Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County 2010-2011 Grants Awards

The Arts Council has awarded a total of $506,301.88 in grants back to the local community for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Grant awards are decided by a panel of arts and education professionals from local, regional and state organizations, and by citizens of the community. The grants fall into four categories: Operating Support, Project Support, Regional Artist Project and Artists In Schools grants. Below are the details of each of those grant categories.

2010-2011 Operating Support Grants - $267,000

Operating Support Grants are awarded to local arts agencies in Cumberland County whose programs are vital to the cultural life of the community and whose organizations have reached a size and maturity that assure their long-term viability. Operating Support Grants are matched dollar for dollar and their purpose is to strengthen and stabilize major arts institutions and help them to deliver high quality arts services to the citizens of Cumberland County.

Cape Fear Regional Theatre: $142,000 – For 48 years, Cape Fear Regional Theatre’s mission to educate, inform and inspire audiences of all ages has sustained its highly visible and essential place in the southeast region’s cultural life.

Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra: $80,000 – Now in its 54th season, the Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra is performing some of the most powerful and beloved masterworks of the symphonic repertoire. It is balancing true masterworks with engaging and enchanting lesser known musical gems and a resplendent lineup of professional soloists.

Cape Fear Studios: $45,000 – Celebrating the 20th anniversary of its founding, Cape Fear Studios is an artist cooperative and art resource center for the community with 45 member artists. It features seven fully functional art studios, two pottery wheels and a kiln room. These resources are utilized in classes and workshops, as well as service projects, including instruction for children and those with special needs.

2010-2011 Project Support Grants - $125,000

Project Support Grants are awarded to local non-profit agencies in Cumberland County who produce programs of artistic merit and who demonstrate financial and administrative stability. The purpose of the Project Support matching grants is to recognize and support exemplary forms of artistic expression, both contemporary and traditional, in the visual arts, the performing arts, literature, media arts and the folk arts.

Nineteen organizations received funding through the Project Support category.

Cape Fear Botanical Garden – ($700) Funds will be used to purchase art supplies for the May Day Celebration, a free-admission environmental and cultural festival. Cape Fear Botanical Garden plans to have enough supplies for 500 children to participate in each art project.

Cape Fear Botanical Garden – ($2,500) Special performances by cultural storyteller Gran’daddy Junebug, Mitch Capel, will be provided at two Cape Fear Botanical Garden events, Heritage Festival and May Day. These performances will give attendees the chance to experience the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar and take part in the African oral tradition of "call and response."

Cape Fear Botanical Garden – ($8,000) Grant support will be used for a marketing campaign to promote the new Wyatt Visitors Pavilion Complex at Cape Fear Botanical Garden. The marketing campaign will target local and regional travelers to inform them of the new facilities and programs.

Cape Fear Studios – ($500) Funds from the Arts Council grant will be used for an exhibit about the traditional African American craft of sweet grass basket making. A local sweet grass basket maker will demonstrate her craft for the public during the Fourth Friday events in January and February of 2011.

Cape Fear Valley Health Foundation – ($7,500) Grant funds will be used to support "Artful Reflections", a therapeutic service for cancer patients that enables them to utilize art to express their emotions, resulting in decreased levels of stress and increased levels of patient "sense of peace". These funds will be used to pay the artist’s fees.

Community Concerts of Fayetteville – ($7,200) In the 75th season of Community Concerts, grant money from the Arts Council will help present five concerts during the 2010-2011 series. The organization is expecting multi-racial, multi-generational, multi-cultural and economically diverse audiences at these performances.

Community Concerts of Fayetteville – ($4,000) Through the use of these grant funds, this all-volunteer organization will be able to hire its first paid employee. The position will help with the responsibilities involved in running this growing organization of over 1700 members.

Cumberland County Public Library – ($4,000) Grant support will be used for the Cumberland County Storytelling Festival. The free, two-day event for all ages celebrates the storytelling heritage of many cultures and features performances by headline storytellers. Workshops, children’s activities and an open-microphone event are included in the festival’s plans.

Cumberland County Public Library – ($1,000) Cumberland County residents will have the opportunity to watch the documentary, "Rescue Men, The Story of the Pea Island Life Savers", which recreates death-defying rescues of passengers and crews made by African American Life Savers on the NC Outer Banks during the 1880s. After viewing the film, participants will explore creative ways of expressing its personal impact through forums facilitated by grant-funded historians, storytellers and poets.

Cumberland Oratorio Singers – ($6,000) The mission of the Cumberland Oratorio Singers is to present high-quality classical and popular choral music for residents of Cumberland and surrounding counties. Grant support from the Arts Council will be used for the group’s 2010-2011 concert series.

Fayetteville Area Convention & Visitors Bureau – ($10,000) The FACVB will use grant funds to implement a unified signage system to direct visitors and residents along the historic and cultural routes published in the Cultural Heritage Driving Trail Guide.

