ARTSPEAK RADIO with Jesse Kates, Ryan Wilks, KC Art Angels, & Rocket Grants

Wednesday January 10, 2018

Host/producer Maria Vasquez Boyd talks with poet/musician/singer/songwriter Jesse Kates, KC Art Angels founder Juliare Julie Sterbach, painter Ryan Wilks, and Julia Cole & Mason Kilpatrick with Charlotte Street Foundation Rocket Grants.

Jesse Kates is the songwriter, singer and guitarist behind pop band The Sexy Accident and a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s creative writing program. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife Stephanie and sons Tobias and Jonas.

“Extra Pith (Spartan Press) is Jesse Kates’ first book of poems, but he writes with the subtlety and assurance of a well-seasoned veteran in this powerful debut collection. Mixing sharp, crisp, imagery with the sonorous wit of his song lyrics, Kates brings the full package to the page. In the daily struggles to balance love, family, marriage, and love again, he is always alert to the subtle emotional shifts that can so easily topple us. When all else is dark, Kates is out there trying to make out the faint glimmers for himself, and for his readers.”

– Jim Daniels, author of Rowing Inland and other books

Website: http://jessekates.com/
Photo: http://jessekates.com/img/jesse-kates-hi-res.jpg

KC Art Angels Fund was formed in the spring of 2016, born of the passion for art and an overwhelming desire to help others. We feel that art is a way to heal the soul, ease the mind and give everyone a personal voice. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. By giving classes to members of the general public, in groups or individually, we can then use the profits to provide free or reduced one-on-one sessions and workshop time to individuals with mental and/or physical disabilities. In so doing, our aim is to give a new outlet through which they can express themselves. Everyone can create, and everybody wins!

Call for information 816-820-9055 or email [email protected]
13416 Sante Fe Trail Dr Lenexa, KS 66215
kcartangels.com

Sunday Closed
Monday
10:00 am– 6:00 pm
Tuesday10:00 am– 8:00 pm
Wednesday10:00 am– 6:00 pm
Thursday 10:00 am– 8:00 pm
Friday 10:00 am– 5:00 pm
Saturday10:00 am– 5:00 pm

Ryan Wilks is a self -taught artist born in Kansas City, working predominately in the medium of oil paints and watercolor. Major themes in his work centralize on issues of gender and sexual identity. He is known for using his art to incept ideas into the minds of his patrons and viewers, with the hope of inspiring a dialogue about those ideas. He has traveled across the country, studying artists in Chicago as well as San Francisco; providing a less conventional education, which helped shape his execution of human form as well as his subject matter.His work gained national notoriety in June of 2016 with his year-long project, Gender Treason, which explored the various realities of queer people living in Kansas City via photography, painting, and literary documentation. The project was predominantly funded through Kickstarter and Inspiration Grants from ArtsKC and was written about in The Huffington Post, as well as making front cover in The Pitch and Kansas City Star. In 2017 his work took on preformative qualities with his one man show, “Trigger Warning”, which spoke on how trauma shaped him as an adult and as an artist. Trigger Warning was soon followed by “Queerotica”, a one night only performance and visual arts showcase of queer sexuality in June of 2017. Queerotica was an opportunity for Wilks to flaunt his exhibitionism and appeal to curious voyeurs. In Annie Raab’s review of Queerotica, she wrote, “This is fraught territory for an artist, this warm, dark space between public and private life, and Wilks opens it wide to show us something so personal that we want to look away.” His willingness to share personal aspects of his life trough his art has aided in his energy work with over 200 people in Kansas City, who have received energy paintings from him. Energy paintings involve a very intimate and vulnerable telling of ones truth, in this case by the patron/subject. As the subject sits and gets painted, they explore thought out loud for up to two hours as Wilks captures the essence of the person with paint. At the end, Wilks gives a reading to the individual and they get to keep the painting as a reminder of what they need to work on.His newest project, Here Where You Wish, will be a 3 month instillation at the Downtown Public Library in April of 2018. www.wilkspainting.com

Rocket Grants: These are grants for experimental, public-facing, artist-driven and artist-centered projects, in any discipline or medium with a strong visual component. Interested artists can download a complete application guide and budget forms by going to rocketgrants.org and clicking on the Apply! button. The actual application happens online, and the deadline is March 26. Now in its ninth year, the program has so far awarded $392,000 to more than two hundred artists working on 80+ projects. Many other artists and community members have been involved in these projects in one way or another.

Rocket Grants are part of a national network of programs funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. There are, so far, 10 other grants similar to Rocket Grants in smaller cities around America. Kansas City was the third program to kick into action, thanks to the vitality of our regional arts community and the strong leadership of Charlotte Street and the Spencer Museum of Art.

There are outreach sessions throughout the application window to help artists get information and answer questions about their applications.
The first one for the year will be on Monday January 15, 7 PM at La Esquina, 1000 W 25th Street, KCMO
There will be another on Sunday January 20th, 10.30 AM, at the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence.
Other presentations and workshops will be posted on the Rocket Grants website.
VISION:
Rocket Grants provide opportunities for Kansas City area artists to make and share experimental work and ideas in public spaces around the region – by providing direct support for exceptional, under-the-radar, artist-driven, and artist-centered projects.

Rocket Grants fund projects that:
• happen in unexpected places
• are visually engaging, and involve any kinds of media or practices, singly or combined
• challenge mainstream methods of thinking, making or presenting
• add energy and diversity to the arts in our region, and provide opportunities for creative growth
• encourage the development of new kinds of audiences

Artists’ proposals should consider one of two audiences:
1.Other regional artists, in venues appropriate for the work;
2.The general public – which can mean specific communities, large or small. These projects MUST happen in carefully chosen public venues – ones that are designed to introduce new, meaningful and surprising experiences to this chosen audience. Established arts institutions, venues or districts are almost never chosen.

Artists, curators, collectives, collaborative groups, partnerships, and artist-run spaces residing within an 80-mile radius of the Kansas City metropolitan area are all eligible to apply.
Supported projects may include visual art, performance, film screenings, video, new media, writing, public programming, social practice and interdisciplinary projects. Performing artists and writers are eligible to apply, but all work should include a compelling visual component, and performers/authors are encouraged to form collaborations with visual artists to achieve this end.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to view work by previous award winners on the Rocket Grants website to make sure that their idea is a good fit for this opportunity.
Rocket Grants are specifically not available for non-profit organizations, or for current or recently graduated students.
Proposals that bridge geographic or cultural communities are strongly encouraged.

The Rocket Grants program for 2018-19 will provide grants in the amount of $60,000 total. These will include:
• Full project awards: Cash grants of up to $6,000 each, to area artists, performers, curators, and writers – as individuals or groups – to support the creation and presentation of new work/projects with a strong visual component.
• Research & development awards: Cash grants of $2,000 each to support research and development for ambitious new projects that require a longer period of planning.
• Completion or implementation of previously selected R & D Awards: Cash grants of $4,000. This award is made by submitting a report, rather than by a full reapplication process.

TIMELINE FOR ROCKET GRANTS 2018-2019:
Monday, January 15, 2018 –Applications open
Monday, March 26, 2018 – Applications close online, at 11.59 PM CST
Friday, May 18, 2018 – Artists’ presentations at Selection Panel meeting in Kansas City
Tuesday, May 22, 2018 – Award recipients notified
Tuesday, May 29, 2018 – Public Announcement of 2018 Awards
Thursday, June 7, 2018, 6.00 PM – Awards gathering, funds released
Friday, June 7, 2019 – All projects must be complete

www.rocketgrants.org

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