Click a grant or award named below to read about the recipients in that category.
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2013 Premier Grantees
16 awards, total awarded: $40,500
Funded by the New York City Department of Cultural AffairsLaura Bolle: Art for Animals
The Project “Art for the Animals” is a series of 12 paintings that will address animal rights, specifically animal euthanasia within NYC animal shelters and the horror of puppy mills. Each painting will be based on a photograph of a real animal from a shelter. The paintings will be the feature of an exhibition called, “Art for the Animals,” which will also include three speakers, such as Animal Activist, Zelda Penzel, Co-Founder of SOS: Save our Shelter Animals and Carol Araneo-Mayer of Graysens Cause, a puppy mill awareness group.
Award Amount: $3000Rachel Caccese: Urban Farmers
This documentary film will capture the stories of the last operating farms in New York City, Decker Farm in Staten Island, Queens County Farm and Red Hook Farm in Brooklyn. These unique and significant farms will give a glimpse into the dedication, hardships and triumphs that farmers face dealing with a traditional profession in a constantly growing urban metropolis. The film will provide the community with insight on healthier choices for themselves and their families by shedding light on the transportation of food from the ground to their kitchen tables. It will also show the progress made in the farming industry to provide for today’s consumer. The footage will consist of interviews of the workers of each farm, administrators running the farms, daily operations, public visitors, and history of each farm and its present state.
Award amount: $3000Melissa Cacciola: War and Peace
Tintype portraiture dates back to the Civil War and is one of the earliest photographic processes in history. With the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the Civil War, and the eleventh year marking the attacks on September 11th, 2001, this project presents forty-eight tintype portraits of active duty military and veterans from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marines as a kind of confessional before the camera. This project will feature fifteen men and nine women of various ethnicities, ages, and roles from the armed forces in uniform and civilian attire in an exploration of war, identity, and what serving in the armed forces means. These double portraits contrast each individual and his or her role in the military against his or her identity in a contemporary world that is constantly shifting culturally and politically.
Award Amount: $3000Geoff Celis: “Some Guys Are Bigger Than Others”
This short film is a fiction narrative film following Jim, a simple guy with few aspirations and even less confidence in himself. In an attempt to prove himself to his friends, he inadvertently joins an amateur Luchador (Mexican wrestlers known to wear masks) competition. Jim and his friends find out more than they bargained for, especially since the person who checks Jim into the competition, really likes his t-shirt.
Award Amount: $2000Janise LaBoard: “The Summer Adventures of Landin Henry”
A historical fiction children’s picture book series about an 8 year old boy from New York who has been given a summer assignment to learn about his ancestors. After discussing with his mother, she decides that the assignment would be a great summer project to do with his grandparents (both are from Sandy Ground). Landin stays with his grandparents for the summer and is magically transported back in time after hearing about the community and other stories from his grandparents. The stories told in this series are actual stories from the Sandy Ground community.
Award amount: $3000Suzanne Lettieri: The Fifth Borough
“The Fifth Borough” proposes an alternate version of Staten Island, derived from failed and envisioned projects for the island and presented as an exhibition of architectural drawings, collages, and models. In creating a mythical version of the borough, the project aspires to foster conversation about how, as a society, we can re-imagine Staten Island’s future and re-envision its relationship to greater New York City. The project will consider a series of historical proposals as if they had been realized but with a critical eye towards contemporary issues that will ultimately re-conceptualize the proposals in a distorted state. The result will generate a composite between the reality and fantasy of the projects and series of urban fables. These projects include Frederick Law Olmsted’s early experimental projects, Robert Moses’ severed road network, and a series of incomplete constructions including the ceased tunnel connection to Brooklyn, empty Liquid Natural gas tanks and abandoned quarantine sites. The collection of these proposals as an exhibition will uncover the overlapping histories and recall earlier visions as a means to constructing a contemporary plan for the “forgotten borough.”
