Charlotte Street Foundation

Final selections have been made for the first recipients of Rocket Grants, a brand new funding opportunity available to artists who live within an 80-mile radius of downtown Kansas City, which includes Lawrence, KS. Rocket Grants are specifically intended to encourage work that is inventive and “under the radar”, and that engages or benefits an audience somewhere other than in a museum or art gallery. The long-term goal of the program is to not only encourage emerging and non-traditional art practices in the Kansas City region, but also to contribute to a thriving artists’ community. Selections were therefore evaluated not only on the artistic merits of the proposed projects, but also on their capacity to stimulate further growth in a diverse and supportive art ecology.

Because some applicants requested less than the full $4,000, a total of 12 awards were granted. Click here for the list of selected artists and brief project summaries.

Rocket Grants are supported by a $40,000 regional regranting award from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and are implemented by a partnership between the Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City, and the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence. The five-member panel responsible for selecting this year’s recipients from more than 80 applications was composed of national and local interdisciplinary artists and arts professionals, including Mel Ziegler, Adriane Herman, Hesse McGraw, So Yeon Park and Pat Alexander.

Read full press release. 

Read Kansas City Star article, “Rocket Grants Boost Local Artists…” by Alice Thorson, June 6, 2010.

Read in-depth descriptions of the 12 Rocket Grant supported projects.

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.