May 26, 2012 Artist Bailout Project Summaries

Artist/s:

Josh Atlas

www.joshatlas.com


Project Title:

Pool Girls, Lady Parts



Description:

Over the past year, I began a body of work based on figurative characters called Pool Girls. These drawings and sculptures are amalgamations of food, lust, and intimacy, cobbled together from a variety of materials that includes donuts, icing, and pool toys.

Through the Pool Girls, Lady Parts project, I aim to investigate the sculptural possibilities of their body (arms, torsos, and legs) as individual sites of comfort, lust, delight, and vulnerability. By using individual body parts, I want to shift the work from characters (which implies narrative) to objects (which emphasizes tone and function).

How an Artist Bailout grant will help make this project happen:

In order to realize this project, I want to expand my tool-set to be able to bend and stretch PVC pipes (for the limbs) and stretch vinyl (for the pools). This will allow for a more playful and gestural approach to generating sculptural forms. The funds will be used to purchase tools and safety equipment.

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Artist/s:

Ayers Baxter

Project Title:

Hopestreet



Description:

I am Ayers Baxter. I have a musical, Hopestreet. The script and songs are written by me and an assembly of Grammy, Academy & Country Award winning writers. Herb Alpert and Derick Alpert at Almo Erving helped in the initial steps. I started working on this project in 1988 and have finally got it ready for the next step—workshop production and showcase performances.

Hope runs away from a single parent mom and lands on the streets of Hollywood. Meets a young up and coming rock star, falls in love, gets pregnant and finds herself alone when he leaves her on a rock tour.

Hot music and a story that makes us laugh and cry.

We’re on Hopestreet
It’s no journey’s end
Nor last retreat
Wherever fate may send
We’re on Hopestreet
And broken hearts will mend,
So don’t give up
Living on Hopestreet.

How an Artist Bailout grant will help make this project happen:

Audition space for one (1) day, unless a multitude of actors and singers show up
A place to rehearse (4) weeks
A place to perform shows example: Pursing Square, Old Theatre or on a street or theatre in the Arts District
CD copies of the music for performers to use for practice
20 copies of the script for cast and crew
Miscellaneous stuff: grocery cart, trash can, plastic grocery bags, kite, furniture, construction paper and props
PA system (rent or loaned)
We may need money for a musical director

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Artist/s:

Elizabeth Liang

Project Title:

UNPACKED: a story of growing up among worlds

Description:

Who are you when you’re from everywhere and nowhere? UNPACKED is a one-woman multi-character comedy-drama about growing up as a girl of mixed heritage in Central America, North Africa, and New England. Alienation and the search for identity, as well as the sometime refusal to search and learn, weave thematically through the narration. The piece depicts how a young girl copes as a culture/language/religion straddler (“other”) in country after country. My intention is to bring many disparate cultures together onstage and hopefully in the audience—to at least create dialogue about identity, home, culture (shock), and how to bridge the gaps.

How an Artist Bailout grant will help make this project happen:

An Artist Bailout grant would go toward paying the sound designer and director for my workshop performance at Beyond Baroque in late June. Excellent sound design would help to establish "place" in the most immediate way (for example, the call of the muezzin in Morocco). The piece also needs a director to polish and tighten it.

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Artist/s:

Tehani Sarreal
www.DancingTehani.com

Project Title:

AFA (Artists for Action)

Description:

Artists for Action is a concert that gives artists of different media (from dance theater to oil painting) and walks of life an opportunity to voice community issues and promote safe dialogue towards positive and peaceful approaches—if not resolutions—to these themes as a community. The concert first started in 2007, and this fall 2012 I will expand the event with an artist panel to discuss their particular pieces with the audience as well as their personal connection to/work with the subject matter (from LGBT themes to Police Brutality to the 99%). This event will be open and free to the general public, cover a diverse and balanced presentation of themes and ultimately aim to inspire everyday citizens to get involved and become advocates of understanding and acceptance of our diversity that makes our community so unique. By virtue of offering these concerts for free to the general public, the community impact is more tangible. It will be a one day event held on September 22, 2012.

How an Artist Bailout grant will help make this project happen:

The micro-grant will be primarily used for the venue rental (if not donated), artist stipends and everything else not covered by a similar micro-grant I am also applying for. The other micro -grant (maximum of $1,000) has the requirement of a matching grant/in-kind funds. This micro-grant (with Artist Bailout) will supplement the costs as well as meet the requirements of a matching grant to support the event.