Award amount: $2050Suranga Mahabrahamanage: Ranga Tharanga 2013
The Ranga Tharanga is a celebration of Sri Lankan culture in the form of traditional dances and music on Staten Island. The Ranga Tharanga consists of approximately thirty-four such traditional dances by hundred and fifty young adults between the ages of ten and nineteen years. Organized annually, it brings together the Sri Lankan communities from Connecticut, New Jersey and Boston to Staten Island and is the largest Sri Lankan community event in the North East with an attendance of over three hundred people. Along with traditional dances, the Ranga Tharanga also encourages performances of other art forms such as traditional poetry (kavi) and drama. In its tenth consecutive year, the Ranga Tharanga is one of the primary events that give young Sri Lankans who are born and raised in the United States with a chance to express their ethnic identities through traditional dance, dress, and language. The stage performances also provide the necessary recognition that traditional dances deserve, especially in a new cultural setting where these traditional dances face the threat of dying out.
Award Amount: $1000Michael McWeeney: John Noble Centennial Profile
As part of a centennial celebration of John Noble’s 100th birthday at the Noble Maritime Collection, McWeeney will create a video documentary about the artist, which will include historic documents, archival footage of John Noble himself, photographs, artwork, and interviews with family and friends who will relate stories about his life. The film will be included in a retrospective centennial exhibition of John A. Noble that will open on his birthday at the John A. Noble Collection. The film will paint a portrait of both the man, and the working waterfront that he loved, becoming part of the permanent collection at the museum.
Award Amount: $3000Gail Middleton: Breaking Bread
Breaking Bread will be a photographic journey into new ethnic grocery stores and markets and capturing foods from different countries. It will highlight unique foods and common expressions of the shoppers. Curiosity and knowledge that these markets exist will generate interest among Islanders to explore different regions of the world without the need of a passport. People will experience a unique journey of food and ultimately acceptance of the new and different. Asia Food Market, African Home Land Store, Netcost Market (a gateway to Russia), Mecca Mart and the smaller Philippine, Sri Lankan, Indian and Mexican stores will be visited. The notion of breaking bread is a hospitable sharing of what you have with guests.
Award Amount: $1450Maiysha Mondasi: Communities Connect, Dance Program
Community Connects is a Dance Program specifically targeting the undeserved youth in the New York City Housing Projects on Staten Island. Contemporary dance classes will be offered to allow for freedom in movement. While each style of dance is very different many youth today enjoy them as a release of expression. These classes will expand the creative mind of the youths while educating them on alternative hobbies and means of future success, broadening their horizon beyond the culture of the street life.
Award Amount: $3000Helene Montagna: Don’t Hang Up, An Original Play
“Don’t Hang Up” begins with James, depressed and considering suicide, calling Lucy, an operator who answers the phone at a suicide hotline. It shows the importance of recognizing the symptoms of depression as well as what the person considering suicide goes through and what may lead them to this ultimate tragic decision. The dialogue in this play runs the gamut from serious to heartwarming to humorous. The play also has a recurring theme of saving someone and there are times in the play when both James and Lucy need to be saved.
Award amount: $3000Gary Moore: The BIG Acoustic Stomp
The Big Acoustic Stomp will be a music festival held in Tappen Park. Musicians will perform 20-minute sets in alternate settings. Visual artists have been asked to contribute by painting live during the course of the event. There will be also be a “Pickin’ Porch” where artists from the various groups can gather and play together. This event will give North Shore artists a chance to collaborate as well as a venue for visual and musical artists to network.
Award Amount: $1000The Staten Island Playwrights Collective: Kalidescope: Scenes from a Colorful Life
The Staten Island Playwrights Collective (SIPC) will produce “Kaleidoscope: Scenes from a Colorful Life”, a weekend of original short plays in February 2013. The theme for this festival is color. The SIPC will solicit scripts from local writers that examine color, either as a concrete idea, metaphor or abstraction. As color can mean many things to many people, a wide range of topics will be explored in these plays.
Award amount: $3000Riverside Opera Company: A 200th Anniversary Tribute to the Life of Giuseppe Verdi
The Riverside Opera Company (ROC) led by Artistic Director Alan Aurelia accompanied by the Richmond County Orchestra will offer the Staten Island community a powerful operatic performance, highlighting excerpts from the famed operas of Giuseppe Verdi. The Riverside Opera Company, known for its selection of superb artistic performers, will deliver key highlights from the various operas Giuseppe Verdi is known for creating. The venue at Casa Belvedere, as an Italian Cultural Center, will become the perfect setting for this commemorative performance. This performance will serve to educate and preserve his music in the minds of many for years to come.
