KFW Announces 2022 Art Meets Activism Grant Recipients
Press Release written by Ellen Birkett Morris
The Kentucky Foundation for Women has awarded 29 Art Meets Activism Grants totaling $172,491 to feminist artists and social change organizations from across the state. These artists and organizations received grants to advance social change through feminist-led, arts-based activities in communities throughout Kentucky.
A complete list of statewide grants follows. Here is a sampling of Kentucky artists/organizations that received funding:
- Quiche Matchen (she/her) (Eddyville) $3,000 to create a book that highlights the accomplishments, sacrifices, and experiences of African Americans in rural Lyon County and surrounding areas from diverse generations. This project will educate, promote positive change, shed light on racism, and inspire and motivate people to seek out more stories about local African Americans.
- Davida Flowers (she/her) (Oakland) $10,000 to use floriculture and herbalism as mediums for community workshops and events to uplift and educate women and girls by creatively engaging the healing and domestic arts. Participants will be empowered to create and foster the spirit of sovereignty to care for themselves, their families, and communities despite economic or racial barriers.
- Out Loud Louisville (formerly Girls Rock Louisville) (Louisville) $2,950 to fund the Rock and Roll Representation Project, a 12-week program that partners with local artists and music historians to help youth curate visual projects that represent the legacies of musicians of marginalized genders in music history. This will empower participants to be visible and vocal in their own musical or creative pursuits.
- Safe Harbor of Northeast Kentucky (Ashland) $4,000 to give 200 survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence an artistic way to express their deep trauma, anger, grief, and loss to allow them to heal. Their art will show the community the impact of domestic violence.
- The Mountain Grrl Experience (Pikeville) $10,000 to help support the second Mountain Grrl Experience, a 2-day cultural event featuring musical performances, storytelling, dance, poetry reading, art displays, workshops, and educational programs. Our mission is to feature, celebrate, and promote the creativity, artistry, power, and strength of Appalachian women with proceeds benefiting two local emergency homeless and domestic violence shelters.
- Movement Continuum (Lexington) $10,000 to establish a tuition-free dance training program for girls 10-18 years old living in under-resourced communities in Lexington, KY. This will be a safe and accessible space to explore and express creativity through dance while honing technical skills. Knowledge gained will reveal a path to social-emotional success, higher education, and professional possibilities in the performing arts.
“We are excited to fund innovative, arts-centered, community-based projects that touch the lives of women and girls in Kentucky by connecting them with the transformative power of art. These unique projects reflect Kentucky’s varied arts scene and offer a way to meet the challenges we face as a commonwealth by bringing people together to create change making art,” said Sharon LaRue, Executive Director of the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
The Art Meets Activism program supports a wide variety of individual artists and organizations committed to building on the power of art to increase awareness about feminist issues, alter perceptions, stimulate dialogue, open new spaces for civic participation and imagine new ways to create a more just and equitable Kentucky. The grants are for activities that are artist driven and include the direct participation of individuals and communities.
Applications for the foundation’s next round of funding, through the Artist Enrichment Grant Program, will be available early August 2022. You can learn about the process and preview the application questions at https://www.kfw.org/grants/artist-enrichment/ The AE grant provides opportunities for feminist artists and arts organizations to further their artistic development to create art for positive social change. Applicants may request funds for a range of activities including: artistic development, artist residencies, the exploration of new areas or techniques, or to build a body of work. Applicants to the AE grant program should show high artistic quality in the work sample and should be able to demonstrate their commitment to feminism and their understanding of the relationship between art and social change. The grant program is arts-based and feminist in nature. For more information call Avery Guess at KFW at 502-562-0045 or check our website at www.kfw.org.
The Kentucky Foundation for Women is a private foundation formed in 1985 by Louisville writer Sallie Bingham. Its mission is to promote positive social change by supporting varied feminist expression in the arts.
2022 AMA Grants
Literary Arts
Carnegie Center for Literacy & Learning (Lexington) $5,895 for women writers to mentor younger women in exploring writing and literary performance while examining issues including body image and self-esteem. YWWP fosters positive, supportive relationships, as well as growth in writing, self-expression, and education.
