In this issue:
- The next SMAC Arty Party: Big Stone County
- Grants Awarded: $70,654 to local artists and organizations
- Outreach: SMAC Annual Celebration
- Introducing SMAC's first Arts Ambassador & the search for two more
- The Walker Art Center seeks SW MN teens for arts council
- Did You Know: Minnesota State Arts Board seeks input from Southwest Minnesota region
- SMAC Board seeks representatives for Jackson, Lac qui Parle and McLeod Counties
- SMAC grant updates: Upcoming grant deadlines & Webinars
- Help SMAC review grant applications!
Pictured: Creative Crosswalk painting in Granite Falls, calling attention to missing and murdered indigenous women. The City of Granite Falls received a SMAC Art Project grant for the creation of many Creative Crosswalks.
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JOIN US for an “Arty Party” in Big Stone County:
Friday, October 15 from 7 to 8:30 pm!
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YOU are invited to take part in Lee's Sing-Along, an interactive performance with Lee Kanten of Ortonville, and to network with artists and arts supporters in the area! This even will take place at the OMG Hall in Ortonville.
This will be our third program in our 18-month series networking events for every county in our region. We will host locally sourced ham & turkey sliders and a cash bar from Ortonville's 2nd Street Café and Coffeehouse! SMAC staff will be available to connect with attendees and get the word out about who SMAC is, what we do, and what services and assistance we can offer for our communities.
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We look forward to p(art)ying with you! |
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SMAC Awards $70,654 to local organizations and artists
The SMAC board met virtually on September 28, 2021 and awarded a total of $70,654 in grant funds to four organizations and eight artists within our SW MN region for a total of twelve grants awarded.
The following four organizations have been awarded SMAC Art Project grants. Art Project Grants provide organizations in the SMAC region with up to $7,000 in funds to stimulate and encourage the creation, performance and appreciation of the arts.
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The Meander Art Crawl of the Upper Minnesota River Valley has been awarded $7,000 for their 2022 Art Crawl. The art crawl is a tour of artists' studios and galleries in Chippewa, Big Stone, Swift, Yellow Medicine, and Lac qui Parle counties. The Meander is a three day event, a free self-guided tour of artist studios featuring over 40 local artists from the Upper Minnesota River Valley. The project encourages guests to visit artists in their own environment, celebrating a lifestyle that represents the small, handmade, personal and local culture of the area. The applicant said, "planning the art crawl takes a lot of coordination and effort. With support from SMAC, we feel that Meander can continue to make a significant impact for the artists in our region." The 2021 Meander Art Crawl is taking place this coming weekend (October 3-5); if you are curious to learn more, click on the link above!
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The Southwest Minnesota Orchestra (SMO) of Marshall was awarded $7,000 for their Fall 2021 Beethoven concerts. The SMO will present two concerts in celebration of the 251st anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's birth in December 1770. The concerts will feature Beethoven masterworks including Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major "Eroica", Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, "Emperor", and song cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved). The concerts are planned for October 16th and November 14, 2021.
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The Willmar Area Symphonic Orchestra has been awarded $7,000 for three concerts: Dancing Shoes, featuring narrator Kaitlin Ramsey and dancers from Main Pointe School of Dance in October. This concert will be presented in two formats, a live performance that will be open to the public and a recorded performance to send to area schools. The second concert, Peter McGuire plays Bruch, will feature Peter McGuire - violinist from the Minnesota Orchestra. This concert will take place in January 2022. The third concert, "Equus," will be in March 2022 and feature pieces that evoke images of horses (Equus is Latin for horses).
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Andrew Nordin of New London has been awarded a SMAC Quick Support for Artists grant in the amount of $1,000. Quick Support for Artists grants provide an artist with up to $1,000 for activities such as purchasing supplies, attending classes, and small artist-led community projects. Andrew will purchase art supplies (canvas and linen) and equipment, such as a heater for his new home studio so that he can work year-round. Andrew is creating new works for three upcoming exhibits spanning March to August in 2022.
