Blog – Page 3 – gallupARTS

Jan

gallupARTS to Receive $93K in American Rescue Plan Grant Funding

gallupARTS is pleased to announce it has received a $43,000 American Rescue Plan (ARP) grant from the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) and is approved to receive a $50,000 ARP grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

“$93,000 in ARP grant funding ensures gallupARTS will not only survive, but thrive this year, despite the challenges of the ongoing pandemic. In turn, gallupARTS will be translating this funding into critical support for local artists and the regional creative economy as we continue to forge the path to recovery together,” says gallupARTS Executive Director Rose Eason.

“Our nation’s arts sector has been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Endowment for the Arts’ American Rescue Plan funding will help arts organizations, such as gallupARTS, rebuild and reopen,” said Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, chair of the NEA. “The arts are crucial in helping America’s communities heal, unite, and inspire, as well as essential to our nation’s economic recovery.”

In total, the NEA will award grants totaling $57,750,000 to 567 arts organizations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, DC. WESTAF awarded grant funding to 44 arts and culture organizations across the West, with at least two grants awarded per state at an average level of $35,000 each. Aligning with the priorities of the National Endowment for the Arts (Arts Endowment), the WESTAF ARP program focused on applications that indicated a deep commitment to cultural equity, social justice and disrupting systemic racism through service to a host of constituencies, including rural and remote communities, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and organizations that support the independence and lifelong inclusion of people with disabilities, among others

For its part, gallupARTS plans to use its grant funding to cover its staffing and facilities costs in 2022, and also to fund two new artist-led, social justice-focused, and community-building initiatives in the coming months.

This year, ART123 Gallery will host five Guest Curators and one Creative-in-Residence. Guest Curators will each take over ART123 Gallery for one month and will be tasked with devising, designing, and producing a show of art that speaks to a social justice issue relevant to the Gallup and McKinley County community. Guest-curated shows are slated for April, May, August, September or December.

The Creative-in-Residence program will run this summer and will support a local Indigenous creative in developing an action-oriented social justice project accompanied by a “window gallery” show and series of public programs.

“ART123 Gallery is really going to spread its wings and broaden its horizons this year,” says Eason. “We are so excited to open our doors to new perspectives, to elevate and amplify new voices and ideas, and to bring the community together in new ways.”

The American Rescue Plan was signed into law in March 2021 when the NEA was provided $135 million for the arts sector. The funding for organizations is the third installment providing more than $57.7 million for arts organizations. In April 2021, the NEA announced $52 million (40 percent) in ARP funding would be allocated to 62 state, jurisdictional, and regional arts organizations for regranting through their respective programs. The second installment in November 2021 allocated $20.2 million to 66 local arts agencies for subgranting to local artists and art organizations.

For more information on the NEA’s American Rescue Plan grants, including the full list of arts organizations funded in this announcement, visit www.arts.gov/COVID-19/the-american-rescue-plan.

For more information on WESTAF’s American Rescue Plan grants, including the full list of grantees, visit https://www.westaf.org/westaf-announces-american-rescue-plan-awardees/.

Apr

Still. Life. at ART123 Gallery: Reflecting on A Year of Pandemic

As we round out a year of the coronavirus pandemic, gallupARTS presents a show of work that is reflective and contemplative. Still. Life. brings together 16 local artists working in a variety of media, from painting to beadwork to digital art, to explore ideas of stillness and solitude, to capture how the world and life has changed, and to honor the resilience of individuals, cultures and communities.

Still. Life. Opens Saturday, April 10 and runs through Saturday, May 1. The Virtual Show Opening will be live-streamed on the @gallupARTS and @ART123Gallery Facebook pages on Saturday, April 10 at 3pm.

Hot Cheeto by Matthew Bollinger

Several artists, including Valencia Chapito, Beth Kuiper, Orin Nez, Alexis Callahan, Jason John and Matthew Bollinger are artistically documenting the not-so-everyday every day of pandemic life, from empty, cordoned off playgrounds to daily walks to new objects to enter our daily vernacular like masks and hand sanitizer to familiar items like a wallet, keys and Hot Cheetos that have taken on new significance in a time of quarantine. Yes, you read that right. Hot Cheetos. “During the lockdown, my gaze has been fixed on the beauty of the everyday. Things that I would not have ordinarily noticed have become my focus,” says Bollinger, whose presents an abstracted and enlarged Hot Cheeto for Still. Life.

By Scarlet Selleck

Other artists are working figuratively to process the collective experience of the pandemic. Artist Scarlet Selleck sees the geode as the perfect metaphor for the time warp that has been past year: literally “set in stone” and paralyzed but also visually reminiscent of tree rings, signaling the inevitable passage of time. Shelia Nez’s “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries” beadwork piece is both a classical still life and also an emblem of 2020. Joshua Whitman and Padma Komaravolu both turn to nature photography to represent ideas of resilience and hope. As Whitman states, vegetation “will grow wherever it decides to grow.”

