Arts Council
Kentucky Arts Council awards artist residency grants to nine schools

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Kentucky Arts Council has awarded $14,040 in Teacher Initiated Program grants for short-term artist residencies scheduled to take place in the fall of 2010. These grants give professional artists an opportunity to demonstrate their art forms and provide students and teachers repeated hands-on experiences in the making of art. Artists also collaborate with teachers to design and implement innovative programs that provide the tools to continue utilizing art across the curriculum after the residency is completed.

Residencies vary widely, depending on the planning of the teacher and the artist or artists hired for the residency. This group of residencies includes mural projects, explorations of cultural traditions, creative writing and bookmaking.

"The Kentucky Arts Council strongly supports arts in education," says Lori Meadows, executive director of the Kentucky Arts Council. "We would like to see more applications for the Teacher Initiated Program in the future, because we know how these residencies help students learn about the arts and about other subjects through the arts."

The grant amounts are based on the length of the residencies, which can be for one to four weeks. The grant awards are $540, $1,080, $1,620 and $2,160, respectively. Altogether, 26 weeks of residencies have been funded through this semi-annual round of Teacher Initiated Program grants. The schools select artists from the Kentucky Arts Council's Arts Education Roster, which is available at http://artistdirectory.ky.gov/aer/.

The next application deadline is Oct. 15, 2010, for residencies occurring in the spring of 2011. For more information about the Teacher Initiated Program, contact Carrie Nath at 502-564-3757, ext. 486, or carrie.nath@ky.gov.

The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, creates opportunities for Kentuckians to value, participate in and benefit from the arts. Kentucky Arts Council funding is provided by the Kentucky General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Grant recipients, teachers and artists are listed below by county.

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