Pictured: Slack Shape, Acrylic and oil on canvas shape.
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Dani Prados of Granite Falls has been awarded a SMAC Individual Artist Community Collaboration grant in the amount of $10,000. Individual Artist Community Collaboration grants provide up to $10,000 to artists to create a major new work, while collaborating with the community, introducing community members to the arts in a new way.
Dani Prados plans to spend time with community members of the Granite Falls Area to record stories: memories, tall tales, jokes, poems, recipes, photographs, old documents and more. Additional research will be conducted as inspired, such as at local libraries, City Hall, local paper archives, and online. Combining these shared glimpses of current life and remembered history with artistic impressions in the form of photographs, sketches, drawings, painting, poems, and prose, a professionally printed book will be made. The final product will be made available to the community in public places with a series of public events, as well as editions being sold at the local arts gallery.
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The following six artists have been awarded SMAC Individual Artist grants. Individual Artist grants provide up to $2,500 to emerging artists and $7,000 to established career artists for projects that will advance their skills and artistic careers.
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Dana Conroy of Madison was awarded $7000 for a short art film. Dana plans to utilize animation and experimental filmmaking techniques to help recreate the world she now lives in, explaining that the film "will immerse the viewer into the otherworldly experience that I live with day to day as an artist with a visual disability." Dana said that her goal is to collaborate with a team of artists to convey this experience in a creative way; she will work with an illustrator, a projection artist, a director of photography, an editor and a writer, and serve as the director and producer herself. Dana plans to do a viewing in southwest Minnesota that will provide a platform for press releases and talks, as well as create awareness around visual disabilities.
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Justin Eells of Marshall has been awarded $2,500 to work on his novel, "Second Sanctuary". Justin plans to finish his manuscript in 2022, after restructuring and revising the latest draft of his novel in 2020 and 2021. With the polished completion of his novel, he will start queries for publication.
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Olga Krasovska of Granite Falls was awarded $7,000 for her Opposites in Harmony painting series. Olga plans to create a new abstract painting series with the main focus being on contrast and difference. She will create a group of small works on paper with different drawing and painting materials exploring the notion of opposites, which she will then use as basis for her works on canvas.
Pictured: "Circles that you find," acrylic and mixed media painting on canvas, 48x36", 2017.
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Craig Lindsay of Marshall has been awarded $2,494 for a music compilation of nine songs. For this project Craig also plans to develop a website for promotion, design artwork and set up photography for the release, apply for copyrights, record and arrange the music, and produce CD's. Craig will perform all musical instruments and vocals for the recording with the exception of backing vocalists.
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Nicholas Schleif of Milroy was awarded $7,000 to evolve his multimedia painting techniques for a new body of work. Nicholas explained his main focus is on two very different artistic techniques/styles; his gunpowder technique, and "text" paintings. "The gunpowder work is about civil rights through a historical context; finding the beauty and lessons in tragedy, and using them as a tool to do better...Whereas, my text paintings are more shaped by pop culture, and the people/content therein." In his new collection, he aims to combine the two techniques in to one; "Essentially, I want to use elements from both, taking the darker sides of history/current events, and combining them with a modern & vibrant pop-art sort of aesthetic, to create one clear & harmonious aesthetic statement."
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Anne Wedler of Marshall has been awarded $5,660 for her group dynamic oil paintings. Anne explained that she would like to expand a small body of work into a larger one to be exhibited around Minnesota and the midwest. Anne said, "The body of work is called Group Dynamic and currently consists of small-scale paintings, mostly 12x 12 inches, based on my experiences working with the outdoor studies program in Juneau, Alaska. The images feature groups of figures navigating a beautiful but hazardous landscape. The images can stand alone but together tell a larger story, a cautionary tale of people working together or slowly succumbing to the hazards around them." Anne plans to expand on this body of work, exploring more permutations of this theme as well as creating larger images that allow for more complex compositions; she will make 20-25 images ranging from 18x34" to 24x36".
Pictured: "Strangler", Oil on canvas, 18x24", 2019.
