It is with great excitement that GBCA announces its most recent Rubys Artist Project Grant awardees in the literary and visual arts. The Rubys reflect the degree to which the creative sector is an engine for the success of the Greater Baltimore region. This round of grantees includes a broad range of exciting artistic projects that thoughtfully explore topics such as identity, history, and social impact. GBCA is grateful to the talented jurors and to the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation for their vision and support of this program.
The 2016 Rubys grantees in Literary Arts and Visual Arts are:
Thea Brown, Baltimore: to support Loner Forensics, a collection of writings that investigate the transitory silence that descends and recedes in the aftermath of public violence through the central metaphor of a shadow city.
Andria Cole, Baltimore: to support Memphis and Haddassah and Barbara and Keisha and Pip (Or, How Tony Learned to Stay Young), a collection of short stories that examines and honors the inner lives of Black men and their experiences with love, children, work, fear, police brutality, power, Black women, racism, homosexuality, and death.
Hoesy Corona, Baltimore: to support the development and creation of new wearable sculptures for Alie[N]ation, an immersive multimedia installation and performance that investigates and dismantles hyperbolized alien tropes, xenophobic language, and the archetype of the scapegoat.
Michael Downs, Baltimore: to support Sefton Stories (Miniatures), a series of short nonfiction essays that explore lives, events, and relationships within the author’s Baltimore neighborhood during the Great Recession.
Carla Du Pree, Columbia: to support Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, a novel that speaks to loss, regret, and blessings as told through the voices of Eudora, the daughter, and M'dear, the mother, both part of a young, African-American military family traveling by car through the uncivil South during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Kimi Hanauer, Baltimore: to support Press Press, an interdisciplinary publishing initiative that will act as a site of social exchange at its new storefront location downtown on 427 N Eutaw St that will house publishing resources, a library, and programming space.
Andrew Paul Keiper and Kei Ito, Baltimore: to support Afterimage Requiem, a large-scale photographic and sound installation that contemplates the development of the atomic bomb, the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, and the ongoing legacy of this history.
Andrew Klein, Baltimore: to support Breezewood, a collection of poems that take as its subject the history, highways, geography, and mythology of a small town in Southern Pennsylvania.
Susan Muaddi Darraj, Phoenix: to support Brotherly Love, a novel about two immigrant Arab American families adapting to life in South Philadelphia during the 1970s.
René Treviño, Baltimore: to support Codex/Constellations, a series of paintings on animal hide that combine imagery from ancient Mexican codices with queer symbols and narratives to produce new, imagined constellations.
Speaking of artists, On October 22 and 22 Artist U/Baltimore will be presenting its next intensive workshop, “Building a Sustainable Life as an Artist.” Sign up soon, this incredibly helpful session usually has a waiting list.
I hope you will join us on Thursday for Contemporary Arts’ Evening of Artistic Excellencefeaturing a stellar lineup of past Baker Artist Award recipients. The event takes place at 7:00pm at the Baltimore Museum of Art and is part of Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts’ Free Fall Baltimore.
All the very best,
Jeannie
P.S. There are still a few precious days left to register to vote. Do not miss the chance to make your voice heard in this historic election with important consequences nationally and right here in Baltimore City.