Award amount: $3000Maggie Rose: Studio Mates: the Spirit of Snug Harbor Sailors
A series of paintings based on photos of the sailors and on images which represent their lives during their time at Snug Harbor. These images are black and white and would be brought to life with a palette of full color, in both a classical and contemporary painting style. The series will be exhibited in the Art Lab Gallery, the very building where many of the sailors lived and where the art in their spirit was created. The project hopes to interest and engage both art and history lovers, to bring additional attention to the fascinating history of Snug Harbor and to awaken curiosity about the men who once called “‘Building H'” home.
Award Amount: $3000Steven Wakeman: Spinning Gold: Profiles of the LGBT Elder Community on Staten Island
Through photography and personal interviews Wakeman will document the lives of members of the LGBT elder community of Staten Island who have lived through some of the most turbulent, heart breaking and also uplifting times of history, from pre-Stonewall to Stonewall to the AIDS crisis and to marriage equality. Wakeman intends to capture through a series of portraits the outer beauty and the inner strength that that comes from the personal experiences that my LGBT family have experienced and record their biographies which will be presented at the Staten Island LGBT Community Center coinciding with National Coming Out Day and LGBT History Month.
Award amount: $3000
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2013 Art Fund Grantees
9 awards, total awarded: $25,895
Funded by the New York City Department of Cultural AffairsIrma Bohorquez-Geisler: El Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Staten Island
El Día de los Muertos aims to bring the growing Mexican immigrant population together, to unify the SI community, to build bridges between generations, and expose the larger Staten Island population to a traditional Mexican celebration. El Día de los Muertos is a family festival with a joyful atmosphere, celebrated with friendly dancing skeletons and sugar skulls decorated with flowers and fruits. El Día de los Muertos will feature participatory workshops in traditional Mexican crafts, the construction of two ofrendas, and a talk about the meaning of the altar, offerings displayed, and traditional music and dance performances. The program is explained in both English and Spanish. Traditional music from different regions of Mexico will be performed live.
Award Amount: $1333Brendan Coyle: Mustard Man
Mustard Man is a novel that will finalize the timeline of a mythological history that has been in the making for over 15 years. The book is episodic sci-fi about a world in entropy, with hope placed in a biogenetic creation known as Mustard Man. The novel is a culmination of storytelling that has been done on a grand scale involving multiple art media. Many of Coyle’s performances and other art done in the past have revolved around the themes that the novel will represent as one final work.
Award Amount: $1333Dawn Daniels: Voice of the Storyteller II
The project is a dance and music concert that incorporates the folklore and history of Ireland. The storyteller, known in the Irish language as the “seanchai”, once walked the green fields of Ireland telling stories to families in exchange for a meal and some warmth by the fire. Most of the town would come to listen to his legends and local lore, and pass the stories down to their own children and grandchildren. This project will recreate some of those stories, through traditional Irish Step dance and modern dance scenes. Traditional musicians will play fiddles, guitar, Irish bodhran, and bagpipes. Highlights include a colorful rainbow dance evocative of the Irish landscape, and a dramatic scene depicting survivors of the famine arriving in New York Harbor.
Award Amount: $2833Christine Dixon: Harriet Tubman Herself
Harriet Tubman Herself is an entertaining and educational fifty minute play, based on the life and times of Harriet Tubman. Harriet’s harrowing and dangerous life unfolds as she tells her moving story of how she brought hundreds of slaves-and her own family-to freedom after the Civil War. Audience members are invited onstage to help tell her story. The performance contains original and reinterpreted music from period spirituals by composer Ralph Martell. The play is based on a series of interviews Harriet gave in 1868, to a New York Sunday school teacher, and writer, Sarah Bradford whom wrote the book ‘Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman.’ A question & answer session immediately follows the play. 2013 is the 100th year anniversary of Harriet Tubman’s passing.
Award Amount: $4333Jennifer Lytton: St. George Day Festival
The St. George Day Festival is a major celebration of the diverse artistic and cultural richness of the St. George neighborhood. The festival includes: all day music, dance, readings and theater performances on 3 stages; a Dragon parade featuring musicians, dancers and huge handmade puppets; a staging of our larger-than-life St. George and the Dragon puppet show written and performed by local artists; a literary fair with readings, journal workshops, bookbinding demos and a book swap; kids’ activities including performances both by and for children and craft workshops led by local artists; Earth Day activities, exhibits and demonstrations; and a drum circle to which all are invited to cooperatively create a communal rhythm.
