Elizabeth Bugbee

kudos Affiliates! December 2015-January 2016

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Wow!  Congratulations to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments.  What a way to start a new year.

 

FUNDING

Lilly Endowment awarded a $7.5 million grant to Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN). $6 million of the grant will be used to bolster the Lilly endowment; the rest will be used to renovate the historic Chinese House, enhance summer camp programs, and hire additional fundraising staff.

The Riverboat Development Authority has awarded $50,000 to the Putnam Museum (Davenport, IA) for The Magical History Tour exhibit scheduled for February 2017.

Union Station, Kansas City (Kansas City, MO) announced that Science City had received a $250,000 grant from the David Beals Charitable Trust to enhance exhibits about human health. In addition, Science City recently received an international award for visitor experience from the Association of Science-Technology Centers.

Six contemporary Arab American artists from a broad range of disciplines will participate in a new artist residency program after the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI) received a $50,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Arts Challenge. The artist residency program will enlist artists that demonstrate the multiplicity of contemporary arts production by and about Arabs and Arab Americans.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced $21.8 million in grants for 295 humanities projects, including the following Affiliate recipients:

  • Ohio History Connection (Columbus, OH): $12,000
    Project Description: The digitization of community materials and support for public programs that will deepen the historical record documenting Ohio’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
  • Black Archives of Mid-America, Inc.: $12,000
    Project Description: The digitization of community photographs, letters, employment records, artworks, and artifacts pertaining to the African American experience in Kansas City, Missouri, during the early 20th century. In cooperation with the American Jazz Museum (Kansas City, MO) the project will also offer public lectures by area scholars and musicians about the history of Kansas City in the Jazz Age and Great Depression and would sponsor screenings of films held by the Jazz Museum, including the documentary Women in Jazz.
  • ACCESS (On behalf of the Arab American National Museum): $12,000
    Project Description: A digitization event, open to the general public, to gather personal collections relating to the history of Dearborn, Michigan, and a community oral history event. That event will be followed by a community-focused community storytelling and spoken word event, which will highlight the cultural history and contributions of notable Dearborn residents.
  • African American Museum in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA): $12,000
    Project Description: A community event to explore Philadelphia’s African American history through community photographs contributed by members of the public, as well as programming to highlight photography at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. The project will include workshops on family history and photographic preservation, lectures and a film screening of the documentary, Through A Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People.
  • Birthplace of Country Music (Bristol, TN): $6,000
    Project Description: A preservation assessment of a country music collection consisting of photographs, archives, and audiovisual materials. The collections provide an important resource for scholars, community members, and visitors and are currently used for research, in exhibitions, and for public programs, including an upcoming Ken Burns documentary on country music.

In addition, NEH awarded $162,242 to the Florida International University (Miami, FL) for a Humanities in the Public Square project to fund a series of public events, programs, and conversations addressing the environmental threat posed to Miami from rising sea levels.

The National Endowment for the Arts awarded $27.7 million to support 1,126 projects in the first round of FY 2016 funding, including the following Affiliate projects:

  • Denver Art Museum (Denver, CO)-$70,000
    To support the exhibition “Women of Abstract Expressionism.” The exhibition will feature more than 50 paintings by women Abstract Expressionist painters active during the 1940s and ’50s. Artist quotes, a short documentary film, related programs, and an illustrated catalogue will help the public understand the role these women played in the Abstract Expressionist movement.
  • HistoryMiami (Miami, FL)-$20,000
    To support the Miami Street Culture Project. HistoryMiami will conduct fieldwork to identify and document the communal recreational and occupational traditions found on the streets of Miami’s various communities. These traditions will include artistic expressions such as murals, graffiti, displays of street vendors, and parades, as well as decorations found on cars and bicycles. The documentation – including interviews, photographs, and artifacts – will be assembled into an exhibit that will share and interpret these traditions with the larger community.
  • Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, Inc. (On behalf of High Museum of Art) (Atlanta, GA)-$50,000
    To support the exhibition “Al Taylor: What Are You Looking At?,” and an accompanying catalogue. The exhibition, featuring the work of the late American artist Al Taylor (1948-99), will include approximately 100 objects, drawings, and prints, many made of commonplace materials such as hangers, broomsticks, and plastic bottles. Educational programming for all ages will complement the exhibition.
  • Lowell National Historical Park (Lowell, MA) -$35,000
    To support the Lowell Folk Festival. The festival will celebrate its 30th year showcasing master folk artists. Performances of traditional music such as Appalachian bluegrass, Portuguese Fado, and Irish reels will be offered alongside traditional dance, crafts, and ethnic foodways.
  • International Storytelling Center (Jonesborough, TN)-$20,000
    To support Storytelling Live!, a seasonal teller-in-residence program. Master artists representing a broad range of storytelling traditions from the U.S. and abroad will conduct week-long residencies. In addition to storytelling performances, the artists will offer workshops and present special programs designed to serve seniors and youth.
  • Buffalo Bill Center of the West (Cody, WY)-$20,000
    To support the catalogue “Enduring Legacies: Indian Art from the Paul Dyck Collection.” The catalogue will feature 150 images of objects from the Paul Dyck Plains Indian Buffalo Culture Collection, long considered by scholars to be one of the most comprehensive assemblages of pre-reservation and early reservation art.
  • Musical Instrument Museum (Phoenix, AZ) -$10,000
    To support performances by violinist Rachel Barton, and associated violin master classes intended to serve lowincome and minority youth.


ACHIEVEMENTS and RECOGNITION

The Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, CA) and Tampa Bay History Center (Tampa, FL) have received accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums.

Springfield Museum of Art (Springfield, OH) has won a statewide award, and received national and state recognition for its current exhibit, “Authentic Narratives: Ohio’s Regionalists, 1915-1950.”  The Museum earned the RUBY Award, awarded by the Ohio Travel Association and Ohio Magazine.

A four billion year-old meteorite which plunged into a house in metro Atlanta was officially recognized and named by the international Meteoritical Society with the assistance of the Smithsonian Institution during a ceremony at the Tellus Science Museum (Cartersville, GA). The 295 gram meteorite was officially named “Cartersville” in honor of the city in which it landed. It was classified as ordinary Chondrite L5 meteorite, according to Smithsonian officials, having low iron-nickel and a level 5 degree amount of deformation on a scale of 1-7.

Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, MI) Curator of Folk Arts Marsha MacDowell has been named a fellow of the American Folklore Society, demonstrating outstanding accomplishments and making important contributions to the field of folklore.

John E. Herzog, founder of the Museum of American Finance (New York, NY), received the International Federation of Finance Museums (IFFM) Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the field of financial literacy.

UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures (San Antonio, TX) Executive Director, Angelica Docog, has been named the recipient of the 2015 Constellation Stars Award sponsored by the San Antonio Women’s Chamber of Commerce. The award goes to women who have demonstrated advocacy, connection and empowerment.


LEADERSHIP CHANGES

The Bakken Museum (Minneapolis, MN) has hired Minnesota native Michael Sanders to replace its longtime director David Rhees, who retired in September. Rhees stepped down after 23 years overseeing the growth of the museum, which was created by Medtronic founder Earl Bakken to showcase his collection of pacemakers and historic medical devices that used electricity.