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Southwest Minnesota Arts Council Outreach
Catch us next year in Swift County!
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Introducing SMAC's First Arts Ambassador: Lisa Bergh |
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Please help us welcome Lisa Bergh as SMAC's new Arts Ambassador for our North region, which covers the counties of: Big Stone, Swift, Lac qui Parle, Chippewa, Kandiyohi, and Meeker!
SMAC Arts Ambassadors are a new initiative to build relationships, connections and networks with groups and communities that SMAC has not been successful in serving or reaching. The job includes priorities of creating connections with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and/or LGBTQIA2S+ artists and organizations, artists with disabilities and/or other groups or communities historically excluded in the region.
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Lisa (pronouns she/her) has built a life and career invested in and devoted to the arts. Lisa values the communities she is involved in and understands the relationship between thriving artists and thriving communities. Her work as a visual artist, arts administrator, curator, rural arts advocate, and educator informs the processes that build arts programming from the ground up using the perspectives of audience, funder, and artist.
As an educator Lisa has taught in both community and academic settings, from preschool children to adults, meeting students where they are in the creative process. She currently serves as the art instructor for Ridgewater College in Hutchinson. Lisa served as the Executive Director for the Hutchinson Center for the Arts for 6 years building creative programs for both artists and the community. She is the co-founder of 2 grassroots community projects: ARThouse, and The Traveling Museum, focusing on connecting visual artists to new opportunities engaging communities. Lisa regularly serves on grant review panels for organization and civic entities including the State Arts Board, SMAC, Forecast Public Art, and Percent for Art Projects.
Lisa maintains a robust studio practice and exhibits regularly throughout the upper Midwest.
“I am thrilled to join the southwest Minnesota arts council team as an Arts Ambassador. I look forward to helping artists, organizations, and communities access tools to bring ideas to life.”
Lisa Bergh holds a BFA from the University of Arizona and an MFA from San José State University. She currently serves on the New London Spicer Educational Foundation Board and New London Human Rights Commission.
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JOB OPPORTUNITIES: SMAC Seeks Arts Ambassadors
SMAC is looking for TWO more ARTS AMBASSADORS! Two contract positions are now open for arts-engaged community members to serve 6 counties – one Central and one South – in the SMAC 18 county region.
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The role of the SMAC ARTS AMBASSADOR will be to build relationships, connections and networks with groups and communities that SMAC has not been successful in serving or reaching. The job will include a priority of creating connections with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and/or LGBTQIA2S+ artists and organizations, as well artists with disabilities and/or other groups or communities historically excluded in the region. This outreach position will have flexible hours and schedule, and includes a monthly stipend + mileage reimbursement.
The Central position covers the counties of: Yellow Medicine, Renville, McLeod, Lincoln, Lyon, Redwood
The South position covers the counties of: Pipestone, Murray, Cottonwood, Rock, Nobles, Jackson
More details:
- Independent contractor status with no work comp or benefits
- Contract timeframe from October 1, 2021 – July 1, 2022; with 3-month and 6-month review
- 30-50 hours / month with reporting due by the end of each month (estimated $20/hour) Reported hours include travel time
- Mileage reimbursement
- Total budgeted/month = $1000 per position
- Similar to SMAC Board members, Arts Ambassadors will not be eligible to apply for/receive individual SMAC grants during their contract term
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In the Gallery: Anne Wedler |
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"Domestic", cyanotype by Anne Wedler. |
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Guests at the artist reception discuss Anne's work. |
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Pictured below: Anne Wedler (far left) speaks with guests at her artist reception.
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Next in the Gallery: Don Sherman |
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Don Sherman of Ortonville will be exhibiting the SMAC gallery from November 11 through December 23, 2021. Don is a multimedia artist who specializes in paper-making. He received a SMAC Individual Artist grant in 2019 to explore the craft of handmaking paper to grow his art through creation, exhibiting and teaching. If you would like to learn more about Don, you can watch this short artist feature video made by the Meander Art Crawl.
