Donor Circle for the Arts Pitch

I am working on a 3 minute live grant pitch to the Donor Circle for the Art grant funded by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. I recorded a screen casting (using Camtasia) of my powerpoint run thorough. The final presentation will be more dynamic as there will be three of us talking and I will have props of fabric and other materials to share. Hopefully we can get a hold of an existing street banner to show, too.

The Awesome Foundation

In my attempts to find ways to fund the street banner project in Alum Rock, San Jose, I have been lucky to get a lot of feedback on how to both approach "crowd funding" better and other online grant opportunities. A friend told me about the Awesome Foundation and with a name like that, how can you not check it out! I applied a few weeks ago and will see what happens.

I had an interview with a writer of the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers a few weeks ago and they may be running a story after the 25th. I hope so as it could drive up visits to my Kickstarter: http://kck.st/fhbHwt

Next Wednesday I will be giving a second round grant pitch for the banner project to the Donor Circle for the Arts, a grant provided by funders of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. I will be presenting with two others: a teacher from Alum Rock and a representative of the Alum Rock Education Foundation. This is an unusual stage setting and only three minutes to present. I have a lot of work cut out to make an engaging presentation...we are the last presenters of the evening and I know the donors will be so exhausted from listening to all the presenters at that point.

Eye Writer....art with a purpose

I was looking up the term "Pecha-Kucha" (reading about it in Presentation Zen) and found this video....blew my mind. It shows how technology coupled with the sheer passion, creativity and determination of a creative team can profoundly impact an individual's ability to communicate. I had to watch over and over. I love how the project enabled an individual to communicate creatively once again with the world. I have mixed feelings about graffiti, but really like this digital version in which anything can be the canvas, spectators can watch the art as it is created and the wall remains unmarked. Elegant and moving on so many levels.

http://www.pecha-kucha.org/presentations/210

Zach Lieberman is the artist who created the above Eye Writer presentation. Here is his website: http://thesystemis.com/

Here is another video about the project:

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

foundation to donate to for the project: http://notimpossiblefoundation.org/

Kickstarter, continued

Well, today I officially have 31 days left to my Kickstarter effort.
The You Are Here Street Banner Project http://kck.st/fhbHwt

I have also applied for four other grants to fund this project and won't know if anything has come through to fund this vision until March. I did learn yesterday that my application partnering with the Alum Rock Education Foundation passed the first round of the Donor Circle for The Arts Grant. This grant program is funded by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. We will be giving a 3 minute presentation on the project idea in a black box theater in Palo Alto on February 23rd.

Like all the education projects I become involved with, I am in a big learning curve!

Great environmental animations

Here are a few environmental animations. I am beginning to research these for a project next year. I will be sharing these with students:

Sharing and learning technology tools

Last week I gave a Google Calendar presentation and now know how to share my powerpoint online. It was a very step by step session. There is no audio here as it was an on site demo. I like it that you can view it full screen if you go to slideshare and click on the full screen button.

Google calendar presentation

View more presentations from Corinne Takara.

Digital Banner Textiles with Children

As I have mentioned before, I am crafting a workshop series that will introduce children to textile design and which will hopefully result in street banners in the spring of 2011. I am in the last month of a Kickstarter drive to raise funds for this project.
Students at a San Jose, California school and at a Hawaii school have participated in the lead in introductory components of the project.
I have set up a website for the You Are Here workshop series.
Here are samples of the student work:
Hawaii 4th grade student radial pattern explorations

and here:
San Jose 5th grade student radial pattern explorations