LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Kids, youth, and others are invited to participate in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Those interested in participating should plan to attend the rehearsal call-out session on Thursday, October 29th at 6:30p at the Tippecanoe Arts Federation, 638 North Street, Lafayette (enter the side door and go to the lower level).

The annual Dickens of a Christmas will be held in Downtown Lafayette-West Lafayette on Saturday, December 5 from 10:00a–9:00p. During this event, scenes from A Christmas Carol are enacted at various sites throughout the Downtown Lafayette.

Practice sessions are ready to begin.

Questions should be directed to Jane Ness at Greater Lafayette Commerce, 765/742-4044 or Peg Black, Dickens players’ coordinator, at 765/742-8619.

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Tetia Lee has been selected as one of five regional fellows receiving a professional development scholarship for Emerging Arts Leaders.

Tetia Lee

Funded by Chicago’s Joyce Foundation and coordinated by Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit for advancing the arts, the program supports arts leaders of color from the Great Lakes region. Lee will receive a $3,000 scholarship to attend three Americans for the Arts events over the next year: the National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Providence, RI, Arts Advocacy Day in Washington, DC, and the Annual Convention in Baltimore, MD. Throughout the year, Fellows will have opportunity for exchange and reflection with arts leaders from throughout the country. Additionally they will receive individualized career coaching.

Lee says of her ambitions as an arts leader, “I aspire to continually create and implement innovative programs and services to make the arts accessible at a grass roots level. Through creating greater accessibility to the arts, I hope to elevate the importance of the arts within the fabric of the communities I serve. I aim to be a component of the leadership for creating a model for greater statewide, national and international arts education and awareness.”

“We are proud to contribute to the advancement of these bright and talented local arts leaders,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. “Dedicated and ambitious leaders are essential to the success and growth of arts and culture in this country.”

Tetia Lee is the Executive Director of the Tippecanoe Arts Federation, an arts council and umbrella organization for a fourteen county region in North Central Indiana.

Over the last 13 years, Lee has worked for nonprofit arts councils throughout the state of Indiana – all regional arts partners of the Indiana Arts Commission, the state agency. Lee served in the capacities of Gallery Director, Instructor, and Outreach Coordinator while completing her degrees from the American Academy of Art and Indiana State University. After completion of her MFA in painting, Lee chose to focus on her passion for the arts and community by assuming the role of Assistant Director at Arts Place, an arts organization serving east central Indiana and west central Ohio.

In 2007, Lee accepted an offer to lead the Tippecanoe Arts Federation. As executive director, Lee has developed and implemented three programs to provide access to the arts to at-risk and under served youth, leadership for a cultural plan, and elevated the profile of the organization within the community, around the region and throughout the state. Lee also serves as a member of the Community Council, the Regional Leadership Institute, the board of the YWCA, and Vice President of the Indiana Coalition for the Arts.

This year’s Joyce Fellows are:

• Makeba Dixon-Hill — The Art Institute of Chicago / Chicago, IL
• Christina Jensen — Hyde Park Art Center / Chicago, IL
• Tetia Lee — Tippecanoe Arts Federation / Lafayette, IN
• Uri Sands — TU Dance / St. Paul, MN
• Sioux Trujillo — community+public arts: DETROIT (at the College for Creative Studies) / Detroit, MI

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Cultural Plan for Lafayette/West Lafayette, led by the Tippecanoe Arts Federation, is already listing several successes early in its implementation process.

Papier-mâché art piece 'I Can Has Chainburger?' by Emily Cox, a 17-year-old senior at Harrison High School in West Lafayette, Indiana.

TAF officially assumed leadership of implementing the Plan on July 1 of this year, and early accomplishments include:

• The formation of a formal Arts Facility Needs Assessment Committee to oversee an assessment of the community’s cultural venues. The North Central Health Services’ foundation arm has awarded funding toward this study with additional funds from the Barnabas Foundation. A consulting team of will conduct the Facility Needs Assessment, which is scheduled to be completed by January of 2010.
• The communities of Lafayette, West Lafayette, and Tippecanoe County have officially expressed their commitment and support for the implementation of the Cultural Plan.
• TAF launched ASAP, After School Arts Program, in August to create more arts activities for youth, teens and young adults as well as make a meaningful difference in the lives of youth in our community.
• A Cultural Asset Map, designed to provide an inventory of the community’s arts and cultural resources, will be completed in the coming months thanks to a partnership with the Purdue Center for Regional Development.

“Working for tomorrow starts today,” said Tetia Lee, executive director of the Tippecanoe Arts Federation, who is leading implementation of the Cultural Plan for Lafayette/West Lafayette. “The plan, drawn from input from more than 200 local residents and community leaders, is beginning to take shape as a roadmap for action for the next 10 to 15 years and reflects a vision for arts and cultural development in the community.”

The four primary goals and related strategies outlined in the 50-page cultural plan call for:

• Integrating arts and culture more fully into Lafayette and West Lafayette approaches to community economic development.
• Engaging children, teens and young adults more fully in the cultural life of the Lafayette/West Lafayette community.
• Building a broader and deeper countywide audience for arts and culture of all kinds.
• Strengthening the leadership and resources in support of arts and culture.

“This planning process has been inclusive and the strength of that inclusion has grown as the process moved forward,” the WolfBrown report states in its conclusion. “Planning is not an easy process; it requires attention to various viewpoints and overlapping perspectives. It often puts existing systems and structures into the spotlight and that can be uncomfortable. But the willingness to experience this discomfort is the price of developing a road map that has the engagement and input of a broad section of the community.”

