Monday, March 8, 2010
This year the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission will be awarding an extra $10,000 in grants for community art organizations.
Professor John Hachmeister supervises his students in the KU Ministry of Sculpture as they pour molten iron into tile molds. Last Halloween, the Ministry received $500 from the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission to sponsor the Iron Pour project. The commission will be awarding $10,000 to local arts organizations this year.
Groups can apply from now until Monday, March 29 to receive up to $1,000 in grant money.
But this year, even with a substantial increase in available money, student art organizations do not seem to be taking advantage of the opportunity.
Patrick Suzeau, professor of dance in the School of Arts, said he thought any grant supporting the arts is important, but said he wished it was better advertised.
“I don’t know that our students know about it,” Suzeau said.
The commission usually sets aside $7,000 in grant money for various campus and community art organizations with innovative proposals, unless carryover money is available from the previous year. The Ministry of Sculpture, a KU organization, was one of these groups.
On Halloween last year, the Ministry used its $500 grant to sponsor an Iron Pour project that allowed the community to try its hand at iron casting. Community members took part in designing and helping create iron tiles.
David Platter, graduate student in sculpture from Kansas City, Kan., and member of the Ministry, said last year the group learned of the $500 grant through word of mouth.
John Hachmeister, associate professor of visual art and advisor for the Ministry, said the lack of student applications is unfortunate because important skills develop from grant writing.
“In sculpture we encourage students to look for grants early on,” Hachmeister said. “It’s part of the preparation for what’s going to happen when they graduate if they want to be successful artists.”
The extra $10,000 in grant money for this year was made possible by allocated funds from last year, which the arts commission shifted around because of potential budget cuts.
Last year, one of the governor’s recommended budgets proposed that the state collect the local share of the alcohol tax.
The arts commission, dependent on these funds, decided to shift the money from its outdoor sculpture project to the grant program instead because the grant program directly benefited Lawrence citizens, said Diane Stoddard, assistant city manager and city liaison of the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission. But, because the city was awarded the tax funds, the commission had excess grant money.
In addition to the arts commission, the state liquor tax helps fund the Lawrence Arts Center, alcohol and prevention programs and general funding for the city. The returns from the alcohol tax have steadily increased since 2004, from $1.6 million to $1.85 million in 2009. The arts commission’s budget has gone up, as well, from $20,300 in 2004 to $25,500 for this year.
Stoddard said funding looked good for next year, but that nothing was certain.
“We haven’t heard anything about any change in the state’s funding thus far, but the legislative session isn’t over,” Stoddard said. “It’s always a possibility until the state finishes their
deliberations, which is late April early May.”
Jane Pennington, commission member on the LCAC and director of Downtown Lawrence Inc., said 18 to 20 groups applied last year, but she did not yet have a count on the number of applications for this year.
Notifications about award recipients will go out in April. More information can be found at here.
— Edited by Anna Archibald
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