Folk Arts Collaborative
Project Description
The Folk Arts Collaborative seeks a grant from the State Arts Council to complete funding for the 2011 juried exhibition of area potters. This will be the third biennial pottery exhibition we have held. Each previous show has been hugely successful in many areas:
• Local artists have received recognition and exposure to the community. Sales of work in the last exhibition slightly exceeded $50,000.
• The public has benefited by being exposed to an array of work in pottery being created my some of the nation’s best ceramic artists. All our exhibitions are free to the public and are typically attended by more than 3,000 during the one-month run.
• We have turned our lack of a permanent exhibition space into a virtue, presenting exhibitions in vacant storefronts downtown. Property owners have been more than willing to provide free space for these shows. Downtown Middletown has been plagued with businesses leaving for strip malls. Our exhibitions not only bring life and people into downtown (benefiting existing merchants), but we also turn an eyesore into an attractive space, making it easier for the property owner to show it. The spaces used for both previous biennials were rented to commercial tenants within a month of each show’s closing.
The space at 500 Main Street in Middletown chosen for the 2011 exhibition has been vacant for over a year. Given the success other property owners have had renting space after our exhibition, Mr. Frederic Goodman of Middletown Commercial Properties, Inc., has agreed to hold the space for the exhibition.
The exhibitions have also proven artistically successful. Local press have given the shows glowing notices, but more significantly, press from the state capital reviewed the last biennial exhibition, the only statewide coverage for an arts event in Middletown in that entire year. One artist whose work appeared in the 2009 exhibition has had a work purchased by the State Art Museum, and four other artists have gained gallery representation. All the artists have reported to us that they sold more work subsequent to the 2009 exhibition than they had in the previous year.
We are fortunate to have Sarah Kiesinskie as the curator for the 2011 exhibition. Ms. Kiesinskie received her M.A. in art history from Yale University in 1992 and is now an adjunct professor of art at the State University. She has curated exhibitions at the Cincinnati Folk Art Museum, New York’s National Museum of Design, and numerous university shows. Her catalog essay for the exhibition Women Make Pots: Eight Potters of North Carolina won the prestigious Walter Hinkle Prize for art criticism.
The combination of artistic quality with commercial and community development makes this an ideal project for support by the State Arts Council.
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