Please mark you calendars to join us for an Artist Reception with Don tentatively set for Thursday, November 11th from 5-7 pm at the SMAC Gallery in Marshall and a virtual Third Thursday Artist talk via Zoom on Thursday, November 18th at 5:30 pm. Watch our Facebook, Instagram, website, and future emails for more details! |
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Please let us know of any accommodations needed for you to enjoy any of our events, virtual or in-person: info@swmnarts.org.
These activities are made possible by the voters of Minnesota thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
Funding provided by the McKnight Foundation. Minnesota thrives when its artists thrive. The McKnight Foundation supports working artists to create and contribute to vibrant communities.
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The Walker Art Center seeks SW MN Teens for Arts Council |
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Collaborate with the Walker Art Center!
In January 2022 The Walker Art Center will be piloting the Prairie Teen Arts Council (PTAC). PTAC will offer a group of ten teens (10th grade through 12th grade students) from Southwest Minnesota a chance to collaborate with Walker staff, explore the inner workings of the museum, conduct original research and plan events. The group will meet virtually and weekly until June. Interested teens please visit the online application.
The Walker is seeking teachers or other community members and youth advocates who can help spread the word about the program and interested teens to apply. All interested can contact Simona Zappas, Youth and Community Programs Associate, at simona.zappas@walkerart.org.
Pictured: The Walker Art Center, image from their website.
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The Minnesota State Arts Board is inviting public input that will help inform the kinds of grant programs the board may offer in the future. To decide how best to invest state resources, they need to know what kinds of arts experiences and opportunities Minnesota residents and communities need and want. Please attend a listening session hosted by Wilder Research on behalf of the Arts Board.
Listening sessions will be held virtually throughout the state. Conversations will be tailored to different geographic areas.
A session focusing on the arts needs in the Southwest Minnesota region (including Big Stone, Chippewa, Cottonwood, Jackson, Kandiyohi, Lincoln, Lac qui Parle, Lyon, McLeod, Meeker, Murray, Nobles, Pipestone, Redwood, Renville, Rock, Swift, and Yellow Medicine counties) will be held on...
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Tuesday, October 12 from 5 - 6 p.m.
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A Zoom link will be sent to all registered participants. |
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Pictured: Current and past SMAC Board in attendance at the 2021 Annual Celebration in Jackson, MN. |
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SMAC is seeking representatives from Jackson County, Lac qui Parle County and McLeod County to serve on it’s Board of Directors!
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View the entire grants calendar for our current fiscal year here.
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Grants to schools for artist residencies or field trips that include educator training and community involvement, juried student art exhibits, and prepackaged theater experiences. Up to $2,500 (field trips, juried exhibits, or prepackaged theater) or $4,000 (residencies). No cash match required. **Watch recorded August 2021 webinar**
Operating Support Grants: Pre-application submission was due September 15, 2021 by 4:30 pm. Application deadline id October 20, 2021 by 4:30 pm.
- Two-year grants for arts organizations with a current 501(c)(3) and at least two years of programming and financials, to be used for operating expenses. Submit financial info in a pre-application to determine your request amount, 15% or 35% of your organization's average operating budget, depending on budget size. **Watch recorded August 2021 webinar**
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Provides organizations in the SMAC region with up to $20,000 to stimulate and encourage the creation, performance and appreciation of the arts through large-scale projects that will leave an arts legacy in Southwest Minnesota. No cash match required this year.
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Join us on Zoom for a virtual Grants Questions & Answers Sessions to get questions answered about any of our grant programs. Upcoming dates: |
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You don't have to register, but you can if you'd like email reminders with the zoom link information; click on the above links!
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Meeting ID: 982 8089 0625
Passcode: 433868
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Upcoming SMAC Grantwriting Webinars: December
Please let us know of any accommodations needed for you to attend any of our events, virtual or in-person: info@swmnarts.org.
