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And now for the good news: A new organization, called USA (United States Artists), announced this week its first round of grants. Thanks to USA, 50 writers, musicians, composers, actors, architects and visual artists around the country woke up to learn they would receive $50,000 in unrestricted grants, meaning the money can be spent any way they want.
The welcome news of these fellowships didn't come out of the blue. Artists can't apply for consideration, as the grants are awarded on the basis of recommendations from panelists in the field across the country, but once their names are in the pool, they have to fill out application forms and cross their fingers.
Three excellent Seattle choices made the cut: Cartoonist Jim Woodring and musician Bill Frisell, who share a grant for their collaborative film projects, and poet Heather McHugh.
USA emerged after a 2003 Urban Institute study titled "Investing in Creativity: A Study of the Support Structures for U.S. Artists."
The Urban Institute found that although 96 percent of Americans think the arts contribute to society, only 27 percent thought the same of artists, who as we all know, are free thinkers who get away with murder.
From the same study came the grim news that the median income artists report from art endeavors is $5,000, and more than half of the country's 2 million artists pay for their own health insurance, if they have any.
In response, The Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Prudential Foundation and the Rasmuson Foundation ponied up $200 million to establish USA. Through it, private philanthropists and corporate donors can contribute to the welfare of individual artists. The mission is, on a grand scale, the same as Seattle's Artist Trust, founded 20 years ago to benefit Washington state artists.
Due to USA's $200 million in initial grants, 100 percent of tax-deductible future donations will go directly to artists. (For more information, go to unitedstatesartists.org)
Woodring is best known for "The Frank Book," published by Seattle's Fantagraphics in 2003 and featuring a forward by Frank fan Francis Ford Coppola, who described the book as "wordless, timeless, placeless (and) full of its own unprecedented characters and experience."
If that's too blank a description to wrap your brain around, try this one from the Village Voice: "A hallucinatory mindscape in brilliant candy colors."
Woodring and jazz guitarist Bill Frisell have collaborated on a number of animated films with gorgeous scores that explore the evolution of consciousness and the thin line between beauty and horror.
Frisell is a guitarist and composer who has collaborated with artists ranging from Petra Hayden and Elvis Costello to John Zorn.
Poet McHugh, who teaches at the University of Washington, is one of nine writers named a USA Fellow this year. Anybody who thinks poetry is unnecessarily obscure and loaded to its gills with tiny, finely wrought observations, needs to give McHugh a try. Mail from her includes this Nabokov quote: "A good laugh is the best pesticide." Check her out at http://www.spondee.com.
Other Northwest artists chosen as fellows include Oregon's graphic novelist Joe Sacco and novelist Matthew Stadler.
Here are a few other choice picks from outside the region:
In dance, Eiko and Koma and Ralph Lemon.
In literature, Amy Hempel.
In new media, David Isay.
In theater, Ping Chong and Meredith Monk.
In visual art, Laylah Ali, Sam Durant, Catherine Opie, William Pope.L and Chris Ware.
Woodring says that this year's artists will recommend next year's winners. Top of his list? Seattle's great subversive ceramist, Charles Krafft.
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