By Joshua Whitman

Artist Sage Addington takes a personal approach to the idea of resilience, making portraits of family elders using a tempera resist technique.

Gram’s Mask by Sage Addington

Nathan Nez, Virginia Primozic, Laura Moore and Dennis Dewa’s work finds the silver linings of an incredibly challenging experience. Nez presents a group of picture frames made using recycled materials, representing the “new normal” and the ways in which society has had to adapt. Primozic created an unexpectedly graceful and hopeful image out of paper: “The image of a plant growing in an outhouse exemplifies that a new thing, a good thing, even a beautiful thing can grow out of the sh*t—that there is Still. Life. even after COVID.” Dewa celebrates the A:shiwi traditions of farming and hunting which have been renewed during the pandemic. “This pandemic has shown that our connection to the past can help us onward into the future,” says Dewa.

Circles of Life by Virginia Primozic

Oct

#Rezheartwork Hosts First Artist Retreat

By Meek Watchman

During the summer, amid the pandemic, Navajo communities were faced with a great deal of hardship. A community response was created to combat daily curfews and weekend lockdowns and “Rez heart work” was born.

  The launch of Rezheartwork began with a call for donations to assemble art kits to Navajo youth. Within one week, Rezheartwork successfully raised over $5K in donations. It purchased art supplies and distributed over 350 art kits on July 2, 2020 in Window Rock, Arizona with a drive through pick-up in the parking lot of the Navajo Nation Museum.  

Since the success of its art supply distribution, the need for art and urgency to create spaces for art has become apparent. Because of the generosity from its donors, Rezheartwork has been able to continue its efforts, including summer online art contests, “mini-grants” to support young artists, and most recently art retreats.

On Saturday, September 19, 2020, Rezheartwork hosted its very first “Art Retreat” for female/two-spirit youth artists ages 9-13. To make an Art Retreat possible, Rezheartwork youth artists donated their artwork to help with fundraising. Initially, we set a modest goal of raising $975.00. To our surprise, we raised over $2K within one week. In total, we sold 23 art prints and raised $1.5K in direct donations. We were happy to see the art community in action and help our artists achieve a milestone–selling their artwork for the first time. We even shipped art prints to New York City! We were delighted to receive generous support from Dizzy Magazine, based in Brooklyn, NY. Through Dizzy’s network, we were able to secure over $500. We truly thank Dizzy Magazine for its time and resources.

With $2K we put on a fantastic first Art Retreat. We catered the event, hired additional artists and provided all supplies for the participating artists. Each youth artist also received a small stipend of $50. Additionally, through this project, Rezheartwork was able to support seven Navajo-owned businesses and hire two Navajo instructors. We are so happy our funding created opportunities for our peers and supporters, including: 4Your Plate Only (Navajo-owned catering company), Kaalogii Kisses (Navajo-owned Art Business), Hannah Manuelito Photography (Navajo-owned business), Evonne Yazzie (local Navajo seamstress), and Roy Hubbell (Navajo-owned business).

For our first Art Retreat, we came together early Saturday morning at ART123 Gallery in downtown Gallup. We had the entire gallery to ourselves and opened with breakfast and a wellness workshop. Our artists ate pink pancakes with fresh berries, chocolate and cream, then went right into a wellness workshop lead by Meek Watchman, poet/aerialist.

After several giggles from learning the “pigeon” and “seal” poses, our youth artists were ready for their online acrylic painting workshop with Deon Mitchell of Kaalogii Kisses. Deon was an absolute pleasure to work with. During our retreat, we learned that it was Deon’s 94th paint workshop she hosted. Regardless that Deon was in another city, it felt as if she were right there in person. Deon’s delicate guidance and humor ushered an energy the youth artists could relate to and learn from.

 Then, we went right into lunch and our Artist Talk. While the artists ate lunch, we listened to the incredibly talented Hannah Manuelito, photographer/artist, as shared her journey and how she found herself through art.

We closed the Retreat with a stretching circle and welcomed parents to join. We ate cupcakes and cookies as each artist was presented with gifts, an award and roses for their accomplishments and growth during the retreat.  

Ahe’hee’ everyone involved in this project, especially Jordan Bowman for photographing the entire event. it was an amazing experience for our youth artists.

For more information about Rezheartwork, including how to donate, please visit: www.meekwatchman/rezheartwork

To contact:
rezheartwork@gmail.com

To send art supplies:
Rezheartwork
c/o Meek Watchman
PO Box 10
Window Rock, AZ 86515 

All photos by Jordan Bowman.

