Archive for category: Inspiration Grant Recipients

This Inspiration Grant will support the first phase of a public/community art project to be created by artist Maria Ogedengbe, “Missouri GOURDen,” featuring a gourd garden that will grow over a unique artist-designed bower to become a place where residents of Kansas City from diverse neighborhoods come together for recreation, art-making, and performances. Later in the year the cultivated gourds will be crafted into musical instruments along the lines of the West African shekere: a dry gourd covered in loose, beaded macramé. Sited east of Troost at Friendship Baptist Church and inspired by recent race and diversity issues in Missouri, the project aims to build trust and friendship among people of diverse
backgrounds.

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This Inspiration Grant will fund photo and video documentation of Moving Songs a live interdisciplinary performance for six performers with music by André Previn, poetry by Toni Morrison, and photographs from the Nelson-Atkins’s exhibit “Through the Lens: Visions of African American Experience, 1950-1970.” Artistically directed by UMKC Conservatory doctoral candidate Stephanie Meyer, the program will be presented at three different venues in February, in recognition of Black History Month. The high-quality documentation of the production will provide much-needed work samples for the creative staff and performers to enhance their professional careers and future employment prospects.

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Visual artist Jill Downen will be using this Inspiration grant to support the installation and documentation of her exhibition “As If You Are Here” at Bruno David Gallery in St. Louis. Jill’s sculptures, created over a 3 year period and previously exhibited in Kansas City, feature a series of miniature rooms situated inside of walls and viewed through small windows. The requested grant funds will be used for print catalogues and the photographic documentation of the artworks that is essential for marketing and expanding the audience for her work, as well as for materials for the wall that supports the sculptures.

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This Inspiration Grant assisted performance artist Jessica Borusky with travel costs to attend the Morni Hills International Performance Art Biennale in India. She was invited by festival director Harpreet Singh to be the sole artist from the Unites States to perform there. The international experience and exposure will lead to opportunities involving artists and contacts in other countries, not only for Jessica to perform elsewhere, but also fueling her goal of eventually establishing an annual performance art festival and venue here in Kansas City.

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Visual artist and painter Jane Booth will use Inspiration funds to finish a welding/machine shop adjacent to her art studio, for the creation of small and large scale sculptures. The grant helps pay for relocating heavy equipment and a large collection of metal materials from a location 20 miles away, installing the equipment, getting a refresher course on welding skills and safety from a professional welder/machinist, and purchasing leathers, gloves, and a helmet for welding. Jane’s long-range goal is to enter the public art arena, doing site specific commission work, and opening up a whole new world of possibilities, challenges, avenues, artists and patrons.

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Musician and composer Amado Espinoza will use this Inspiration Grant for the production, recording and showcase of original musical compositions conceived for a theatrical work-in-progress titled “We Are the Landscape,” to be performed on native wind and percussion instruments from Bolivia, Mexico, and the Philippines. The unique theatrical production is a journey through ancestral lands, recuperating the dignity of native instruments and indigenous values. As the heart of the show, the original songs are the vessel for the emotional journeys of the actors/dancers/storytellers, based largely on traditional rhythms from the various cultures the performers represent.

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