Spokane Arts announces the first round of SAGA recipients for 2021 totaling $ 44,500

Spokane Arts announced its first round of the Spokane Arts Grant Awards for this year. Seven local artists and arts organizations received a total of $ 44,500 for projects in the fields of music, education, writing, theater, festivals and culture. Two recipients, each awarded $ 10,000, are both book projects.

The first book project is entitled “Ponies in the Park”, a picture book written and illustrated by local artist, author and former educator Mary Pat Kanaley and children’s book author Mary Carpenter. The bound picture book provides children with information about the sculptures and the history of Riverfront Park.

The book will also include auxiliary materials, including an interactive scavenger hunt that revolves around the sculptures. The lesson plans and virtual presentations, to be included on an accompanying website, are designed to answer requests from teachers and parents for more interactive online classroom materials during the pandemic.

The other book project, also receiving US $ 10,000, is set to fund local writer Kate Lebo as she writes the first five chapters of her next book, The Loudproof Room, a collection of articles on hearing from hearing loss.

Lebo will conduct interviews with people from the local deaf and hard of hearing community. She will use a reading from the book as a focal point for a forum where people with hearing loss can share their experiences.

Lebo will host a virtual reading that is working with an organization such as the Eastern Washington Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing to introduce the work of deaf or hard of hearing writers and parts of The Loudproof Room.

This year’s Get Lit! The festival, which runs April 12-18, is receiving $ 5,000 to introduce authors, genres, and experiences to online viewers for free. The virtual festival will be presented by headliners Jess Walter, Esi Edugyan, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Robin Wall Kimmerer and others.

The money covers the author’s fees, helps with the hiring of videographers and sound editors, and provides sign language interpreters and live subtitles on the festival’s free YouTube channel.

Spokane Valley Summer Theater raised $ 5,000 to support its three summer outdoor music show in 2021. The grant will provide SVST with the equipment necessary to keep its performances safe from the theater’s usual venue in Central Valley Performing Arts Center in an outdoor setting this summer.

Spokane Youth Symphony received $ 5,000 in SAGA funds to save qualified families the cost of private tuition. Not only can students from disadvantaged households take advantage of an improvement in their musical education, but local professional music teachers can also generate additional income.

Professional teachers interested in mentoring SYS students can inquire about opportunities at [email protected]

The Northwest Winter Festival Celebration at Mirabeau Meadows Park will receive $ 5,000 to fund the visual and performing artists participating in the event. The festival lasts eight weeks from November 1st to December 1st. 31 and has more than 30 cultural groups showcasing their geography, history, vacation stories and traditions.

Parent-run APPLE program at Garfield Elementary School receives $ 4,500 to pay artists to work with K-6 students on a new mural on Garland Street. Professional wall painters Susan Webber and Daniel Lopez will inspire Garfield students to appreciate the art that is around them.

Working on a mural together gives students the artistic voice and skills they need to post an original outdoor mural and shape their voices through a public painting project on Spokane.

In addition to this year’s SAGA first-round grant recipients, Spokane Arts funded five other cultural organizations with funds from the City of Spokane specifically designed to support cultural groups. These grants were awarded by a separate selection panel composed of Spokane Arts commissioners who made their choices independently of the SAGA process.

The five organizations that received grants to support general operations and events between 2021 and 22 are Impanda, which serves youth at risk in Rwanda with a center for music and art therapy ($ 10,000). the Hispanic Business Professional Association ($ 10,000); the German-American Society of Spokane ($ 3,000); the Spokane Area Council of Square Dancers ($ 2,000); and Northwest Winterfest ($ 5,000).

“The arts sector has been hit hard by pandemic restrictions, and we hope the additional funding SAGA was able to release in 2020 has made a difference for individual artists and organizations in our area,” said Shelly Wynecoop, Spokane Arts scholar.

SAGA funding comes from the Spokane City Registration Tax, part of which is dedicated to supporting the arts through an ordinance passed in 2016.

SAGA will be awarding scholarships to the arts totaling $ 135,000 in 2021, spread across three rounds of scholarships. The next round of SAGA grant applications will be due online on June 1st for applicants seeking support for projects up to $ 10,000.

Visit speakanearts.org/grants for more information.