Sep

“Art in Isolation” at ART123 Gallery

“Art in Isolation” opens Saturday, September 12 at ART123 Gallery. Organized by local artist Christian Bigwater and featuring new work created by seven artists since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the show is a chance to pause, take stock, and reflect on the current moment.

In many ways the coronavirus pandemic has been a collective undertaking as all of our lives have been largely turned upside down and we have had to adjust to an alternative reality. In other ways, the effects of the pandemic have not been universal as it has taken a physical, social, emotional and economic toll on communities, families, and individuals, in different ways and to different extents. Artists are uniquely adept at processing the human experience as it exists on both the macro and micro levels, and the artists included in the “Art in Isolation” show have done exactly that with regard to our new normal.

Some “Art in Isolation” artists explore the emotional side of the pandemic. Antoinette Thompson is sharing a piece that, in her words, “pulls together the anger, confusion, strength, losses, and gains of this jolt in our lives.” Tasha N. creates a display of personal work—work she mostly made just for herself as a means of coping through this time.

Other artists explore the physical environment the pandemic has created. Ashton Phillips recorded the sights and sounds of Los Angeles at the height of the stay-at-home order, documenting a strange space and time. Nate Nez presents a series of work made during the Navajo Nation weekend lockdowns, reflecting on the meaning of land and home at a time when strict curfews and boundaries have been enforced.

Two artists send a message with their work. Christian Bigwater created a powerful piece which has been used as a flier and poster encouraging people to focus on the wellbeing of their elders and their community. Karl Jim’s painting “Love and Protection” speaks to the motives behind mask-wearing.

“Art in Isolation” runs through October 3. A Virtual Show Opening will be held live on the @gallupARTS Facebook page on Saturday, September 12 at 3pm. ART123 Gallery is open by appointment on Fridays and Saturdays from 12 – 4pm. More information can be found at www.galluparts.org/art123gallery.

Jul

Behind the Scenes: Gallup New Deal Art Project

Gallup and McKinley County’s New Deal art collection is full of mystery. Through its Gallup New Deal Art (GNDA) project, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, gallupARTS has been working to find answers, solve puzzles, and generally clear things up with regard to the 150-object collection housed in six separate locations under the purview of three distinct entities. In July, the GNDA project team got a chance to literally go behind the scenes of the artworks in the collection. It made some exciting discoveries along the way.

The goal of the GNDA project is to create an educational and interactive virtual art museum that brings together the entire collection and interprets its historical and contemporary significance. The project is currently in the prototyping phase.

Kirk Gittings photographing Sheldon Parson’s Casa on the Hill at the McKinley County Courthouse.

In order to build a digital prototype, award-winning photographer Kirk Gittings was engaged to produce high-quality images of the artworks in the collection. This task could only be accomplished by taking paintings and prints off the wall and out of their frames. This enabled researchers to take a look at the works’ versos (a fancy art history word for back sides), which revealed some new information.

Among the most exciting findings was an entirely new painting. On the reverse of Jozef Bakos’ Cottonwoods is an altogether different landscape scene painted by the artist. A small “x” mark is visible on the red roofs of the houses.

Jozef Bakos’ Cottonwoods, which hangs in the McKinley County Courthouse.

What could explain this phenomenon? New Deal artists were required to turn in new work on a weekly or monthly basis to federal administrators. It appears that Bakos was thrifty in his use of materials–which is entirely appropriate given that these works were produced during the Great Depression–but that he did not, however, scrimp on his standards. He chose the better of his two landscapes to submit for public consumption.

Another score was the discovery of a sketch by Lloyd Moylan on the reverse of his painting En Route to Ceremonial, which is actually titled Appointment in Gallup we discovered, as per the artist’s handwritten note.

Lloyd Moylan’s Appointment in Gallup, which hangs in the Octavia Fellin Public Library.

Likewise, researchers discovered several artists annotated their canvases with specific dates or hours worked, which presumably indicate for which “pay period” the artworks count. Check out these two examples, one from artist Brooks Willis and another from Erik Barger.

Brooks Willis’ Desert, which hangs in the McKinley County Courthouse.

Erik Barger’s Shiprock, which hangs in the Octavia Fellin Public Library.

gallupARTS would like to thank everyone who made the photography of the New Deal art collection possible: Brian Money, Darrell Jimson, Ruben Guerrero from McKinley County, Rochelle from the McKinley-County Gallup District Court, Richard Malone from the McKinley County District Attorney’s Office, Tammi Moe from the Octavia Fellin Public Library, and Tamara Hall and Teri Fraizer from Gallup-McKinley County Schools.

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gallupARTS to Receive $93K in American Rescue Plan Grant Funding

Still. Life. at ART123 Gallery: Reflecting on A Year of Pandemic

#Rezheartwork Hosts First Artist Retreat

“Art in Isolation” at ART123 Gallery

Behind the Scenes: Gallup New Deal Art Project

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