The San Diego Foundation Funds Local Artists In its second year, Creative Catalyst program is making a difference

The San Diego Foundation (the Foundation) has announced that it has awarded $20,000 each to 10 local artists as part of the 2013 Creative Catalyst Fund – Individual Artist Fellowship Program (CCF). The CCF supports the creation and development of new work conceived by San Diego-based professional artists and focused on creating opportunities for civic engagement or advancing social change through arts and culture. 

The artists include local filmmaker Neil Kendricks; jazz musician Charles McPherson; instrumentalist Wu Man; visual artist Eva Struble; digital media artist Andrew Bracken; installation artist Jamex De La Torre; mixed media artist Miki Iwasaki; puppet theater artists Iain Gunn and Bridget Rountree; and, video artist Cy Kuckenbaker.

According to Felicia Shaw, Arts and Culture Director at the San Diego Foundation, the CCF first seeks to advance the professional careers of artists of all disciplines, elevate the profile of the artistic community and encourage creative expression in the region.

“The CCF enables the creation of new work which is artistically innovative in terms of the artist's own practice, and/or discipline,” said Shaw. “Our goal is to create job opportunities for San Diego artists and to establish our region as a place where creativity and all makers of art can thrive.”

Shaw noted that the CCF also advances the goals of the Foundation’s Malin Burnham San Diego Center for Civic Engagement and Our Greater San Diego Vision, an unprecedented public participation process that engaged more than 30,000 San Diego residents in imagining a 50-year vision for the region. The CCF responds to the priorities identified in the Vision and is grounded in the belief that direct support to artists has a positive and demonstrable impact on the vitality and vibrancy of neighborhoods and the lives of its residents.

“From improving civic dialogue, to defining community identity, promoting cultural tourism, and integrating the creative arts into our learning environments, artists working in communities make us stronger,” Shaw said. “Few investments provide such diverse and valuable returns and none is as vital to our quality of life.”

2013-14 Creative Catalyst artists

Neil Kendricks

About: An independent filmmaker, writer, film curator and teacher, he has a master’s degree in film from San Diego State University. His short films have been screened at film festivals from Palm Springs to Cannes.

Sponsor: Pacific Arts Movement

Project: “Comics are Everywhere” — “A documentary that explores the pop-cultural intersection where alternative comics, animation and the art world collide,” particularly in the work of JJ Villard, Danni Shinya Luo, Daniel Clowes and Jaime Hernandez.

Charles McPherson

About: His credits are a who’s who of jazz, including collaborations with dozens noteworthy musicians ranging from Charles Mingus to Wynton Marsalis. He continues to record and tour worldwide.

Sponsor: San Diego Ballet

Project: “Sweet Dance Suite” — “A dance suite incorporating Afro-Cuban, Latin and bebop jazz rhythms celebrating the ability of diverse communities to come together to build community.

Wu Man

About: She’s the most celebrated pipa player in the world, evidenced by Musical America naming her its 2013 Instrumentalist of the Year.

Sponsor: Carlsbad Music Festival

Project: “When China meets Latin America” — A series of cross-cultural exchanges between Chinese pipa and Latin American plucking instruments, resulting in a musical dialogue between these two diverse communities.

Eva Struble

About: A graduate of Brown University and Yale, she joined the SDSU visual arts faculty in 2011.

Sponsor: Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

Project: “Produce” — An artistic collaboration that blends archival and new images to capture the lives of Oaxacan agriculture works through a community mural and exhibition of large-scale screen prints.

Andrew Bracken

About: A digital media artist, he also works on video games for Sony Computer Entertainment and has done extensive freelance sound engineering in Los Angeles and New York.

Sponsor: Media Arts Center

Project: “18 Bakers” — A web documentary about the 2008 immigration raid on a San Diego bakery and its effects on the local community.

Jamex De La Torre

About: Jamex and his brother Einar work on both sides of the border and have an eclectic new work they will install in the Central Library downtown next month.

Sponsor: Casa Familiar

Project: “Whysidro” — A suite of artworks that expose the richness and hidden beauty expressed in the human condition of the border and commerce” (created using advanced lenticular printing).

Iain Gunn

About: A co-founder of the alternative puppet theater Animal Cracker Conspiracy, which has performed its “Adult Puppet Cabarets” at venues ranging from the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego to Space 4 Art.

Sponsor: La Jolla Playhouse

Project: “Paper Cities” — A multimedia puppet theater production that engages histories of global urban development and transforms commerce, architecture and politics into poetry, movement and sound.

Miki Iwasaki

About: The Harvard Graduate School of Design alum’s interests range from architecture to furniture design. He teaches architecture at Woodbury University, and his interactive installation, “Signalscape,” can be experienced at the San Diego International Airport Terminal 1 baggage claim.

Sponsor: New Children’s Museum

Project: “Cumulous Clouds” — An interactive lighting installation powered by wind and energy built and activated by visitors.

Cy Kuckenbaker

About: A graduate of SDSU and the California Institute for the Arts, he makes films (several short ones are on youtube.com) and teaches at San Diego City College and Irvine Valley College.

Sponsor: Museum of Photographic Arts

Project: “The San Diego Studies: Air, Sea & Land” — A series of 10 short video art pieces that reveal the unseen rhythms and movements of San Diego.

Bridget Rountree

About: A co-founder of the alternative puppet theater Animal Cracker Conspiracy, she collaborated with Margaret Noble in Noble’s 2012 Creative Catalyst project at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego last year.

Sponsor: Young Audiences

Project: “Diggin’ the Trash” — An imaginative and theatrical story of trash that inspires youth to question and take action as alternatives to our disposable culture.