects required extensive hospitalization and surgeries, and honors the women who have cared for him.

Collis Caroline Marshall ( Louisville): $2,000 to continue a series of beaded and mixed media textile artworks, including woven tapestries and improvisational sculptures in the form of "affirmation dolls."

Jessica Mathis( Louisville): $1,500 to produce a feature-length documentary about Kentucky women who have suffered physical and/or sexual abuse as children, created by the abuse survivors themselves, whom the artist will train on video equipment.

Jenny Montgomery ( Augusta) $1,000 to create a body of eight to ten interrelated, mixed-media pieces, illuminating the complex relationships women have with their immediate environments.

Cynthia L. Norton( Louisville): $4,700 to build and present a kinetic sculpture that displays four spinning square dance dresses.

Susan O’Brien(Murray): $5,000 to complete The Bad Girl in the Dining Room, a series of functional ceramics challenging traditional notions of the decorative arts while confronting contemporary societal views of women.

Laura Ospital( Louisville): $2,000 to meet with and photograph six immigrant women who are mothers.

Enid Roach ( Philpot): $1,000 to develop Silent Cries, a series of paintings, including single canvases and diptychs, exploring the theme of women in abusive relationships.

Deborah Sachs( Louisville): $1,000 to complete and notate her first choral work, Ever as Before, a three-movement classical composition arising from a feminist vision of life as an eternal circle of compassion, openness, and nonviolence.

Belinda Stanley ( Louisville): $2,000 to adapt, direct, and produce a short feature film based on Carrider Jones’ play Lady of the House, which follows an African-American woman who leaves her home in Kentucky to work as a domestic in New York .

Shannon Stelzer( Louisville): $1,000 to develop a two-hour-long progressive dance performance fusing original choreography, musical score, video projection, and sculpture, to be performed with a local troupe of young dancers.

Zoe Strecker( Harrodsburg): $4,000 to engage in new, small-scale sculptural work that explores how our culture appears to expose and free the female body, but actually subverts its meaningful engagement with the world.

Cynthia Torp( Louisville): $1,000 to complete her design and production work on an Underground Railroad exhibit, which will include a ninety-minute DVD interactive learning experience and original recordings of spirituals.

Maggie Towne ( Louisville): $2,000 to enhance her pottery-making skills by participating in an eight-day clay workshop offered in Oaxaca , Mexico , which enables the artist to work with a Zapotec Indian pottery family.

Alecia Whitaker( Cynthiana): $1,000 with Ellen Hagan, to tour Kentucky high schools with their two-woman show, Becoming Woman, and to publish an anthology of young women’s writing generated in the workshops that accompany the show.

Crystal Wilkinson ( Lexington): $3,250 to complete and revise her third novel, which chronicles the lives of two small-town African-American women.

Diane Williams( Louisville): $2,000 to produce a full-length, broadcast-quality digital video documentary exploring the experiences of brides from various economic, social, racial, and geographic areas of Kentucky.

Marjory Riley Wilson( Emlyn): $2,500 to complete her book, which recounts how the artist and her family were joined by a young lesbian couple in working to restore Refuge Ridge, a mountain ravaged by years of unrestricted logging and hunting.

Sarah Yates ( Louisville): $1,000 to write a multimedia script for an Underground Railroad exhibit being created for the Carnegie Center for Art and Culture.

Art! Art! Barking Dog Dance Company ( Crestwood): $1,000 to choreograph Messages, a 20 to 30 minute modern dance piece depicting the stereotypical sexual images that objectify women and the trauma of sexual abuse.

Squallis Puppeteers( Louisville): $5,300 to work with Tanya Palmer, a playwright and dramaturg, to improve the scriptwriting and dramatic direction of their puppetry.

back to top

Artist Enrichment Grantees for 2002

Dobree Adams( Frankfort): $3,500 to support the design and production of a high-quality, professional brochure that will illustrate the full range of skill the artist has gained over the years as a weaver who raises the sheep, spins and dyes the wool and weaves it into a finished product. Her goal is to change some of the perceptions people have of aging women by demonstrating the vitality of an older feminist through the sharing of her life’s work of weaving.

Rosemary Gillum Bailey( Springfield): $1,000 to complete a collection of autobiographical poetry that focuses on social issues that relate specifically to women.

Nickole Brown( Louisville): $4,830 to complete a collection of short stories written in dialect and inspired by the direct oral interpretations of stories handed down to her by her grandmother and other women from the Appalachian region.

Bobbi Buchanan ( Louisville): $1,000 towards the completion of a series of essays for a book manuscript with photographs of women who have overcome extraordinary circumstances such as: the death of a child, alcoholism, and persecution for their political and/or personal beliefs.

Renee Campbell-Mapp ( Louisville): $1,500 to research and document the mistreatment and abuse experienced by her grandmother, Ada Doss Campbell, a Rural Kentucky, mentally ill, African-American woman. The abuse took place during the mid and late 1930’s in a state-run mental institution.

Candace N. Chaney( Lexington): $1,935 to write a collection of personal essays and poetry tentatively entitled The Divorce Papers: An Appalachian Daughter’s Journey. This mosaic of creative non-fiction and poetry chronicles the effects of divorce on the family.

Stacey R. Chinn( Lexington): $2,500 to create a new body of sculptural work that challenges the traditional notions of fiber work by elevating it to the realm of contemporary sculpture as well as to reclaim the history of women’s productivity.

Nell F. Cox( Frankfort): $3,500 to fund the completion of a video that features women activists, women policy makers, women leaders, and women directly affected by bills being introduced before the legislature.

Kim Edwards ( Lexington): $2,040 to complete a series of writing projects that explore female characters whose journeys are both inward and outward, women who make discoveries and take risks and seek transformation. Part of her ongoing research will be presented at the Kentucky Women Writers’ Conference.

Molly Elkind( Louisville): $1,000 to support the research and the purchase of equipment necessary to create a series of artist’s books inspired by the significant contributions of women in the field of book arts.

Erin K. Fitzgerald( Louisville): $1,000 to help fund the production of two CD’s of original and traditional folk music about women and their roles in society and their families.

Beverly Fykes ( Bowling Green): $1,000 to support the work leading to the completion of a novel entitled Knowledge in the Blood and a presentation of musical pieces, slides and photographs that explores the deep, inner core of knowledge that lies within each woman.

Enerida P. Garcia( Louisville): $2,000 to produce a documentary about Latina women in Louisville concerning the problems they face such as discrimination and domestic violence.

Emily Gnadinger ( Louisville): $ 2,000 to complete two drafts of a full-length play exploring the relationship between mothers and daughters in today’s world.

Carla Gover( Berea): $1,000 to fund the construction of a small music studio in the woods near her home. The space will be used for music composition, journaling, solitude, recording and capturing musical ideas.

Gabrielle M. Gray ( Somerset): $2,500 to refine a musical entitled Women of the Earth in order to prepare for a statewide and national tour.

Sarah Gutwirth( New Concord): $2,300 to continue her body of work in oil painting which deals with motifs borrowed from decorative arts combined with forms from nature, all of which she considers to be products of her "femaleness."

Ellen Hagan and Alecia Whitaker ( Cynthiana): $3,500 to create a series of performance pieces that will be performed around Kentucky and will provide an arena for young girls to become empowered as issues of sex, violence, love and innocence are presented to them in a thought-provoking manner.

Vivian Hoskins( Salyersville): $1,000 to write songs and produce a demo that incorporates the vocals of male singers singing songs that focus on female issues in an effort to challenge the current paradigm of gender roles found in traditional country music.

Barbara Houghton ( Alexandria): $1,300 to research and prepare images for an exhibition that will examine the process of invention through information provided by Galileo’s daughter, Celeste.

Rebecca Howell( Lexington): $3,700 to complete a book-length manuscript of poetry entitled Find Me. The poems in this collection seek the mystic connection between human erotic love and divine love.

Cass F. Irvin ( Louisville): $1,500 to help with the compilation of previously published work that discusses the issue of women with disabilities.

Holly Goddard Jones ( Lexington): $2,000 to create a body of short, literary fiction that reflects on the issue of working class culture and its sociological effects on women.

Lisa Kaplan( Lexington): $3,500 to create a one-hour documentary about women who grew up in families who operated the ferries and tug boats along the Kentucky River nearly one hundred years ago.

Gwendolyn L. Kelly( Louisville): $1,000 to develop a website and online community called Multipurposewoman.org, a gathering place for women to share and discuss the joys and challenges of living their everyday lives while creating art.

M. J. Kinman( Louisville): $1,000 to purchase the tools and acquire the education that will strengthen her ability to make quilts that incorporate feminist symbols and icons into a traditional art-form.

Lorna Littleway ( Louisville): $3,000 to develop an original cabaret theatre work about the African-American women singers of the 1920’s and 30’s who helped to make the Cotton Club a renowned entertainment institution during the Harlem Renaissance.

Nada M. Loutfi( Brooklyn): $1,500 to prepare a recording of the complete Etudes by Frederick Chopin, rarely performed by a female pianist, to be compiled from three live performances in Louisville .

