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Erie Arts & Culture is proud to present this week's Friday Feature! Erie's film scene is about to get alot more "odd" with the introduction of Oddity Productions! Their killer style, eye for amazing design, and superb creative delivery are worth exploring. Let's get into their creative process...

We are proud of our accomplishments last quarter, and we invite you to read and share our 2022 Q1 Impact Report! Please download the pdf to learn about our most recent programs, services, and impact on the community. We also welcome a conversation with you if you have questions about any of our programs and initiatives. You can reach our Executive Director at patrick@erieartsandculture.org if you have any questions. 

Your support helps us leverage the power of the arts and humanities to address the vital needs and interests of Erie. Together, we can make a positive impact in our community.

On February 5, 2022, Erie’s Tamang Buddhist Cultural center opened their doors to the public for the first time in almost two years for Lhosar, a new year celebration. Erie’s Nepali Bhutanese community is multi-ethnic and multi-religious. Pasang Tamang, the Board President of the Center stated, “We were peaceful people, but we were forced to leave Bhutan. We lived in refugee camps in Nepal until we were able to resettle in Erie. In Erie there are about 4000 resettled Nepali Bhutanese and about 500 of us are Tamang. We wanted to have a special organization to focus on our unique culture. We have been keeping our Tamang culture alive since the 16th century! We officially started the Tamang Buddhist Cultural Center in 2019 and purchased a former church in Lawrence Park.”

In March, Erie Arts & Culture was approached by ServErie and the City of Erie to discuss a collaborative initiative being led by the non-profit organization and the municipality. This summer, efforts will be made to serve residents and businesses along East Avenue and the surrounding area through community engagement and scalable beautification projects. Wanting to contribute to this initiative, Erie Arts & Culture will work with artists Steve Mik and Brian Bonner to create a mural located on East Avenue. 

As a unique approach to this project, Steve and Brian are developing a curriculum that they will teach through the Erie Center for Arts & Technology. Jude Shingle, ECAT’s Arts Program Director, will assist the artists with finalizing their curriculum, which will teach both the business and creative aspects of being an artist. In addition to helping design and create the mural, students will learn about community engagement, site selection and preparation, contract writing, mural conceptualization and design, material acquisition, painting, and more. 

In October 2021, Erie Arts & Culture commissioned a mural on the exterior of the former Wayne School, which is now home to the Erie Center for Arts and Technology, the United Way of Erie County, and several other service-based organizations. This mural, along with a trip to Flint, Michigan, where they created 200 murals in a two-year time span, encouraged Erie Arts & Culture to be more strategic in our approach to future mural initiatives. With that in mind, we approached United Way of Erie County to discuss an initiative through which we would strategically locate murals along identified Safer Walking Routes to Community Schools.

This has led to Erie Arts & Culture and the United Way to adopt a shared goal of raising funds that will support the creation of 50 new murals over two years. Using discretionary funds, financial contributions from Erie Insurance, and an ARP grant from the City of Erie, Erie Arts & Culture has secured the necessary funds to execute Phase 1 of the project. Phase 1 will commence in the summer of 2022 and will include 10 murals along the Safer Walking Route, two per each of the five community schools. 

Erie Arts & Culture is proud to present this week's Friday Feature! This Erie Playwright and Actor, Jermaine Beason, is quite the talent when it comes to painting a picture through words and expressing it on stage. I had the pleasure of chatting with him about his beginnings, recent works, and his favorite movies and actors.  

Ceasar Westbrook’s Residency at Collegiate Academy

Erie Arts & Culture recently caught up with rostered teaching artist and painter Ceasar Westbrook, who just completed a residency at Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy.  The residency engaged about a dozen high school students in creating a mural in tribute to the late dance instructor, Carla Hughes.

Erie Arts & Culture is proud to present this week's Friday Feature! I had the pleasure of chatting with Erie's most decorated Lyricist, Poet, and Hip Hop Emcee Cee Brown. We discussed his origins, what drives his consistent output, and his creative process.

Let's give a warm welcome to our fourth Visiting Artist of 2022, Lauren Hana Chai. Lauren is known for contrasting her traditional Korean upbringing with her modern American life and including a personal story or cultural narrative to accompany each piece. As the first in her family born in America, she was raised by her South Korean grandparents in Hawaii. She moved across the Pacific to San Francisco to study at the Academy of Art University. After some time following the technique-based curriculum, Lauren says she relished breaking the rules and mixing abstract elements into the work. Her current series places side by side traditional elements, such as Korean folk art and Buddhist temple architecture, and modern elements such as interracial relationships or sexually charged figures. She has been featured in NBC News, KBS World Radio, Houston NPR, and the Honolulu Star Bulletin.

In early 2020, Erie Arts & Culture launched a visiting artist residency program in collaboration with Long Road Projects. Through this program, Erie Arts & Culture and Long Road Projects provide contemporary artists with dedicated time and space to reflect, research, and create new bodies of work – outside of their usual environments. This program also creates opportunities for new perspectives and creative processes to be shared, which in turn positively impacts the cultural and creative landscape in Northwestern Pennsylvania. 

This visiting artist residency program is made possible through the generous support of a privately funded grant from The Erie Community Foundation. 

Erie Arts & Culture is proud to present this week's Friday Feature! We sat down with Stephen Trohoske to discuss the ebbs and flows of Blues music... and oscillating changes sweeping the music culture in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Erie Arts & Culture is proud to present this week's Friday Feature! We sat down with Jess Royer to talk about what inspires her to create the gritty, raw, and honest music that she sings from her heart and soul.

Join Erie Arts & Culture for a Learn & Learn at Radius Cowork on May 11 at 12 PM. We'll cover one of Erie Arts & Culture's exciting new grant opportunities for creative entrepreneurs.

Erie Arts and Culture is partnering with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to help creative entrepreneurs and their businesses. The Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator Program (CEAP) matches eligible creative entrepreneurs with free local small business consulting services and financial resources up to $2,000.

During the session, we'll walk you through the process and answer any questions you may have. Feel free to bring your own lunch or order some takeout!

Erie Arts & Culture recently launched the Northwestern PA Arts Recovery program, a set of funding opportunities for regional arts organizations and individual artists. We invite you to join us for an info session at RandyBillDuck Studios in PACA on May 2 at 7pm. The studio is located on the 4th floor of PACA.

This new grant program offers up to $2,500 for artists and up to $5,500 for arts and cultural organizations.

Who should attend?

• Regional artists or cultural producers/makers in any field of the arts who are actively creating, curating, or producing work
• leaders from arts & cultural organizations (*see details in the post)