Award Amount: $4333Janice Pagtrignani-Munoz: Silk Sensations: Kaleidoscope of Color
Silk Sensations is a series of interactive silk painting workshops−inspired, choreographed & surrounded by nature−that produce dynamic outdoor exhibitions. People throughout Staten Island will be invited to draw and paint on banners that will be suspended to create a maze-like ambiance of color & movement, as the interactive installation wafts and shimmers amongst trees. The installation will travel from place to place and new community made banners will be added to the 3-dimensional labyrinth of flowing color. Included in this project are a series of workshops where participants will create beautiful nature inspired pieces for themselves plus Silk Sensations banners to be included in the outdoor exhibits. By the final event, hundreds of participants will have created a “kaleidoscope of Color” in motion.
Award Amount: $4731Florence Poulain: Deep Tanks Gallery
Deep Tanks Studio is planning to produce three evenings of arts and entertainment per month in 2013. They will continue to participate in the Second Saturdays Staten Island Art Walk with interdisciplinary creative evenings and exhibits. Exhibitions to be included are: Florence Barry’s one woman Retrospective, “Tactile” a hands-on art exhibit where the audience is encouraged to touch the work, “Instructions” conceptualized by Sol Le Witt where artisans from all over the world will instruct Staten Island Artists on creating art pieces, six cabaret evenings hosted by “Minnie Van Driver,” three evenings of Anti Folk music organized by Phoebe Blue and Tommy Bones and six evenings of theatre produced by Margaret Chase.
Award Amount: $4333Jay Weichun: Growing Food on Staten Island
Growing Food on Staten Island is an on-going video documentary series about gardeners and the food they grow. Gardeners share their insights, experiences and what drives them to cultivate the soil in New York City’s most overlooked borough. The project will document the unique cultural heritage of both new and old immigrant gardeners, create an honest portrayal of Staten Island and its residents, and create a resource for aspiring gardeners by way of an interactive website entirely devoted to the Growing Food on Staten Island video series. Viewers can choose videos based gardener, location, and what they grow.
Award Amount: $1333Barbera Wesby: Antiphon and Six Psalms, a new choral work for adults and children
Antiphon and Six Psalms was developed in collaboration with the community based choral group, Voyces. This group primarily focuses on Renaissance and Baroque literature. Ms. Wesby will be composing a new a cappella work for the adult choir with a part for children’s choir. The children’s antiphon introduces the theme of each psalm setting to be performed by Voyces. The psalms pay musical tribute to the late Renaissance style, while incorporating more familiar contemporary language, with moods ranging from dancelike to contemplative.
Award amount: $1333
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2013 Encore Grantees
9 awarded, total awards: $28,080
Funded by the New York State Council on the ArtsHarbor Lights Theatre Company: It Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues
It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues is the TONY and Drama Desk award winning (1999) musical revue written by Charles Bevel, Lita Gaithers, Randal Myler, Ron Taylor, and Dan Wheetman. The revue traces the history of “blues” music with more than three dozen songs. From African chants and Delta spirituals to the urban electricity of a Chicago nightclub, from dusty back roads bluegrass to the twang of a country juke joint, It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues is a stirring retrospective of blues classics that summons the soul of American music. This production will star TONY award winner and Staten Island resident Ann Duquesnay, TONY Nominee and Staten Island resident Larry Marshall, and well known Staten Island resident Jeanine Otis.
Award amount: $3597The Mighty String Demons: Imagine An Elephant and Come Dance With Us
The Mighty String Demons will present two concerts that will feature two young guest musicians. Imagine an Elephant will explore music that describes various animals or insects. There will be a literary aspect to the event, audience members will be invited to recite selected poems about the featured animals. The second concert, Come Dance with Us, will focus on dance music from around the world, such as the jig, tarantella, tango, gavotte, a Czardas by Monti and a Hungarian Dance by Brahms. Both concerts will include a “show & tell” portions educating the audience about the instruments used in each.