Sarah Lyon ( Louisville): $1,000 to travel across the Midwest on motorcycle and reveal through photography the individual journeys of a group of women connected by history and their geographical location.

Glynis Mary McManamon( Louisville): $1,350 to attend a workshop in iconography in order to learn the techniques used by icon artists so that she can develop a series of "medicine chests" featuring women spiritual leaders and religious icons such as Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Beth McNeill( Louisville): $3,000 to create and produce a multi-generational dance concert focusing on the politics of the female body from the standpoint of eight women, each in different stages of their lives and their relation to dance.

Ellen Birkett Morris ( Louisville): $2,000 to attend a two-week writing retreat and a seven-day workshop to develop and revise a novel that deals with many of the issues that middle-school girls face, such as self-esteem, body image and peer pressure.

Lori O’Connor( Winchester): $1,000 to fund a five-month project to record, master, and duplicate a full-length music CD. The CD will contribute to the empowerment of women by increasing female presence in the male-dominated music industry, providing more positive images of women in music and conveying the messages of social change.

Tara Jane O’Neil( Louisville): $1,000 to further develop her work as an independent composer/songwriter, musician and producer, and to establish an open recording studio in Kentucky where women can record music in an accessible, supportive environment.

Joyce Ogden ( Louisville): $2,500 to create a new body of work that will allow her to explore various ideas about water and its relationship to women.

Kristi Papailler( Louisville): $1,935 to support the development and publication of a collection of feminist, consciousness-raising poetry.

Abbie Potter ( Louisville): $1,500 to write a novel about the struggles of two very different women and the way their lives intersect and enrich each other, and to attend the 2003 Appalachian Writers’ Workshop.

Rosetta Lucas Quisenberry ( Lexington): $2,960 to help fund the continued publication of a series of books that contain postcards from 1898 to the 1930’s that are both sexist and racist in an effort to educate the public about the social mindset during this period in history. The books will focus on the black woman, the black child and the black family.

Margaret Ricketts( Berea): $1,400 to purchase voice activated computer software that will enable her to continue to write socially conscious, feminist poetry without being limited by the discomfort related to her disability.

Rebekka Seigel ( Owenton): $ 1,000 to produce a series of quilts that depict famous women in history.

Alice Gray Stites ( Louisville): $1,000 to curate a retrospective exhibition of the works of Louisville painter Mary Ann Currier and prepare an essay about her works and life that would be part of an exhibition catalogue.

Millicent Straub ( Covington): $ 2,300 to produce a body of work that focuses on the faceless paintings of little girls who represent the victims of child sexual abuse.

Erika Strecker ( Lexington): $2,850 to acquire the tools needed to be a more creative and productive blacksmith artist, a field that has few women.

Felicia Szorad( Richmond): $6,100 to complete a series of full scale, metal dresses to accompany metal hats, bags and jewelry. The garment series communicates the artist’s ideas of duality and juxtaposition within femininity.

Brenda Weber( Lexington): $2,500 to develop an anthology to be called Fidelities: Staying True through Twenty-five Years of the Kentucky Women Writers Conference. The anthology would feature original selections of both fiction and non-fiction contributed by 10-15 writers drawn from the roughly 200 women who have attended the conference since its creation in 1979.

Juanita L. White( Louisville): $2,500 to research and write a script about Edith Wilson, a well-known Blues singer.

Patricia L. Zimmerman ( Louisville): $1,000 to gather oral histories from the women in her family in order to illustrate the strength they possessed and show how these strengths mirror those of other women in families similar to hers.

Media Working Group( Covington): $3,500 to support the production of a documentary about the Black Madonna. The documentary will show how the suppression and ouster of women from their traditional sacred roles over a thousand years ago is having catastrophic effects on the lives of women and Western society today.

back to top

Artist Enrichment Grantees for 2001

Constance Alexander( Murray): $3,000 to assist in the creation of Otherwise, a reader’s theatre piece based on interviews concerning end-of-life issues for women.

Nancy Kelly Allen( Hazard): $1,500 to write seven short picture books and one children’s book with a female protagonist whose stories take place under the culturally rich backdrop of Appalachia.

Julie Brooks Barbour ( Lexington): $1,000 to develop a manuscript of poems whose recurring themes are female sexuality, female relationships and male domination.

Aminata C. Baruti( Lexington): $3,000 to travel to Surinam to study her personal heritage in dance and song and teach community workshops.

Susan Caldwell ( Versailles): $2,500 to complete a novel about a circle of women friends, one of whom is dying of ovarian cancer.