Interfaith Wellness Ministry (Irvine) $2,500 to teach a writing class in an economically and educationally depressed area. Participants will examine their lived experience and write essays to create an avenue for healing as individuals and in the larger community.
Libby Falk Jones (she/her) (Berea) and Julianne Unsel (she/her) (Irvine) $4,992 to expand the writing program, Coming of Age (CoA), with twelve months of planning, writing instruction, and community support for Kentucky women writers over age 60. Participants will develop abilities, broaden practices, and increase their knowledge, confidence, and strengths as writers.
Mirra Shapiro (she/her) (Berea) $6,714 to organize a monthly community book circle centering marginalized communities, focused on personal and ancestral narratives, using R.O.U.T.E. Volume 1, an anthology of writing and art, as a guide. Through group conversation and facilitation, LGBTQ, BIPOC, elders, and disabled people will create a body of work culminating in the publication of R.O.U.T.E., Volume 2.
Quiche Matchen (she/her) (Eddyville) $3,000 to create a book that highlights the accomplishments, sacrifices, and experiences of African Americans in rural Lyon County and surrounding areas from diverse generations. This project will educate, promote positive change, shed light on racism, and inspire and motivate people to seek out more stories about local African Americans.
Young Authors Greenhouse (Louisville) $3,295 to produce a book writing program for young women (ages 11-14) that uses poetry and creative non-fiction to celebrate food and explore how food is central to care, memory, health, and feelings. This program will challenge assumptions and foster a deeper appreciation for food culture as it relates to female identity.
Media Arts
Bryn Silverman (she/her) (Louisville) $4,720 towards production of A Thyroid Story, a short documentary film about her experience being treated for thyroid cancer, which will educate the public on the many ways this small and important gland intersects with feminism, public health, and patient advocacy.
Dayzaughn Graves (she/her) and Shay Woods (she/her) (Richmond) $4,520 to facilitate an educational experience for girls and women from middle-school through college to come together and create the “Ain’t I a Girl” podcast. This podcast will provide a creative avenue for women to express and connect with one another, turning their pens into weapons, their knowledge into megaphones.
Lucy Azubuike (she/her) (Frankfort) $10,000 to work with the Franklin County Women and Family Shelter residents in tree arts exploration, art creation and dialogues focusing on value, appreciation, and perception shifts. This will aid in the restoration effort of the transitioning residents, allow them to find joy and wisdom in nature, and be transformed.
My Systers Art (Paducah) $9,000 to produce the Women’s Empowerment Series which will implement a variety of multi-media, socially conscious, art related activities to encourage, inspire, educate, and challenge women and girls to make art for social change. The activities/events will help women and girls to find their voice; stand up for economic, racial and gender equality; and to help move our society toward a more progressive mindset.
Out Loud Louisville (formerly Girls Rock Louisville) (Louisville) $2,950 to fund the Rock and Roll Representation Project, a 12-week program that partners with local artists and music historians to help youth curate visual projects that represent the legacies of musicians of marginalized genders in music history. This will empower participants to be visible and vocal in their own musical or creative pursuits.
Scout Larken (she/they) (Willisburg) $2,300 to film a tiny community of lifelong, “old school” progressive feminists as they collectively reflect what they have witnessed politically, socially, culturally, and personally. Presenting the lives and politics of a small rural community made up primarily of lesbian feminists gives observers a unique insight into a slice of living history.
Performing Arts
Ali Blair (she/her) and Erica Chambers (she/her) (Berea) $4,600 to support a mentorship and internship program for girls and non-binary teens designed to foster connection to place and possibility by centering female empowerment and increasing access to the music industry. The program will provide opportunities to step into leadership, planning and producing community concerts.
Ambo Dance Theatre (Louisville) $4,500 to support the production of “Kids These Days,” which addresses the intersectional and unique challenges of today’s teens from their own perspective. This will empower middle and high school age dancers and encourage healthy emotional processing, collaboration, and the development of choreographic skills.
Clare Hagan (she/they) (Louisville) $4,600 to produce The Moth and the Masked Man, an immersive theatrical experience centering queer voices and women’s voices in which the audience is invited in and able to follow the show from station to station as it progresses. This will result in future theatrical productions that interrogate the implicit hierarchy between performers and audiences.