Award Amount: $1000Denise Mumm: Abrazo Argentina: Embracing a Culture
Artists Denise Mumm and Bruce Cohn will collaborate to create a series of photo/print/collages that will be exhibited in multiple spaces at the Tottenville Library in November, 2013. Cohn, a south shore photographer, will take photographs from a planned trip to Argentina and Mumm, a north shore collage artist, will take her drawings of Argentine tango dancers and transform them into prints. The prints will be combined with fabrics, patterned papers, inclusions and acrylic paint to create large collages on paper.
Award Amount: $1597Raja Rajeswari: Navarasam: The Expressive Journey
Navarasam: The Expressive Journey is a composition extracted from the Indian epic Ramayana. This is a 9-part analysis into the emotional journey that a person experiences in a lifetime. Ms. Rajeswari plans to bring Ramayana to life, through the expressive journey taken by the hero, Rama, who realizes that inner peace has elevated him to a higher plane of understanding and helped him grow as a person. Rama realizes that emotions like anger and hatred while powerful are detrimental while love and kindness helps to attain the elusive emotion of inner peace that springs from tolerance and understanding. Traditional music and costumes from India will be used throughout the performance.
Award Amount: $2596Richmond Choral Society: Devine Light, Spring Concert 2013
Devine Light will feature Cesar Franck’s oratorio, Seven Last Words. Franck’s rarely heard masterwork, combines French sensibilities and 19th century Italian drama. The program will also include Dark Night of the Soul by Ola Gjeilo, one of the most celebrated new composers on the choral music scene. Gjeilo’s composition, will serve as a comment on the Franck piece. RCS’s performance will feature a chamber orchestra of strings and organ, two professional soloists, as well as the RCS youth choir.
Award Amount: $4097Seaview Playwrights Theatre: Angels In America
Sea View Playwright’s Theatre will produce Tony Kushner’s Angels In America. They will produce both parts of this epic play: Part One: Millennium Approaches and Part Two: Perestroika. The story revolves around the AIDS crisis and the social and economic implications of the Reagan Era. In the age of controversy over Obama Care, both for its social and religious implications, we seem to have emulated, some thirty years later, the very subjects Tony Kushner was addressing. The players have changed, the subject matters have shifted yet the ramifications involve us all as, yet again, the implications of government involvement in the personal lives of Americans, is again under the microscope.
Award Amount: $3596Staten Island OutLOUD: Staten Island OutLOUD 2013
Staten Island OutLOUD will present 50+ community literary events all across Staten Island: Spoken-word performances of the Dalai Lama’s “The Universe In a Single Atom”, “Moby Dick”, James Joyce’s “Ulysses”, “The Great Gatsby,” “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” Intimate participatory readings (some bilingual) featuring a range of global poetry & prose, historic documents & interfaith texts. They will also hold bi-monthly creative writing/memoir/performance studios for seniors as well as creative writing studios, literary zine, and open mics for kids ages 10-16 plus innovative readings for kids ages 5-10.
Award Amount: $5000Staten Island Philharmonic: La Boheme in Concert
The Staten Island Philharmonic will perform a concert production of the beloved Giacomo Puccini opera “La Boheme,” which tells the story of the lives and loves of struggling young artists in 1840s Paris. Their production, an intergenerational collaboration, will include nine principal singers, 35 orchestral instrumentalists, and singers from the Richmond Choral Society and the Richmond Choral Society Youth Chorus. The opera will be sung in Italian with English supertitles projected over the stage. They hope to offer opera fans a satisfying, high-caliber performance, convince skeptics that opera can be an accessible, meaningful art form, and introduce newcomers to an experience that expresses the heights and depths of human emotion like nothing else in the world can.
Award Amount: $5000Sundog Theatre: Stand Up: Against Bullying
This Sundog Theatre production, written by Staten Island playwright Fay Corinotis, examines the whys, hows, and solutions for dealing with intimidation. Bullying and intimidation is an ongoing problem. Sundog is commissioning this 45-minute anti-bullying play, with three actors playing a variety of characters. The show looks at the issue of bullying not only from a victim’s perspective. It explains the role of the onlooker, who is crucial to bullying’s continuation and acceptance–or its exposure and end. The writer calls those who stand up to bullying “Upstanders” (a play on the title’s words).
