April 2021
The arts and support are here!
Spring is here and bringing with it warmer weather for outdoor events as well as relaxed covid restrictions for indoor events! Remember to share your event to the Discover Monadnock Calendar!
We have continued to work away at several beneficial community projects and programs. The Arts Ambassador program is now ready for you - sign on to advocate for the arts! Read here about the next phase of the Arts Accessibility study and an update about the Arts Corridor in Keene. Enjoy learning about the new Director of the Jaffery Civic Center in an Artist Spotlight. We announce our newest fiscal sponsee as well, The Art Table.
Check out upcoming Artist to Artist workshops through the spring. Nominate an artist for a Ewing Award. Finally, be an early bird and sign-up for Radically Rural!
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become an arts ambassador
celebrate, share, and advocate for the arts!
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artist workshops & coaching:
learn from other local artists
May 4 at 12pm: May is Mural Month - Join Rosi Bernardi to learn about the paste paper murals that appear on alley walls in Keene. Rosi will share the early plans for May 2022's Mural Month.
Ongoing Coaching Sessions: Learn about the resources Arts Alive! has and the connections we can help you make in the community. 45 minutes sessions are free and open to anyone!
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ewing award nominations:
nominations for 2021 award open May 3!
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These annual awards are now well known in our Region. Many have been recognized for their contribution to the arts. Many more haven't. Nominate those who you feel deserve this recognition!
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radically rural:
annual September symposium open for early birds!
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The Arts Track of Radically Rural, designed by Arts Alive!, will touch on sharing projects that increase access to the arts, that use arts & food to build community, and that activate creative placemaking in a community! |
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discover monadnock
so many cultural events CONTINUE to happen
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NH is opening up significantly on MAY 7th! and our Discover Monadnock Calendar is the Region's centralized tool to spread the word about arts and culture events. With an ever-growing audience, it's becoming the go to place to learn of arts and community events. Add your event today!
The Discover Monadnock Happenings e-newsletter highlights live and virtual events from the Discover Monadnock Calendar. Subscribe to learn about the wealth of creative activity this region offers!
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arts spotlights:
stories from the pandemic
Creatives are finding strength in community while dreaming and building towards the future. In this account, we hear from Rebecca Fredrickson. She is the new Executive Director of the Jaffery Civic Center. We welcome her to the Monadnock Region. We’re proud to share her vision for the Civic Center.
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art table
our newest fiscal sponsee!
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Arts Alive! is delighted to announce Erin Sweeney's The Art Table as our newest Fiscal Sponsee. We support projects that align with our mission because they help us go above and beyond what our current projects or capacity allow us to achieve.
The purpose of this project is to provide access to art supplies, activities, collaborative work, and education to the community: the Art Table will be the intersection of art, education, and community.
The Art Table currently has had some exciting pop-ups: spots to find free craft kits - one at the Peterborough Town Library and one in the Monadnock Food Co-op in Keene. Visit the one near you to find fun activity kits!
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This winter, Arts Alive! received a generous donation of arts supplies, books, and more. They were once the dear belongings of Carol D. Saunders, PhD. Carol loved all of the natural world, especially birds and butterflies. Her favorite medium was colored pencils. Some of the donated books and materials have been incorporated into the Art Table's work and have become part of the art kits. Arts Alive! is also working with the Monadnock Conservancy to start a little free art library at one or two trailheads. We are so pleased we can honor Carol's memory this way. If you'd like to volunteer or donate to this project, get in touch - |
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At the Monadnock Co-op table, visitors will also find Re:Create a grass roots effort to recycle and upcycle items for crafts and more! Below the Art Table, you can leave off or take donated items for any creative use!
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arts corridor update
the pandemic hasn't stopped us
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In 2016, Jack Dugan, the leader of Monadnock Economic Development Corporation (at the time), approached our executive director with a dream: an Arts Corridor that crossed Main Street in Downtown Keene - from a dirt lot on Gilbo Avenue, across Main, and along the rail trail to a beautiful outdoor amphitheater adjacent to the Monadnock Food Co-op and Marriott hotel. He left us with a rough sketch, drawn in marker, which still hangs on our wall. It included buildings that would host performance spaces, artist studios, a gallery, creative retail shops, and more.
the dream is still alive!
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Private efforts are moving the plans forward to have performance venues (NOVA Arts and The Showroom), artist studios (Jonathan Daniels Building), and the outdoor amphitheater at the Monadnock Food Co-op. 17 Rox - with its studios and pop-up artisan markets, The New Leaf Gallery, and Lisa Arnold Photography are enriching Roxbury St.'s artistic retail - creating a great corridor that leads up to the new MoCo Arts building. The Skatepark has raised 2/3 of its hoped-for funding to rebuild a more permanent facility and incorporate public art, in partnership with Friends of Public Art.
Now, Arts Alive! is percolating ideas and working with a core team of volunteers and stakeholders to create a vision and to activate the public spaces that touch this arts corridor. We are in the final running for a national planning and design grant opportunity and are thrilled to know that our project is tantalizing to national funders.
If you would like to help organize outdoor events, swing a hammer to build parklets, or create a pop-up museum, art markets, or galleries - let us know!
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We are immensely grateful to our steering committee: artist and musician Jim Murphy, Friends of Public Art director and 17 Rox owner Georgia Cassimatis, artist and musician April Claggett, Rick Swanson from Monadnock Travel Council and the Historical Society of Cheshire County, Jack Dugan, Architect Dan Scully, artist Craig Stockwell, and dancer and MacDowell employee Robin Cherof. We're also grateful to the stakeholders who are contributing to our conversations: Todd Horner of SWRPC; Elizabeth Dragon, Med Kopczynski, and Mayor George Hansel from the City of Keene; building owners Patti Moreno, Rob Spruill, and Mitch Greenwald; Kathy Burke from the Keene Skatepark project; Taryn Fisher of New Leaf Gallery; Alec Doyle, Heidi Halford, and Katie Folts from The Colonial Theatre & The Showroom; Jeff Murphy from Brewbakers and NOVA Arts, and many more!
This spring, we look forward to conversations with the Keene Farmers Market, the Downtown Group, a discussion of public bathrooms, and how we can continue to advance the fantastic and creative development across downtown Keene.
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arts accessibility:
focus groups
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We continue to work on our study that will lead to programming and partnerships to increase access to the arts because we believe participation in the arts can help reduce loneliness and have significant impact on health outcomes for our community. In April, we conducted focus groups with over 40 individuals from all over the Monadnock region. Our research team partnered with five artists to design conversations that were grounded in the arts, stories, mindfulness, and connection. We are immensely grateful to Jesse MacDonald of Apple Hill, poet and photographer Shanta Gander, Richard "Dobbs" Hartshorne of Bach with Verse, Native American storyteller Anne Jennison, and Pedro Kaawaloa, a regular company member and music director of the Peterborough Players. |
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We are grateful to National Arts Strategies Forward Thinking Fellowship program that is a partner in supporting this work, as well as Antioch New England which is supporting the project through their work-study program. |
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arts alive! is supported by:
New Hampshire State Council on the Arts
New Hampshire Charitable Foundation
National Arts Strategies
Hoffman Family Foundation
Eppes Jefferson Foundation
Putnam Foundation
Savings Bank of Walpole
C&S Wholesale Grocers
Carl & Ruth Jacobs
The Keene Sentinel
The City of Keene, NH
The Arts Alive! Board of Directors
Arts Alive! Members & Creative Businesses
And our greater community of donors!
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