This November the University announced the winners of the Arts Innovation Program grants, which aim to promote the arts on campus by providing faculty and students with funding for special projects. The Arts Innovation Program was established in 2005 in response to a recommendation by the Homewood Arts Task Force, a group of people brought together to study current artistic opportunities on campus as well as areas for further development and growth.
“One of the recommendations of this task force was that an Arts Innovation Fund be established so that faculty and students could apply to this fund to support a program that would promote study, enjoyment and practice of the arts,” Heather Stalfort, communications and marketing manager for the Evergreen Museum, said.
Following the establishment of a small fund by the President and provost of the University, the Arts Innovation Program has since been augmented by gifts from private donors. The program has distributed grants twice a year since its inception, in the fall and spring semesters. It is the only program of its kind on campus created specifically to address the arts.
Proposals are submitted to and evaluated by Winston Tabb, who consults with faculty and staff as appropriate and makes the final selection. Faculty can apply for up to $8000 and students up to $2000, and the final award varies depending on the nature of the proposal. This year’s successful projects are diverse, but they all serve to enhance artistic opportunities in the university or the city.
Phyllis Berger, photography instructor in the Homewood Art Workshops, is collaborating with Lester Spence, assistant professor of Political Science and Africana Studies, to create a course called Black Visual Politics, which blends documentary photography and political science.
After studying photography as a medium of communication, students in the course will create a photographic portfolio of ten images focusing on the portrayal of blacks in society. Each student will receive a digital Nikon d 3000 camera to photograph Baltimoreans in poorer neighborhoods and talk to them about their experiences.
“They might be neighborhoods that are poor or on the fringe,” Berger said. “Areas where students might not necessarily go. So, they can actually get to know people and have conversations with them about how they feel about the way that they are portrayed in the media.”
The grant is $7,000 and will be used towards the digital cameras, which will allow students to produce high quality images. The financial support is indispensable to the course.
“Without the grant, it would have been very difficult to supply students with the cameras that they needed,” Berger said. “It really has made it possible.”
Another course made possible by the Arts Innovation Program is “Halls of Wonder: Art and Culture in the Age of the Marvelous, 1500-1800.” The course will be led by Earle Havens, curator of early books and manuscripts at the Sheridan Libraries, and Walter Stephens, the Charles S. Singleton Professor of Italian, German and Romance Languages and Literatures. It is also a collaboration with the Joneath Spicer, the James A. Murnaghan Curator of Renaissance and Baroque Art at the Walters Art Gallery.
The course, offered in fall 2011, will look at the phenomenon of the early modern museum in Europe: the Hall of Wonder, or wunderkammern in German. Unlike modern museums, these displayed a variety of objects, art pieces, and technological inventions. For example, a typical Hall of Wonder might house a narwhal horn labeled as a unicorn horn, several fossils, miniature paintings, and exotic birds. Although these objects seem random to the modern eye, they all had a certain quality in common.
“They could be chambers of anything that was unusual or remarkable and would set you wondering at creation,” Stephens said.
In addition to the Halls of Wonder course, the project also involves a new exhibit at the Peabody and a scholarly conference. The exhibit will display books with engravings and woodcuts of the items in the halls of wonder. There is also a permanent exhibition at the Walters of objects from the Halls of Wonder, for which the students will create an interactive, digital display to guide visitors through the gallery.
The project was awarded $6,500 in grant money, which will cover the digitization of images from the library’s rare book collections, the creation of the digital exhibition, and the purchase of the physical digital interactive kiosk.
In addition to fostering the creation of new courses by faculty, the Arts Innovation grants also support students who have a well developed idea for promoting art on campus and in Baltimore. Anna Zetkulic, a sophomore, is founding a group that will provide clay workshops for kids and adults of Baltimore.
“The project is currently a supplemental resource for already-established clubs,” she explained. “For example, it travels with Art Brigades to children in Eastern Baltimore to give pottery workshops.”
The idea was sparked by her long-standing interest and experience in pottery, as well as her participation in the Art Brigades.
“I do Art Brigades and I really liked the whole idea of doing art with kids,” she said, “but we were never able to really do a pottery presentation.”
Zetkulic is receiving $1,800 from the Arts Innovation grant, which she will spend on renting kilns for firing the clay as well as the clay itself and clay tools. She plans to have the club running officially and with expanded membership by fall 2011.
Hannah Froehle and Emily Bihl, both sophomores, created the project, “LBD: Liberated by Design.” Their idea is to recruit local artists and students in creatively altering “Little Black Dresses,” which will be shown at a fashion show next April and then be auctioned off, with proceeds benefitting a local women’s shelter.
They plan to use $700 of their grant to pay for the dresses, and around $500 to print a program or zine for potential buyers and attendees of the event.
Sophomore and History of Art major Laura Somenzi is using her $2,000 to publish a catalogue of her exhibit about Zelda Fitzgerald. The exhibit, which will be housed at the Evergreen Museum beginning in fall 2011, will show the seven Fitzgerald paintings that Hopkins owns, as well as some borrowed from other institutions. Somenzi has already researched Fitzgerald extensively as part of her Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. She is investigating the life and work of Fitzgerald, and the balance between work and home life.
“We’re looking at Zelda’s role in an era where women are going from being traditional housewives to more of a modern independent status,” she said. “It’s very difficult to have a family and also be a full-time professional artist.”
Somenzi found out about the grant when she was emailed by her advisor. To apply she had to explain the importance of the project in the context of the university and city community. Although the projects that received funding were radically different, they all met this requirement.
“You wrote a proposal,” she said, “and you had to explain why the project was important to the overall community at Hopkins, how it could promote the arts, and also on a broader level how it could reach the community in Baltimore.”
In addition, senior history major Shayna Abramson received a grant for an interfaith performing arts center and Professors Stephen Stone and Mark Lackey will introduce a course entitled Introduction to Computer Music.
