The Rockford Area Arts Council has many resources for the community and artists. WNIJ’s Yvonne Boose follows up with the executive director, Mary McNamara Bernsten, to find out how things are going. First up: art grants….
Mary McNamara Bernsten (MMB)
So, in a kind of key collaborative relationship post cultural plan completion, the Winnebago County has offered what they call technological service hours to us to help us through Region One Planning Council to research grants that are relevant to the arts and culture sector.
So, those grants could be performing artists grants, they could be for poets, they could be for capital projects, they could be for permanent collections. So, there are all types of grants out there, and the Arts Council is just a small enough agency where we don't have anyone solely dedicated to finding those grants and writing the grants, that's just myself, and so it really provides this wonderful support, in addition to that collaborative relationship, and sort of intersecting economic development with the creative sector and creating a meaningful relationship there.
Yvonne Boose (YB)
Now I know that the Arts Council has a newsletter, and you send out different things. How would people, who are not on that list, find out about the grants?
MMB
Well, I always love to plug, Yvonne, that we are a membership agency, and you know, my first thought is, please become a member of the Rockford Area Arts Council and support this type of work. But if you are from, you know, the outside and not sure how to access it? One, we're very accessible through email, and we have all of that contact information on Arts for everyone.com And then we have these resource groups for the different types of creatives. And then we have our Arts and Culture Partner Group, which has over 130 groups in the region of Boone County and Winnebago County, and those groups are the ones that receive these grants, as well as our round tables for those individual artist groups.
YB
All right, now I want to switch gears and talk about the summer programs. Tell me about how things are being funded and tell me about what type of things the kids will be doing or able to do this summer when it comes to the arts.
MMB
So, we have two divisions of our Spark program. One is Spark at Washington Park, which is a year-round arts enrichment for kids at the Washington Park Community Center. So, that's its own thing happening, and it has its own summer program, but it very much mirrors our summer program that is more of open to the public, where kids aren't part of Washington Park Community Center. And these are open to anyone, they're free camps, they're open to anyone in Boone and Winnebago counties, and these camps span three different age groups. We have a camp for elementary kids, and then we have two camps available for junior high and high school children.
So, we have something called Spark Mosaic for the junior high and high school, we have Spark Somnium, which is sort of a multimedia camp where kids can be involved in creative writing and poetry, set design and construction, muralism, music, dance, movement, all sorts of ways kids can intersect with the arts, and that's junior high and high school as well. And then we have Spark in the Park, which is a wonderful program for elementary age kids, we increased our enrollment last year by 56%. So, we are really committed to this feeder program to these other more specialized programs. So, it's Spark in the Park. When you have grade school kids, we just try to throw at them as many mediums, give them as much exposure to the arts as possible in ways that really matter to them, and they find a lot of enjoyment with.
YB
Now the other thing I want to talk about is the civic center that you guys are working on. What's the status of that?
MMB
Yeah, so the Armory is in a really exciting phase. We are in a moment where we have begun the environmental remediation phase. We ended up hiring [engineering and environmental planning firm] Fehr Graham in October of last year, and then Fehr Graham helped us with the bidding process to hire Husar [Abatement, Ltd.], who is now going to be the contractor for the environmental remediation that begins this month.
YB
What's the date we're looking at as far as everything being ready for the artists to use?
MMB
Okay, so if you're looking for end date, the big end date. I think it's safe to say that our goal would be three years from the end of this year. So, I would say 2030.
YB
Now, is there anything else that I did not ask you about that you think our listeners need to know?
MMB
Just really encourage people to become a member of things that really matter to them, and we see in the Rockford region arts and culture matter.
YB
Well, Mary, thank you so much for taking the time out to speak with me today.
MMB
Thank you, Yvonne. I love talking with you. Thanks.