Award Amount: $1597
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2013 Original Work Grantees
4 awards, $2,500 each
Funded by the New York State Council on the ArtsSteven Lapcevic: VIRUS
VIRUS is a planned video installation featuring a looped twenty minute animated video, complimented by live music and performance art. The video will explore the detrimental effects of excessive consumption of non essential information through mainstream media and how it ultimately distorts our views of reality. Music and performance art will be performed in an impromptu fashion during the course of the installation as an improvisational counterpart to the video and its themes.Bill Murphy: The Ballad of Staten Island; Drawings, Paintings, Prints, 1971 -2013
Murphy will be staging an exhibition of artwork in the Wagner College Gallery titled The Ballad of Staten Island. This exhibit will feature 40 works including large and small-scale drawings and paintings as well as original etchings and lithographs. The theme will be work inspired by the landscape of Staten Island over a 42 year period, 1971 – 2013. Chronologically it will begin with ink drawings of street scenes drawn in 1971 shown alongside recent drawings and paintings of the same locations, which include Fresh Kills landfill, The US Gypsum plant on Richmond Terrace, and the streets of Tompkinsville and West Brighton. Murphy will also create new drawings which will address the ongoing construction of homes and businesses on Staten Island, irreversibly changing the landscape forever by removing the last wooded areas in many communities.Marguerite Maria Rivas: Recovering Staten Island Women’s Literary History: Two Voices from the Gaps
Rivas will do archival research on the lives and work of two Staten Island writers, Florence Morse Kingsley and Laura Winthrop Johnson. These women were accomplished writers whose names are a footnote to the accepted histories of Staten Island. After she completes her research, she will write a monograph on each woman and do two presentations of their work, one on the North Shore at the Staten Island Museum and one on the South Shore. This project represents the beginning of a longer project aimed at recovering Staten Island women’s writing.Florence Poulain: Transcending Personal Identity
Transcending Personal Identity is a movement based project that will be held over 12 sessions during the winter of 2013. The sessions will take place at the Staten Island LGBT Community Center. Poulain will introduce the practice of Butoh, a Japanese avant-guard performance art, to participants. Butoh helps an individual manifest everything from the most subtle human expressions to universal manifestations, eventually liberating “the personal self”. In this process of discovery, the dancers/participants are encouraged to exchange intensity and point of views, exposing themselves and becoming vulnerable. The ultimate goal of the art form is for individuals to find ways to open up and connect to one another and update their realities.
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2013 Excellence in the Arts Awardees
8 Awards; $1,000 each
Funded by the Department of Cultural AffairsDon Arangio: 5 Borough Hike
Arangio will be collaborating with fellow video artist Mike Shane to take a walking tour of the five boroughs of New York City. They will be “urban camping” throughout. They intend to illustrate the eclectic and changing landscapes among the five boroughs, each borough will be a chapter of the film. They will start in the South Shore of Staten Island, walking from The Conference House to The Staten Island Ferry. They will take the Ferry to Lower Manhattan. From Lower Manhattan they will walk over the George Washington Bridge and back, into and through The Bronx and into Queens. They will take the tram into and back from Roosevelt Island, explore into the South of Brooklyn, and return to Manhattan by way of the Brooklyn Bridge. They will never take a train, car or bicycle, relying only on their legs, and where needed, boats, to complete the journey.Greg Hotaling: In the Blood
Hotaling will screen his film, In the Blood, and hold a Q&A session afterwards. The documentary In the Blood portrays the struggles and triumphs of a lower division soccer team and its dedicated community of supporters in working class England. As Brentford Football Club’s season builds to a final match of huge implications for its future, the town of Brentford itself confronts political and economic realities which threaten its very identity, anchored in its century-old soccer stadium. When several die-hard fans decide that the only way to save their beloved team is to upend the Labour Party’s grip on local government and mount their own campaign for office, they demonstrate the depth of passion for a local team and for a sense of community: it’s in the blood.Kevin Rogers: Protium
An exploration into improvisation, using multiple cameras and improv actors to create multiple story lines that will intersect. The outcome will be a linear story.Lisa Dahl: Under Water