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Artist/s:

Billy Mark (billymark.biz), Miranda Wright (sustainablepractice.org), Poordog group (poordoggroup.com), Christine Marie (cimimarie.com) & Jon Armstrong

Project Title:

Homo Economicus



Description:

Nearly twenty artists have gathered together to collaborate on a performance that attempts to answer the question: "How can we live creative lives, and still put food on the table?" Through six public events, and four weekends of performance, our team will bring to life one of the most challengingly complex characters of all time: Homo Economicus. And, in the process, we look to uncover the theatrical dimensions of our economy.

In order to fully represent the pervasiveness of this socially realized, fictional character called Homo Economicus, we will pay all the "actors" of H.E., everyone who puts on or comes to a fundraiser that lives in our culture, $1 an hour. Meanwhile, we will explore alternative value systems at play in our country: political, religious, familial, moral, and prestige.

The performance will involve ten musicians, ten actors, an immersive shadow environment. Our public events & fundraisers leading up to the performances will include:

1. A proposal at the Artist Bailout
2. A self-published magazine
3. A tithing party
4. An award ceremony
5. An interactive Kickstarter campaign
6. A yard sale surrounding a foreclosure

How an Artist Bailout grant will help make this project happen:

We will use the funds to purchase a few small items for the performance (old overhead projectors & screens), pay each actors $1 an hour, and to put food on our tables at home during our rehearsal process.

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Artist/s:

Eva Montealegre
www.evamontealegre.com

Project Title:

Cave Art Research and Community Presentation



Description:

I will go to spend time in ancient shamanic caves where I have been invited to work with a respected American artist in the south of France and stay at a barn/studio near the caves and work on my painting technique using limestone pigments and immersing myself in my artistic process—eventually inviting the neighboring village to an open studio presentation.

Then I will come home to Los Angeles and create a community event using imagery and techniques acquired providing mask/head-dress structures for participants, children and adults, to decorate and perform in under my simple direction using original music and simple home made costumes. This will serve as an opening night presentation for the reception exhibiting my paintings utilizing the techniques learned.

I have a gallery interested in this presentation who will invite a neighboring performing art school to participate.

How an Artist Bailout grant will help make this project happen:

Bailout $ for mask & head-dress "foundations" which are first made by me in ceramic form then I utilize various materials & molding techniques for creation & duplication so multiple foundations can be decorated by as many participants as needed for each event. I’d add horses, bees & bird foundations (already have bear & deer.) Plus costume materials & art supplies.

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Artist/s:

Lorri Deyer

Project Title:

Idea Truck



Description:

Idea Truck is a food truck with only IDEAS on the menu. Order a Half-baked Idea or Worst Nightmare from the service window but first you must pay with your own idea.

Half price for reciting it out loud...we’ll even ring the bell.

Idea Truck will travel L.A. for 6 months—a wandering venue for conversation, inspiration, and engagement. This is an opportunity to learn and enlarge our potential as humans and neighbors. In a world increasingly isolating, let's have ideas amaze us with the creative spark in all of us. Awarding Idea Truck says people everywhere have worthy ideas.

How an Artist Bailout grant will help make this project happen:

Laminated imagery: photos of the idea creators on the truck (a la ice cream stickers) as a visual representation of their participation.

Streaming video: record passersby reaction for the blog and verbal explanations of ideas (for those who can’t write, want to elaborate, to sing…)

Maintenance: radiator repair, speedometer cable, gas gauge, windshield replacement, gas ($20/week).

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Artist/s:

Concord (an artist-run-space based in L.A.'s Cypress Park whose members include: Andy Robert, Arjuna Neuman, Marco Domenico, Car Martin & Michelle Kurta)
www.concordspace.com

Project Title:

Spaghetti Sessions



Description:

Spaghetti Sessions, is an ongoing lecture series, panel discussion and experiment. Our first installment, December 9th, 2011, invited David Ross and Allan Sekula to discuss 70s video art. The convention we played with, was in having them cook spaghetti for the audience, a light-hearted formality that helped break the lecture/artist, audience dynamic—addressing the authoritative concerns of Fluxus, Paik, Kaprow and others of that generation; while they discussed 70's art and the plurality built around this new and intentional medium.

David provided the recipe he learned from an abstract expressionist—a roommate of his youth. And we purchased the ingredients. Thus, Spaghetti Sessions was born: "You'll cook for us and at the end we'll eat and chat together over red wine and pasta. How does that sound?!"

How an Artist Bailout grant will help make this project happen:

An Artist Bailout grant would help with overall project cost and a budget—which would help us provide and cover speaker fees, and the price of cooking a collective meal. That night, in December, we estimated $60 was spent gathering ingredients, with another $50 on wine; with a $200 speaker fee and $140 covering David's rental car; to total roughly $500.

In continuing with our collective research our next visitors will be the L.A.-based members of Ultra-red who will discuss their School of Echoes and their initiative to have high schools teach a class on community, we’re excited to see what they’ll cook up.