Fayetteville Art Guild - Discovering Art – ($5,290) The Fayetteville Art Guild will hire professional artists to teach art, through year-round programming, to at-risk youth in the area in order to improve participants’ self-esteem, art skills, problem solving abilities and task completion skills.

Fayetteville Art Guild - Exhibition Series – ($4,000) Six gallery art exhibitions, including two juried art exhibits; as well as quarterly curated exhibitions of member work at the Throckmorton Library on Ft. Bragg will be produced by the Fayetteville Art Guild during the grant year. An exhibit of youth artwork from the Discovering Art Program will also be produced.

Fayetteville Art Guild - Visual Art Alliance – ($4,000) Funding from the Arts Council will support marketing for the Guild’s continued development of an arts collective called The Visual Arts Alliance. The group is an independent membership-based collective of visual arts presenting agencies and organizations.

Fayetteville/Cumberland County Parks & Recreation Department – ($8,000) A cultural arts program will provide a broad scope of arts activities to children and adults in recreation centers. Recreation supervisors will work with center staff to expand current arts programs and plan, promote and implement new programs, focusing on three areas: visual arts, literacy and music.

Fayetteville State University Fine Arts Series – ($7,500) FSU’s Fine Arts Series was created to inform, enrich, engage and inspire the community. To that end, they will produce a series of programs throughout the year that includes a variety of guest artists, including a Grammy-nominated African American windwood quartet, a Latin percussionist and his band, a mezzo-soprano singer, and an internationally renowned African American ballet company.

Fayetteville State University Foundation – ($7,500) Three performances of the operetta "Candide" will be produced on the campus of Fayetteville State University in the JW Seabrook Auditorium utilizing professional artists, along with community performers chosen from open auditions. The two evening performances and one daytime matinee, geared specifically to children and youth, will be supported by grant funds.

Fayetteville State University-WFSS – ($1,000) Grant support will be used for the Jazz on the River concert, featuring nationally recognized recording artists in the contemporary jazz world. The artist, who play a variety of instruments, will come from all over the US and even England.

Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra – ($2,000) The Fayetteville Symphony Orchestra will use grant funds to organize and produce a Gospel Concert that combines local gospel singing talent with orchestral music. The concert will be an evening of energetic, spiritual and entertaining gospel music with an expert and professional orchestral accompaniment.

Fayetteville Technical Community College – ($1,060) Grant funding will allow the FTCC Art Gallery to provide one juried art exhibition of regional artists. In addition to the juror’s awards, there will be a Viewer’s Choice Award, to allow viewers to vote on the piece they think is the best.

Fayetteville Technical Community College – ($2,000) The Fine Arts Department at FTCC provides, free of charge, performances of a musical for the students and community of Fayetteville. Financial support will be used for the fall production of Guys and Dolls.

Friends of Music at Methodist – ($1,250) Grant funds will allow the Methodist University Department of Music to present the Friends of Music at Methodist 2010-2011 Guest Artist Series. The series will include several concerts and workshops.

Gilbert Theater – ($8,000) During the Gilbert Theater’s 2010-2011 season, the organization plans to present five live stage productions, ranging from the classics to more contemporary plays, and one children’s workshop.

North Carolina State Ballet – ($5,000) Support from the Arts Council will assist the North Carolina State Ballet with this year’s production of the "Nutcracker", which has been a yearly production since 1977. Fourth graders in Cumberland County schools will learn about the music, history and other information about the "Nutcracker", and then compliment this learning with the live presentation of the fully staged Ballet.

North Carolina Symphony/Cumberland County Chapter – ($9,000) Elementary school students will enjoy interactive educational concerts by the North Carolina Symphony at no cost to the students. The concert program, which serves around 4,500 students in Cumberland County, is educational, engaging and entertaining. Teachers from participating schools will be invited to attend the North Carolina Symphony’s annual teacher workshop.

North Carolina Symphony/Cumberland County Chapter – ($5,000) A free, outdoor concert in Festival Park on July 2, 2010 will be supported by these grant funds. The concert will feature classical favorites and patriotic music in a relaxed and family-friendly environment that exposes people of all ages to orchestral music.

Sandhills Family Heritage Association – ($3,000) This agency organizes the Sandkofa Festival, which celebrates the richness of African American culture with music, religious singing, dance and storytelling. Regional artists will perform African dance and drumming, storytelling, Negro spirituals. Attendees will participate in fabric art crafts that utilize colors that are reminiscent of the continent of Africa. Grant funds will be used to pay artists’ fees.

2010-2011 Regional Artist Project Grants - $15,308.88

Regional Artist Project Grant funds are intended to provide financial support to a broad range of exceptionally talented visual, performing, literary and inter-disciplinary artists by funding a project that will have a significant impact on the advancement of their professional artistic career.

Artists who currently reside in Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Cumberland, Harnett, Hoke, Lee, Montgomery, Moore, New Hanover, Pender, Richmond, Robeson, Sampson and Scotland Counties are eligible to apply.

The following artists received grants for the 2010-2011 year.