In Dahl’s new video project, Under Water, she will take images of houses in foreclosure from online real estate listings, print them out as inkjet prints, and spray the prints with water until the images begin to melt away. The action of the video is the physical destruction of the inkjet photos by water. Taking the title from the euphemistic phrase for owing more on your house than it is worth, the visuals also take cues from recent natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy, and the detritus of our own lives left over from such events, especially the lost memories captured in destroyed family photographs.Carl Gallagher: Carl Gallagher & the Off-Track Bettors
The Off-Track Bettors will perform a set of original songs by Carl Gallagher, with a few select covers thrown in, typically modernized arrangements of country and blues standards. The performances are spontaneous and improvisational in nature, and the band will often create impromptu medleys, especially with the traditional material. The band includes Carl’s brother Dan Gallagher (bass,) Michael Sutton (drums,) Katelyn Merrill and Rachel Somma-Devlin (background vocals.) They describe their sound as “Apocalyptic Americana.”Izzi Ramkissoon: Old Habits: Hard to Break
Ramkissoon’s current work focuses on using both electronic and acoustic instruments fusing media, technology, IDM, hardcore, classical, musique concrete and various other resources to perform interactive, improvisatory, and experimental works. He plans to explore language patterns and found objects in a multimedia performance that will feature cello, percussion/found objects, electric guitar and electric bass with fixed media pieces in between each live piece. The performance will showcase NYU professor Sean Statser, Staten Island cellist Eric Cooper, Guggenheim Fellow, Cristian Amigo and Ramkissoon, himself.The Grandpantry Men: Laptop Smashing Party
The Grand Pantrymen is a project consisting of Justin Marino, Joseph Imburgio, and David Stagno. They create music organically, and “in the moment” often with self-imposed challenges, such as creating one new song per show. They will ask members of the Staten Island community to submit song titles, lyrics, and themes which they will then write songs for within the 1-2 week period before performing them live at a local venue. This event will include all of those songs written and inspired by the submissions sent to them. They will actively seek out suggestions by personally engaging with the community at local events leading up to the performance, as well as through social media. They will ask for a word phrase, regardless of context, that can then be used to draw inspiration from. This will allow them to directly collaborate with artists and community members alike.Leila Hegazy: Looking Glass
Leila will perform a set of original songs and carefully selected covers. The covers range from old jazz tunes like “Stormy Weather,” to more current songs, such as “Love On Top” by Beyonce. Leila will accompany herself on piano and will be backed by her band, drummer (Joseph Doino), bassist (Nash Kocur), and guitarist (Dan Berry). Leila’s main influences include Norah Jones, Billy Joel, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, and Stevie Wonder.
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Staten Island Foundation: Arts Investment Regrants
7 Awards; $32,000 awarded
Funded by the Staten Island FoundationPS 13: The Alice Austen House Museum: Literacy Through Photography
Literacy through Photography program will include research on the history of photography, construction of pinhole cameras, and developing paper negatives in the darkroom. Students will also be part of the celebration of Worldwide Pinhole Camera Day on April 28th, 2013.
Amount: $5000PS 18: The Universal Temple of the Arts: From Trash to Treasure, Environmental Art
“From Trash to Treasure, Environmental Art” is a fun, interactive, and hands-on residency that puts an artistic spin on environmental preservation. The process and results will produce a learning environment of creative exploration; transforming objects otherwise considered ‘garbage’ into a collage of artwork that is decorative, interesting, self-effusive, and a social statement.
Amount: $5000IS 51: Janice Patrignani: Greek and Roman Ceramic Mosaic Art
This project for three 6th-grade special needs classes, focuses on studying Greek and Roman historical periods through mosaic and ceramic arts. Classes will include techniques such as drawing, low relief sculpture, painting, glazing and team building exercises. The completed project will include a permanent installation of a ceramic mosaic mural, followed by a dedication ceremony with the children, facility and parents.
Amount: $5000PS 74: Sundog Theatre: Dance Workshops
This residency will focus on dance and movement, and includes weekly dance workshops, direct instruction and guided practice on formal dance techniques, dance vocabulary and literacy. Classroom teachers and students will participate in the dance workshops side-by-side.
Amount: $5000Port Richmond High School / Staten Island Philharmonic: Music Workshops
The Port Richmond Music Department and the Staten Island Philharmonic Orchestra will coordinate intensive, small group instructional sessions with experienced teaching artists and professional musicians. Students will work on techniques, intonation, musicality, music literacy skills, and teamwork skills, with experts on their particular musical instrument.
