Charlotte Street Foundation

Charlotte Street Foundation is planning its first benefit party ever and, of course, wants artists of all disciplines to be at the center of it! For one night, *you are HERE will transform a downtown parking garage into an urban destination.  Individual parking spots will serve as the sites for art installations, live performances, and other artist-driven projects, as well as for food and drink stations, cocktail lounges, picnic areas, and other mobile elements. Our vision is of a high-energy party spreading throughout the parking garage, where guests of all walks of life mix and celebrate amidst and among a series of wildly diverse installations, destinations, happenings, and experiences. At the end of the night, everything packs up and drives away.

Proposals are invited from artists and creatives of all kinds interested in producing a *you are HERE destination for the benefit. You may submit a proposal as a solo artist or on behalf of a collaborative group. Download application info HERE. Deadline is March 15, 2010. The event is October 2, 2010.

With support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Charlotte Street Foundation and the Spencer Museum of Art are partnering to fuel the dynamism of our region’s art ecology by providing direct support for innovative, experimental, artist-driven, and artist-centered projects. Rocket Grants will fund projects that exist outside of established institutions, occur outside of traditional forms of support, challenge traditional methods of production or presentation, add energy and diversity to the field of arts activity in our area, and provide opportunities for the creative growth of those involved. Grants will provide up to $4000 support for selected projects, with a maximum of $40,000 to be awarded in 2010.

Detailed guidelines + the 2010 Rocket Grants application may be downloaded here. (Scroll down the page to download guidelines and application form.) Application deadline is April 2, 2010. [Please note: Adobe now requires you have the latest version of Acrobat in order to save interactive PDFs. If you experience any difficulty saving your file, we hope you will download a free version at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/tryout.html.]

A series of information launch & question sessions are planned for January through March at a range of sites in the Kansas City and Lawrence areas; potential applicants are strongly encouraged to attend.

Sessions are: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 6pm at H&R Block Artspace at KCAI, 16 East 43rd Street, KCMO 64111; Saturday, January 23, 10am at Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, 1301 Mississippi Street, Lawrence, KS 66045; Saturday, January 23, 1pm at Haskell Indian Nations University, 1555 Indian Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66046; Thursday January 28, noon, at Operation Breakthrough, 3039 Troost Avenue, Kansas City 64109;  Saturday, February 6, 10am at Artist INC Training Room at UMKC Small Business and Technology Development Center, 4747 Troost Ave. Room 114, Kansas City MO 64110; Saturday, February 20, 7pm, Shane Evans Dream Studio, 711 East 31st Street, Kansas City, MO 64109; Tuesday March 2, 6pm, YWCA, 1017 North 6th Street, Kansas City, KS 66101.

FINAL SESSIONS!!!: Friday March 19th, 5pm, Mattie Rhodes North East Satellite, 148 N. Topping Ave., Kansas City, MO 64123, 816 241 3780; Sunday March 21, 2pm, Hudson Auditorium at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 12345 College Blvd, Overland Park, KS 66210, (913) 469-3000.

CSF is excited to announce the launch of a new UCP Studio Residency facility specifically for performing artists. Located on the 5th floor at City Center Square, 12th and Main, this new studio venue includes one large open space (3,000+ sq. feet), to be allocated as performance studio/rehearsal space, and to be shared among a selection of performance-based artists and groups of artists. 

An informational meeting/open house will be held at City Center Square, 5th floor, on Monday, June 22 at 5:15pm.  This meeting will provide interested artists the opportunity to see the space, ask questions, and meet other interested artists. Artists interested in applying are STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND. Deadline for applications is July 10.

Artists/groups of artists working in the realm of performance (music, dance, theater, spoken word, performance art, etc…) are encouraged to apply. It is planned that a schedule, with dedicated weekly time slots for each artist/group of artists, will be collectively established following the selection of artists. In addition to establishing regular studio time slots for each artist/group, it is expected that open blocks of “flex time” may be signed up for on an as needed/desired basis, accommodating special projects and more intensive rehearsal schedules.  

For more information, including application form and requirements, download the call to artists here.

Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project, in collaboration with City Center Square, seeks proposals from artists interested in being considered for a window installation commission, for the large ground-floor window at City Center Square, located on the north side of the street just west of 12th and Main in downtown Kansas City. The selected artist will be awarded a materials budget of $500 and an artist stipend of $500 to support the creation of the final project. The installation will remain on view for approximately one year.

In relation to the United States Post Office located within City Center Square, the installation should engage the theme of mail or the post office in some manner. Creative, innovative, artistic approaches to this subject are encouraged. Deadline for proposals is Friday, July 10, 2009. The window dimensions are approximately 22 feet long; 3 feet deep; 14 feet tall and should be considered in relation to proposals.  Access into the window space is via a ladder and opening of limited size.

For more information on submitting your proposal, click here.

Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) has awarded a $100,000 challenge grant to a partnership of Kansas City arts and business support organizations to begin new professional development programs for artists in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area.  The funding will be used to offer:

• Artist, INC,  a series of in-depth entrepreneurial seminars that will reach more than 100 artists of all disciplines over the next two years, and
• KCArtistLink, which will enable all artists in the region to connect to a network of nonprofit resource organizations that can provide information about business-building and support programs.

The first offering of Artist, INC, an eight-week series of Monday night seminars for individual artists of all disciplines, will begin in May 2009 (application deadline: March 23).  The program, developed through the UMKC Small Business and Technology Development Center (SBTDC), is designed to provide artists with small business skills to manage the business end of their art careers. For more information about Artist, INC., and to download an application, click here.

More more information about Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC) and Kansas City’s participation in its Creative Communities Program, click here.

CSF’s Urban Culture Project invites proposals from artists and curators working in all disciplines interested n producing programming for its Paragraph, Project Space, and la Esquina venues.  Proposals accepted will include, but are not limited to, visual art exhibitions, installations, original live performances (dance, theater, music, performance art, spoken word), video, literary readings, and hybrid forms thereof.  UCP favors work that is contemporarily relevant, site-specific, experimental, and/or collaborative in nature.  Proposals will be reviewed by UCP’s Curatorial Committee, a multidisciplinary panel of Kansas City area artists and arts professionals. Notification of acceptance will be provided within 4-8 weeks of submission deadline.  Deadline is February 23, 2009 – for programming April-December 2009. For complete information and application, click here. 

UCP also seeks applications from artists interested in being considered for its Studio Residency Program. The Studio Residency Program provides free studio spaces for one year terms to talented and dedicated local artists in need of space in which to work.  The Studio Residency Program is currently housed at two locations: Bonfils, a storefront space at 125 East 12th Street accommodating seven artists at one time; and on the 13th floor at pARTnership Place, 906 Grand, also accommodating approximately seven artists.  Deadline is March 1 for studios beginning April 2009. For complete info and application, click here.

Urban Culture Project invites proposals from artists, curators, and culture producers working in all disciplines interested in producing and presenting projects for UCP’s Paragraph, Project Space and la Esquina venues. Through its contemporary arts programming, UCP seeks to: encourage and foster new and experimental work of the highest quality; provide a platform for presenting work that may be difficult to produce and show elsewhere; engage the participation of a diverse community of artists and cultural producers of all disciplines;  bring together a mix of young, emerging, and established artists, including local, regional and national artists; and  foster collaboration and exchange among artists, arts and cultural organizations,  and audiences.

Proposals accepted will include, but are not limited to, visual art exhibitions, installations, original live performances (dance, theater, music, performance art, spoken word), film and video screenings, literary readings, lectures and other public programs, and hybrid forms thereof. Deadline is January 29, 2010. Download an application here. Proposals will be considered primarily for fall 2010 through spring 2011 slots; one-night or short-term projects might be scheduled sooner as program calendar allows.

UCP also seeks proposals for temporal, site-specific activities for the “Training Room,” a project organized by Michael Schonhoff  as part of his upcoming exhibition You’re Such A Good Sport (Paragraph/Project Space, March 19-May 6, 2010), which explores and mines the visual language of sport, sports culture, and gamesmanship.  For this project, Project Space will become a site for short-term (1-2 day) projects that exemplify ideas of “training” or “practice,” and are inspired by or address the subject or language of sport(s) in some manner. Deadline is  January 9, 2010. Download an application here.

Creative Capital Foundation will conduct its third Professional Development for Artists Retreat in Kansas City, March 27-29, 2009.  This is a free and incredible opportunity for artists to learn from other artists about the business side of their practice…marketing/fundraising/public relations/strategic planning.

Learn more about the Creative Capital workshop from artists who have completed the retreat in the past at:

The Info Session, Wed, Nov 19th, 5p, Blue Room in the Jazz District, 1600 E 18th, KCMO.

Applications are due December 10, 2008 at 5p. Downloaded an application here.

This retreat is free for those chosen - and is geared toward “generative” artists - those artists (from music, theatre, dance, film/video and visual fields) who are creating and presenting new work. To a person, artists thought the experience was remarkable - transformational for many.  For more information, click here.

The Charlotte Street Foundation and the American Institute of Architects-Kansas City (AiA-KC) are excited to announce Art through Architecture (AtA), a new partnership to promote and support the work of Kansas City area artists through architectural practice. AtA provides incentives and tools to encourage and empower architects and their clients to incorporate art and artists from the Kansas City area into their projects. New architectural projects may qualify for Gold, Silver, and Bronze levels of “Art Achievement” by dedicating percentages of total construction budgets to collecting artwork, commissioning temporary or permanent artworks, and/or including artists on design teams.

The new AtA website, www.ArtArch.org, launching late fall 2008, will serve as a tool for architects and their clients to identify artists of interest for specific projects. Artists within a 60 mile radius of downtown KC were invited to apply earlier this year for potential inclusion in the program’s on-line artist database, which will be updated annually. In addition, AtA representatives will provide hands-on support to architects and their clients pursuing Art Achievement status for their projects.

A new call to artists will be posted annually.