Mary Carothers and Lisa Simon ( Louisville): $3,400 towards the completion of a collaborative project called Made-On Voyage that involves the construction of an art boat and the documentation of their travels and community outreach. They envision their journey to be a feminine and esoteric exploration of the landscape, thus leaving their path up to fate rather than traveling along a predetermined line.

Debra Clem( Louisville): $3,000 to create a series of varied and non-idealized portraits of women that challenge typical notions of how women should be portrayed.

Arwen Donahue ( Carlisle): $4,000 towards the completion of a novel that is loosely based on experiences from her own life in New Mexico before coming to Kentucky .

Amanda Forsting( Louisville): $1,000 towards the completion of A Sister Story, a novel for young adult women that discusses the struggles of the female protagonist’s efforts to overcome the effects of living in a home and community that casts females in stereotypical, negative roles.

Valerie Sullivan Fuchs ( Shelbyville): $3,400 to help fund the development of a video that documents the lives of unknown Kentuckiana women and a video installation that will demonstrate the ill-effects women experience from the constant barrage of violent, Hollywood films with women as the primary victims.

Roberta Guthrie( Lexington): $2,000 to play cello/piano music by women composers as a rebuttal to the statement, “All the great composers are white males.”

Ellen Hagan ( Bardstown): $2,000 towards the creation of America What?/I dream an America a solo performance piece based on interviews with young women (ages 15-18) in which issues specific to this age group are explored.

Barbara Hausman( Lexington): $2,400 to support residency and professional development conferences to finish a novel entitled Head and Master, based on her experiences as an attorney who argued before the Supreme Court an equal protection case that overturned a law that was unconstitutionally discriminatory towards women.

Kiya Heartwood and Miriam Davidson ( Stamping Ground): $3,900 to record and duplicate a new CD that brings diverse communities together and empowers women and other disenfranchised people to create change and social awareness through music.

Judy K. Jones ( Hazard): $3,400 to refine a series of essays about an Appalachian woman’s transition from living in rural coal-mining town to living in a urban part of Kentucky where she practices law.

Nailah Jumoke( Louisville): $1,000 for vocal coaching and the production of a CD that pays homage to female jazz singers.

Christine Kuhn ( Lexington): $3,000 to support an artist residency and to develop a series of encaustic paintings of female power symbols.

Addie B. Langford( Louisville): $3,400 to purchase new equipment and to support the creation of a body of work that shows resect for the female form and will result in an exhibit.

Barbara Levy( Louisville): $1,000 to participate in art classes for self-development and assist the funding of mural project/art classes for inner city youth and elderly participants.

Pamela J. McMichael( Prospect): $1,000 to write a series of children’s books focused on building cross-cultural understanding through the stories of girl children and women from locations all over the world.

Marquerite V. Murnau( Louisville): $3,400 to create and cast in bronze a series of 10 related sculptural figures exploring feminist themes as part of a solo exhibit.

Alice H. Noel( Bowling Green): $3,400 to develop the kitchen unit in a project called At Home in collaboration with Judy Chicago, a nationally known feminist, social change artist.

Tammy Rastoder( Rockfield): $1,000 to support the completion of a novel about a gospel family group in rural Kentucky . The female protagonist of the story begins to question the patriarchal religious teachings of her childhood and makes the necessary steps to face these beliefs head-on.

Davie M. Reneau( Glasgow, KY): $3,400 to build an anagram kiln in Glasgow and to support the Women in the Woods project.

Margaret Ricketts ( Berea): $1,000 to fund a stay at a writer’s colony and compile a manuscript of her first volume of poetry that will explore issues related to such topics as feminism and disability.

Jontyle Theresa Robinson( Louisville): $4,000 to research and tell the story of Eugenia Dunn (b. 1918), an African American teacher, visual artist and scientist from Henderson , KY.

Brooke Salisbury ( Lexington): $3,500 to help fund a writing workshop with the women of Chrysalis House. Participants will perform their work and the artist will make anthologies of their writings.

Sandy Miller Sasso( Almo): $3,000 to purchase art supplies and books; travel to Sienna, Italy, to conduct research, photograph, and sketch architectural structures; and the support Journey, a body of work that illustrates the different phases in women’s lives.

Kelly Scullin and Carrie Neumayer ( Louisville): $3,000 to produce, record, and distribute a full-length album for the Second Story Man band. The group is dedicated to increasing female presence in the music industry and contributing to the betterment of women’s images in music.

Cheryl L. Skinner( Louisville): $5,000 to help fund a residency in New York City and the continued development of music that will pay homage to the great contributions and influences of Kentucky’s African-American women.