Amount: $4500The Alternate Learning Center at St. Mark’s / Art Lab: Art Workshops
This program will reach a mixed class and age setting for Alternative Learning teens; activities will focus on building trust among students and teachers, while exploring artistic, verbal and written skills. Artistic creativity will flourish with bio-poems, collages, art history and basic techniques such as color theory, media and form. Students then will close the program by exhibiting works at the school.
Amount: $4000Susan Wagner High School / Harbor Lights Theatre Company: Musical Theatre Intensive
Students, including those with special needs, will participate in an in-school intensive program, with a special focus on musical theatre. Professional vocal and musical theater teaching artists will identify each student’s vocal strengths and characteristics, teach proper vocal techniques to train and protect their voices, and instruct students on how to find, interpret, and analyze musical repertoire.
Amount: $3500
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ABC (Arts Bring Change) Regrants
5 Awards; $9,920 awarded
Funded by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) DEC program (Decentralization)PS 1: Alice Austen House Museum: Alice Austen and Immigration: Then And Now Through Photography
An integrated social studies and art program for three fourth grade classes (89 students) to introduce students to Alice Austen, immigration and photography. Students will analyze Alice Austen’s photographs with a focus on the immigration and quarantine photographs to match the fourth grade curriculum on immigration and compare conditions from the past to present.
Amount: $1820PS 19: Sundog Theatre: Sing a Song of Sailing
Five music, storytelling, and movement lessons to teach Staten Island’s maritime history to PS 19’s four 2nd-grade classes working with teaching artist Emily Ellison, using historical and folk songs. It will incorporate a class trip to the Noble Maritime Collection. Lessons will be coordinated with the school’s art teacher who will work with students on a related low-relief sculpture and the classroom teacher who will guide the students in read-along books in between meetings.
Amount: $2000PS 20: Sarah Yuster: Small Truths
Teaching artist will work with classroom teacher and art teacher to guide students in creating artwork and writing relating to their own family histories, culminating in a group exhibit.
Amount: $1600PS 373: The Noble Maritime Collection: Continental Collisions
Three classes of third grade students with special needs will collaborate with resident artists at the Noble Maritime Collection and their Art and Social Studies Teachers to write a cross-cultural experience theater project and perform it. The premise is that a group of people representing all of the Earth’s inhabited continents, meet in JFK terminal during a storm when planes are grounded, and talk about their experiences and cultures.
Amount: $2250PS 861: The Noble Maritime Collection: Sailors at Home, Sailors at Sea
In this two-part project, 7th grade students will learn to research, document, and create and exhibition in a museum. The students will visit the Noble Maritime Collection, select an object to research, and work with DB Lampman and their teacher Michael Parisi on research, art, and presentation projects related to their objects. They will also mentor kindergarten students, designing projects around their research to teach the younger children.
Amount: $2250-
SPARC (Seniors Partnering with Artists Citywide)
5 Awards
Funded by The NYC Department for the AgingChristina Carannante / New Lane Senior Center: Digital Photography
Seniors will learn how to operate a digital camera, fundamentals of digital photography and printing as well as learn aesthetics and important tools used for digital photography, and exploring modern technology in a creative format.Ronald Chironna / West Brighton Senior Center: Illustration and Writing
This project engages seniors in visual art, writing, and cultural activities in a series of personalized activities that engage memories and experiences, relive cultural touchstones, and maximize existing creative talents.Laura Del Prete / JCC of Staten Island Senior Center: Multicultural Arts and Crafts
Seniors will study art and cultural traditions from around the world through hands-on activities, with continuing Artist in Resident Laura Del Prete. A final exhibition at the JCC will celebrate the program’s culmination.Hiroko Otani / CCCS Senior Guild Luncheon Program: Japanese Folk Arts
Seniors will learn traditional East Asian calligraphy, paper origami techniques, and art and cultural practices such as music, tea and dancing sessions and lectures from visiting guest artists.Joseph Smith / Mount Loretto Friendship Club: Giving History a Voice
With a combination of theater and history, Joseph Smith will present Giving History A Voice: Staten Island Voices Now. The program will feature voices and stories of seniors and their experiences of growing up in Staten Island, as well as what it means to be a Staten Islander. Seniors will be engaged through oral histories, interaction, memoir writing, music, and public performance.
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