Looking for Lilith Theatre Company (Louisville) $6,000 to produce the initial phase of The Ancestors Project, an evolving community art making and performance project with free public workshops throughout the Commonwealth with the goal of developing a model for public performance that includes community members and members of the company. Participants will see the impact their ancestors had on their lives and wider community and reflect on their own impact.
The Mountain Grrl Experience (Pikeville) $10,000 to help support the second Mountain Grrl Experience, a 2-day cultural event featuring musical performances, storytelling, dance, poetry reading, art displays, workshops, and educational programs. Our mission is to feature, celebrate, and promote the creativity, artistry, power, and strength of Appalachian women with proceeds benefiting two local emergency homeless and domestic violence shelters.
Movement Continuum (Lexington) $10,000 to establish a tuition-free dance training program for girls 10-18 years old living in under-resourced communities in Lexington, KY. This will be a safe and accessible space to explore and express creativity through dance while honing technical skills. Knowledge gained will reveal a path to social-emotional success, higher education, and professional possibilities in the performing arts.
Roadside Theater (Whitesburg) $9,900 to certify Roadside Theater staff members to teach Mental Health First Aid and Consent-Forward Artist practices. This will enable Roadside staff to reimagine their operations and also offer support to local groups seeking to learn about and reshape gender power dynamics.
Vanessa Becker Weig/Voices Amplified (she/her) (Lexington) $6,400 to develop Bodies Amp’d which explores the intersections of intergenerational female-identifying participants with dynamic backgrounds and diverse body types and abilities. This will create a shift related to their self-esteem and body image by experiencing their body’s ability to move and story-tell.
Visual Arts
Amarri Brandon (she/her) (Maysville) $3,800 to educate girls and young women on printmaking, button making, sewing/embroidery, and photography. This project will boost participants’ self-esteem, encourage creativity, and increase local awareness of Kentucky artists of color.
Art Center of the Bluegrass (Danville) $3,660 for a teaching residency with Lacy Hale and twelve young women from Danville. The students will create and display artwork that reflects their identities, sense of place, and/or social issues that are meaningful to them. Through the creation and display of their work, students will be empowered to celebrate their role as change-makers in their community.
Arts Connect Eastern Kentucky (ACEky) (Mt. Vernon) $10,000 for two past ACEky participants and a past mentee to provide art-making opportunities designed to support women in two recovery programs while serving as role models for the effectiveness of art in achieving and maintaining recovery. Projects will nurture essential recovery skills, including mindfulness, overcoming fear of failure, self-expression, and introspection.
Bridge Kids International (Louisville) $6,825 to run Big Lives, Tiny Stories, which centers the lives, voices, history and culture of Black women and girls and tells their stories in 1/6 scale miniatures. The project engages women and girls in miniature-making, writing, technical theater skills, photography, and video editing while transforming dolls into tools for education, celebration, and liberation.
Davida Flowers (she/her) (Oakland) $10,000 to use floriculture and herbalism as mediums for community workshops and events to uplift and educate women and girls by creatively engaging the healing and domestic arts. Participants will be empowered to create and foster the spirit of sovereignty to care for themselves, their families, and communities despite economic or racial barriers.
Grayson Gallery and Art Center (Grayson) $1,895 to help women in recovery by involving them in art therapy, writing therapy, and mindfulness activities in nature. Women helping other women through recovery will strengthen feminist bonds and lead to social change as participants live the best lives they can.
Safe Harbor of Northeast Kentucky (Ashland) $4,000 to give 200 survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence an artistic way to express their deep trauma, anger, grief, and loss to allow them to heal. Their art will show the community the impact of domestic violence.
Steam Exchange Community Arts Center (Louisville) $6,425 to work with local DJ organization Rhythm Science Sound and fashion designer Kara Mason to create music and custom outfits exploring feminism, presentation, and representation culminating in a youth-organized feminist fashion show. Participants will develop critical thinking skills, feminist awareness, and leadership abilities and see how collaboration amplifies impact.