Christina St. Clair ( Rush): $1,000 towards the completion of a four-book series of historical fiction for young adults focusing on strong women characters from diverse backgrounds.

Ruowei Strange( Louisville): $3,500 to travel and research her second novel, Under a Moonlit Sun, concerning post-cultural revolution China and its effects on the life of her female protagonist, Chen Shobi.

Sheila Carol Sullivan ( Louisville): $4,400 to create and exhibit a series of nine to twelve paintings of regional women who have been abused and who live in shelters or on the streets.

Kopana Terry( Lexington): $4,000 to improve darkroom facilities and the continued development of her current photographic series, Side Unseen, which is about the treatment of thoroughbred horses and the women who work on horse farms - to be exhibited in Lexington.

Kaylynn S. TwoTrees ( Covington): $4,000 to create a lunar book of days (13 lunar cycles) calendar demonstrating how women’s bodies are linked with lunar cycles.

Katy Yocom( Louisville): $1,000 towards the completion of Tales from a Dot.com Marriage, a novel that illustrates the life of an intelligent, educated woman who finds herself living in direct opposition to her feminist/egalitarian ideals.

Squallis Puppeteers ( Louisville): $2,500 towards the purchase of a public address system, lights, and a video projector that will be used to support on-going work with puppet performances on feminist themes.

back to top

Artist Enrichment Grantees for 2000

Samara Anjelae( Paris): $3,000 to complete her autobiography, and perform storytelling and presentations based on it.

Kokumoh Baderinwa ( Louisville): $1,000, an encouragement grant for poetry.

Linda Elisabeth Beattie( Louisville, KY) $3,000 to research and write a book with chapters particular to women’s issues.

Judy Rae Cavagnero ( Lexington): $3,000 to research and write about women’s stories in several genres.

Sandra Charles( Louisville): $1,000, an encouragement grant for fiber work.

Karin Ciholas ( Danville): $3,000 to continue work on a collection of short stories.

Kimberly C. Clay( Winchester): $3,000 to research and write biographical storybooks about African-American women in Kentucky for pre-teen girls.

Joan Dance ( Paducah): $1,000 to produce a newsletter dealing with positive values, especially in African-American community.

Laura Lee Duncan-O’Connell (Morehead):$6,500 to create oral herstory performance with slides, paintings, sculpture.

Janet Carey Eldred ( Lexington): $3,000 to complete her book, Composition: Essays--Academic, Personal & Public.

Nancy Gall-Clayton( Louisville): $3,000 to write several short plays about lesser known women in Kentucky ’s history.

Cass F. Irvin ( Louisville): $4,500 to complete a memoir chronicling growing up a disabled women without a culture or role models.

Nancy C. Jones( Lexington): $3,500 to develop a movement/theatre performance piece based on myth of Sumerian goddess Inanna.

Brenda Kiefer and Kimberly Lawless ( Louisville): $4,000 to create an experimental interactive book using story and collage.

Susan E. King( Mount Vernon): $3,500 to complete a book with original and historic photographs and narrative about her return to Kentucky .

Lorna Littleway( Louisville): $6,000 to produce an original play and publish a collection of gay-themed plays.

Karen J. Mann( Louisville): $1,000, an encouragement grant for writing.

Kristina McGrath( Louisville): $1,000, an encouragement for writing.

Sara O’Bryan ( Louisville): $1,000, an encouragement grant for writing.

Elizabeth Oakes and Jane Olmsted ( Bowling Green): $4,500 to publish a collection of short fiction by Kentucky feminists.

Letitia Quesenberry ( Louisville): $ 3,000 to create a body of oil paintings based on her family’s 8mm films.

Alberta Waddell Rutter( Louisville): $1,000 to talk to middle and high school students about older females of all races.

Nandini Shastry ( Worthington): $4,500 for a series of workshops for girls focusing on self-esteem, technology, and writing.

Anne Shelby( Oneida): $4,500 to develop a full-length print collection of Appalachian folk tales featuring girls or women as heroes.

Millicent Straub ( Covington): $7,500 to produce a series of new paintings.

Gloria Wachtel( Louisville): $5,000 to survey women throughout Kentucky and use the data to produce a traveling sculptural installation.

Beth Curlin Weber ( Berea): $4,000 to write a book focusing on Kentucky women and breast cancer.

Gayle Williamson ( Louisville): $4,000 to work with homeless women in creating a stitchery exhibit.

Media Working Group( Covington): $7,000 for pre-production of a documentary that explores the emergence of scholarly/esoteric feminist theological writing, research, and art.