Blog

The New Horizons Initiative's object is to infuse arts and culture into libraries, public parks, and other community resources to provide neighborhood programming that ensures the benefits of arts and culture are more fully recognized, utilized and valued.

Purchase Peter Kageyama's Books Here.

Partial proceeds of all book sales will help support Erie Arts & Culture’s New Horizons Initiative. Our inventory of these books is limited.

She took her passion for pictures in motion and set her own life in motion. Jessica Yochim Taylor is a Managing Partner, Director, and Editor at family-owned business MenajErie Studio, where she not only stimulates and challenges her own creativity, but also aids other creatives in discovering their potentials.

Erie Arts & Culture is excited to announce the arrival of four DipJars to our arsenal of creative and cultural non-profit community resources. As a part of our mission to “strengthen the vibrancy and vitality of the region through the advancement of arts and culture,” Erie Arts & Culture will lend DipJars to regional non-profits wishing to temporarily utilize them for on-premise and/or special event fundraising.

Peter Kageyama is the author of “Love Where You Live: Creating Emotionally Engaging Places” and the follow-up book “Love of Cities: The Love Affair Between People and Their Places.” Peter is a Senior Fellow with the Alliance for Innovation, a national network of city leaders. He is also an internationally sought-after community development consultant and grassroots engagement strategist who speaks all over the world about bottom-up community development.

The C.H.R.O.M.A. Guild is the Creative Hub of Resources & Opportunities that support & connect Multicultural Artist in NWPA.

CHROMA is an Erie-based regional network focused on building both individual and organizational capacity by providing broader opportunities for diversity, equity, and inclusion within the area’s cultural and creative industries.

Nina Simon has served in the role of Executive Director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History since 2011. In 2019, she founded OF/BY/FOR ALL, an organization that envisions a world in which all people are empowered to share their talents to strengthen their communities. To create this future, OF/BY/FOR ALL helps civic and cultural organizations grow of, by, and for their communities. Simon is also the author of two best-selling books, “The Participatory Museum” and “The Art of Relevance.”

Outdoor adventurer Katie Maciak (LeVan) takes the feeling of serenity that comes with immersing oneself in nature and transfers it onto the canvas to share with us. She encourages people to find their own meaning in art, stating, “I paint because it is my favorite thing to do and it channels my moments of peace.” Her love of nature doesn’t stop with paintings, as she also makes pressed flower jewelry.

Erie Arts & Culture is pleased to welcome Tiffanie Page-Collazo as the Community Organizer for the New Horizons’ Initiative; an initiative funded through The Erie Community Foundation’s Shaping Tomorrow grant. She started with EAC in February of 2019.

For a third-straight year, the Trump administration has proposed to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB). 

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. In that case, it makes sense that soft spoken wife and mother of four Sarah Perino chooses to express herself through photography.

“I became interested in photography through some friends who do it,” she says. “Taking photos of my baby girl and then my boys was the hook that got me interested in learning more. My oldest son has a good eye for composition and we took photos in nature, experimenting with focal points and perspectives.”

Erie Arts & Culture recently contracted MenajERIE Studio, a female-owned, small business located in Downtown Erie, to create and produce a series of videos that tell the stories of how art and culture plays an imperative role in the personal, communal, and economic development of our region. It is through the creative and cultural sector that we improve the quality of life for our residents, inspire the imagination and creativity of our youth, provide a sense of identity and inclusion for our diverse inhabitants, and propel upward growth of our region’s economy.

Are you an entrepreneur working within the creative economy, blending your creative skill sets with technology and innovation in segments such as: Communications, Design, Entertainment (Animation, Gaming), Fine Arts (Interactive, Visual), Augmented Reality, and/or Robotics? If you are, and you have not heard about Ben Franklin Technology Partners’ 2019 BIG IDEA StARTup Contest, it’s time you have!

At the tender age of eleven, Rachel Heibel decided she really wanted to learn how to draw people. She would sit down for hours with a tablet and a #2 pencil drawing pictures of the celebrities featured in magazines.

After graduating high school in 2002, Rachel started to slip away from her drawing habit. She strayed further from her it after getting married in 2006 and having a baby five and a half years later. However, in 2013 she began learning how to 3D model within Blender, which reawakened the artist inside of her. She networked with a company called Theory Animation and joined their team as an animator.

At the beginning of 2017, she went back to her roots of drawing. She wanted to learn how to draw and paint digitally, and through a combination of tutorials, books, and teaching herself through trial and error, she learned how to paint in Photoshop.

Now Rachel has found a way to combine her love of art with her love of animals. She creates lifelike digital paintings of animals and uses her art to raise money for non-profit animal rescues.

I had the opportunity to interview Rachel to find out more about her artwork and what is involved in creating it. Let’s see what she has to say:

On 2/28/2019, East Middle School presented “The Rebirth of a Fallen Race: The Fall - The Journey - The Rise of the African American People.” This was the debut production of the school’s newly formed theater program. This original production was written by Kimberly Overton, a teacher at EMS and the program’s director.

Ms. Overton deserves to be recognized for her work, as do all the students involved, of which there were more than 50. The production is a tremendous example of how the arts can be used as a vessel to analyze complex topics, encourage reflection, and provide opportunities for dialog as, 400 years later, we as a nation are still wrestling with our spotted past and the ways that historic systems of oppression continue to manifest themselves today.