December 7, Noon-1 pm: Quick Support for Organizations Grants Webinar
December 15, 5:30-6:30 pm: Arts in the Schools Grants Webinar
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Meet With Our Grants Administrator
SW MN Arts Council grants administrator Caroline Koska is available to meet with you by phone, web conference or in person at our office in Marshall to answer your questions on grant eligibility and using the application system or to review a draft of your application. Schedule a time with Caroline Koska.
As a reminder, Koska also holds monthly in-person open office hours at the SMAC offices in Marshall on the second Tuesday of every month from 10 am to 2 pm. The next one will take place October 12.
Call 800-622-5284 or email us info@swmnarts.org with your questions. Please let us know of any accommodations needed for you to attend any of our events, virtual or in-person: info@swmnarts.org.
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Would you like to help SMAC review and score grant applications?
The SMAC Board of Directors continually seeks panels of artists, arts administrators, arts volunteers, and arts appreciators representing multiple artistic disciplines from throughout the SMAC geographic region and from all our communities including BIPOC, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA2S+ individuals. Being a grant panelist is a positive way to strengthen your grantwriting skills by understanding the process as a whole. It's also a great way to learn and support what exciting projects are happening in rural SW MN! Panelists are compensated $75 for a panel. More details on being a SMAC panelist
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For more opportunities and resources be sure to check out our latest news posts (updated DAILY!) on SMAC's website
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Regional arts calendar
We are continuing to post both in-person and virtual arts events in our region on our website calendar. If you have events to let us know about, please email the details to info@swmnarts.org!
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Memberships
From August 28 to September 27, 2021
Contributors: Mary Lynn Meneely, Arco • Clay Coyote, Hutchinson • Craig & Holly Dapper, Hutchinson • Rhythm of the River, Jackson • Marshall Lyon County Library, Marshall • AMP (Arts & Mentoring Project), Pipestone • Bonita Smith, Willmar •
Supporters: Louella Voigt, Luverne • Catherine Abbott, Marshall • Robert Dorlac, Marshall • Milan Village Arts School, Milan • Liz Rackl, Ortonville • Reggie Gorter, Pipestone • Cheri Buzzeo, Spicer• Gette Jones, Watson •
Sustainers: Pipestone Performing Arts Center, Pipestone •
Other donations:
Darlene Kotelnicki, Litchfield • Mary Pieh, New London
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Would you like to become a contributing member of SMAC or make a donation?
The arts have suffered tremendously since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our arts organizations and individual artists have had to modify, postpone or cancel most, if not all of their projects and events, since March of 2020. These closures meant lost income and lost opportunities. We are just starting to see the region opening up and the arts becoming part of our lives again. The SW MN Arts Council will continue working to support and fund arts access for the citizens of Southwest Minnesota. We need you to help us support the arts.
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE ARTS!
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2021 SW MN Arts Council BOARD OF DIRECTORS |
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Big Stone - Janine Teske
Lincoln - Mark Wilmes
Meeker - Darlene Kotelnicki
Pipestone - Erica Volkir
Rock - Shawn Kinsinger
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Chippewa - Georgette Jones
Kandiyohi - Cheri Buzzeo
Lyon - Michele Knife Sterner
Murray - Jessica Welu
Redwood - David KelseyBassett
Swift - Alison Nelson
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Cottonwood - Anna Johannsen
Nobles - Cheryl Avenel-Navara
Renville-Anne O'Keefe-Jackson
Yellow Medicine-Betsy Pardick & Michele Huggins
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Executive Director - Nicole DeBoer
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Grants/Financial Administrator - Caroline Koska
Marketing Coordinator - Krystl Louwagie
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SW MN Arts Council
The Southwest Minnesota Arts Council (SMAC) is a non-profit organization committed to promoting and encouraging the development of the arts in the eighteen counties of southwestern Minnesota by serving as a source of funds and technical services which enable local organizations, educational institutions, and individuals to sponsor and/or create and promote the arts in their communities.
SMAC receives funding from individuals, businesses, organizations, schools, cities, counties, private foundations including the McKnight Foundation, an allocation from the State of Minnesota, and a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, made possible by the voters of Minnesota.
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