During 2008, WolfBrown associate principal consultant Marc Goldring led three formal public presentations — in June, October and December. WolfBrown conducted surveys, hosted community wide meetings, examined funding options, and determined how the local arts venues, programs and events compare with communities similar in size to Lafayette-West Lafayette.

WolfBrown collaborated with the Tippecanoe Cultural Planning Steering Committee, working with broad-based support from TAF and local arts and cultural groups.

The committee was led by community leaders Jim Bodenmiller and Sonya Margerum, and included a diverse group of 40 people from the arts, entertainment, culture, tourism, education, business and industry, government and other groups.

The committee used $75,000 generated with support from the cities of Lafayette and West Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, arts and cultural organizations and the Community Foundation of Greater Lafayette to hire Massachusetts-based WolfBrown to launch the formal arts assessment process.

Many of Greater Lafayette’s cultural organizations also provided support for the year-long effort including Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, Art Museum of Greater Lafayette Foundation, Bach Chorale Singers, Historic Prophetstown, Lafayette Citizens Band, Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, Long Center for the Performing Arts, Purdue Bands, Purdue Convocation, Friends of Downtown, Round the Fountain Art Fair Committee, Tippecanoe County Historical Association, and Wabash Valley Trust for Historic Preservation.

Building on nearly 500 cultural events held in Lafayette-West Lafayette, the local arts community contributes more than $11 million each year to the economy, drawing visitors from throughout the region to performances and events as well as restaurants and retail outlets. In addition, nearly 1,000 people are employed by the estimated 165 arts-related organizations and businesses in Lafayette-West Lafayette.

The Tippecanoe Arts Federation, which was launched in 1976, is the nonprofit service and advocacy agency for more than 100 local member arts organizations. TAF also is the re-granting agency for state funds to a 14-county area (Region IV) through the Regional Partnership Initiative of the Indiana Arts Commission and regularly hosts, co-sponsors and participates in community events including its annual fundraiser, The Taste of Tippecanoe, a festival of food and fun for the arts held in downtown Lafayette.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Paintings, glass work, jewelry, photography and pottery by 35 artists from eight counties will fill West Lafayette’s Tapawingo Park on Sunday, September 20, from 10:00a to 4:00p for the fourth annual “Art on the Wabash, a Local Artists’ Fair.”

Kathleen Kitch, who works primarily with kiln-formed (fused) glass, is one of the Greater Lafayette artists whose work will be featured at Art on the Wabash.

The public is invited and admission is free, with free parking available in the Wabash Landing parking garage for those attending the fair. The artists will be on hand to talk about their art; some will demonstrate their work.

Purdue University Galleries will bring its ArtCart, offering free, hands-on art activities to those attending.

“This fair showcases the unique creativity and diverse talents of artists from this area, and gives residents and visitors an opportunity to purchase one-of-a-kind artwork,” said Beverly Shaw, Art on the Wabash committee chair. “It’s also inspiring and interesting to browse the art and enjoy a day in the park.”

Artists from a 15-county area were invited to apply for the fair. Those who will participate were chosen in a juried process by Indiana artist Kathleen Dugan of Noblesville, an assistant professor of art and design at Anderson University. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Indiana University’s School of Fine Arts and master’s of fine arts from Yale University.

The 4th annual Art on the Wabash will be held at West Lafayette’s Tapawingo Park from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday, September 20, 2009.

Participating artists include:

• Glass: Kathleen Kitch, Sharon Owens, Beverly Skinner
• Jewelry: Carolyn Cason, Linda Elmore, Caroline Erdahl, Cheryl Hart, Lisa Hopkins, Rebecca Minniear-Schneidt, Joanne Kuhn Titolo, Lisa Walsh
• Mixed Media: Thomas Billeaux, Terri Duncan, CJ Fang, Sara Vanderkleed
• Painting: Michael Altman, Rebecca Brody, Rena Brouwer, Shirley Chapman, Kathryn Clark, Sandra Daniel, Alice Harpel, LaDonna Vohar
• Pottery: Lynne Corrigan, Mary Thomas Firestone, Scott Frankenberger, Christine Heisler, Gail Johnston, Linda LeMar, Rachael Schatko, Roberta Schonemann
• Other: Philip Conlon, boxes; Al Knight, photography; Rhonda Mitchell, pen-and-ink; Deb Remsburg, gourd art

The fair is presented by the City of West Lafayette and West Lafayette Parks & Recreation Department with assistance from Tippecanoe Arts Federation and sponsorship funding from KitchenArt, The Store for Cooks.

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Tippecanoe Arts Federation (TAF) announces 28 organizations throughout Region 4 (Benton, Carroll, Cass, Clinton, Fountain, Howard, Jasper, Montgomery, Newton, Pulaski, Tippecanoe, Tipton, Warren, and White Counties) will receive a total of $116,393.00 in grant awards for Fiscal Year 2010.

Earlier this year volunteer citizen peer panels, convened by TAF, reviewed 30 proposals. Grant awards were approved August 3, 2009 during the TAF board of director’s meeting.

Grants are made possible by the Indiana Arts Commission with funds appropriated by the Indiana General Assembly and the U.S. Congress, through the National Endowment for the Arts, and are for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2009.

The following organizations from Region 4 were approved for funding:

Activities of the Tippecanoe Arts Federation are provided, in part, with support from the Indiana Arts Commission, a state agency, with funds from the Indiana General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts.