By Howard Pousner
hpousner@ajc.com

Paradise Garden, the late Howard Finster’s northwest Georgia art environment, has been awarded a $445,000 grant, it was announced today.

The grant to Chattooga County, which purchased what is considered the prolific Finster’s greatest creation late last year, is from ArtPlace America, a new private-public partnership of top national foundations and banks and various federal agencies including the National Endowment for the Arts. ArtPlace’s mission is to “accelerate creative placemaking across the U.S.”

“It’s a WOW,” Janet Byington, board president of the Paradise Garden Foundation, e-mailed the AJC about  the grant, the only one issued to a Georgia project.

Chattooga County envisions Paradise Garden, which had been decline and where visitation has fallen off sharply since Finster’s 2001 death, as a focal point of efforts to boost cultural tourism to one of Georgia’s poorest counties and its county seat, Summerville. The new nonprofit Paradise …

Continue reading Finster’s Paradise Garden wins $445,000 restoration grant »

Calling all metro Atlanta artists with a proven track record.
The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia is now accepting applications for its 2012-2013 “Working Artist Project.” Three established visual artists will be selected by guest juror Julie Rodigues Widholm, the Pamela Alper Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Those who make the cut will receive a stipend to fund their work over the course of a year. The awardees will also get studio assistants and other support. At the end of the term the artists will be given a major exhibition through MOCA GA. Deadline for submissions is June 30 at 5 p.m. For more information about the application process go to www.mocaga.org. And if you want to see work by the 2011-2012 “Working Artist Project” winners, Gregor Turk, Martha Whittington and Brian Dettmer, their work will be on view in three separate shows that run consecutively from now until Jan. 5, 2013. On view now, through July 14 is Turk’s show, …

Continue reading MOCA GA Accepting Applications for Working Artist Project »

By Bo Emerson

Atlanta banking executive Virginia Hepner has been named the new president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center, it was announced Monday.

She replaces Joe Bankoff, who left the center in May to lead Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.

Ms. Hepner, former senior manager of U.S. Corporate Finance at Wachovia Bank, has had experience at the Woodruff Center, serving as interim director for Young Audiences from October 2010 to August 2011. She was also interim executive director at the Atlanta Ballet in 2009, overseeing completion of an $11 million headquarters.

Ms. Hepner arrives at the Woodruff almost 50 years to the day after a tragic airline crash at the Orly Airport in Paris, which took the lives of 106 members of Atlanta’s arts community. The creation of the Woodruff Center came about as a concerted effort to recover from that tragedy.

The city’s premier arts organization, the Woodruff Center includes the Atlanta Symphony, the Alliance …

Continue reading Banking exec is new head of Woodruff Arts Center »

ARTS
Transitions at many Atlanta cultural institutions

• In its first fundraising campaign since its 2009 debut, the Atlanta performance outfit gloATL has eclipsed a $50,000 challenge goal set by the Atlanta foundation Possible Futures. The fundraising, including grants from Barking Hound Village founder David York and the arts support organization C4 Atlanta, allows gloATL to fill its first administrative position (Paul Boshears becomes operations manager) and to provide health care benefits to its dancers.
• Hope Cohn’s final exhibition as Spruill Gallery’s director, “Emerging Artists 2012,” opens June 7 with a 6-9 p.m. reception. The gallery’s parent organization, the Spruill Center for the Arts, has trimmed the gallery director position as part of a budget-balancing effort. Under Cohn’s leadership, the gallery, at 4681 Ashford Dunwoody Road in Dunwoody,  has become an important showplace for rising metro makers. Including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and video …

Continue reading Culture notes: News from gloATL, Spruill Gallery, Decatur Book Fest, Alliance Theatre, Actor’s Express »