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RACC project grants head for the outskirts of art

By Barry Johnson
December 19, 2013
News & Notes

I think of the Precipice Fund, PICA’s way of rewarding alternative ideas about making and showing art, as a great supplement for the Regional Arts & Culture Council’s project grants. Precipice needs RACC to answer the question “alternative to what?”, after all.

RACC has just announced $661,543 in project grants to 60 arts groups and 88 artists, and a quick run-through the list of recipients and a capsule of their projects leads me to a re-consideration. Sure, the arts group projects are pretty straight-forward. Conduit, for example, received a grant to support its successful Dance+ program, and Disjecta found RACC support for its Portland2014 Biennial of Contemporary Art, just to name a couple of deserving events (that locate and exhibit exciting contemporary art) with good track records.

Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble, here in 'Song of the Dodo,'  was funded for its version of Chekhov's 'Three Sisters.'/Gary Norman

Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble, here in ‘Song of the Dodo,’ was funded for its version of Chekhov’s ‘Three Sisters.’/Gary Norman

But artists are artists, and as I scrolled down, I found projects that might have felt right at home at Precipice, too. So, Gabriel Liston’s project is a Guide to the Lafe Pence Ditch, “an exhibit of paintings, drawings, and text based on research into and along an old canal on the side of the Tualatin Ridge overlooking NW Portland,” which sounds truly fabulous. And Susan E. Peck was funded to “to produce, rehearse, and conduct a festival concert performance of the full-length choral work “Missa Gaia/Earth Mass,” written by members of the Paul Winter Consort, in partnership with a local environmental group like Friends of Columbia Gorge or Portland Audubon Society.” Amen!

Anyway, have a look through the list of projects and plan your 2014 accordingly. Art here is moving inexorably toward the creative edge of art practices, and we’re following right behind.

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