Get your attention??  Good!

I just wanted to announce our five newest Open Arts Network partners and was getting sick and tired of using the same “Welcome to Our New Partners” title.  So, I thought I’d change it up a bit by playing around with the names of our newest partner organizations, all of which joined in the past month:  New Wilmington Art Association, League of Chicago Theatres, SOFA Network (Southern Ohio Filmmakers Association), InLiquid, and the Minnesota Theater Alliance.  Here’s a little bit about each….

New Wilmington Art Association of Wilmington, DE, is actually the fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas member Michael Kalmbach.  The organization supports the careers of artists by providing opportunities for uncensored experimentation, professional presentation, and critical dialogue.  NWAA plans to permanently insert artists into the infrastructure of Downtown Wilmington. Strategic alliances with progressive community development corporations will guarantee space for artists in the face of economic development’s shifting landscape. They are developing a competitive artist residency program and recruiting new artists through its program of exhibitions, both of which will help to transform the community and create new audiences through artistic interventions. NWAA also hosts artist lectures, studio visits, panel discussions, and a series of professional workshops.

The League of Chicago Theatres is an alliance of theaters which leverages its collective strength to promote, support, and advocate for Chicago’s theater industry locally, nationally, and internationally. Founded in 1979 by a handful of theaters formerly known as the Off Loop Producers Association, today the League’s membership includes 190+ member theaters.  Membership reaches into all regions of the metropolitan area, from the North Shore to Aurora, and members range from storefront, non-union theaters with budgets under $10,000 to major cultural centers with multi-million dollar shows. Members’ needs are as varied as their profiles, and the League bridges the gaps between their diverse members with programs, services and activities that directly impact administrative and artistic operations, as well as promote awareness and visibility for live theater as an art form. The League leverages the strength of the theater community as a whole, developing partnerships and facilitating internal and external networks that individual theaters cannot accomplish on their own.

SOFA Network is an organization that represents the filmmaking community of the tri-state area of southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and southeastern Indiana.  The mission of the Southern Ohio Filmmakers Association (SOFA) is to serve and develop the greater Cincinnati regional filmmaking community. The vision of SOFA is to offer an open exchange of ideas, resources, knowledge, and professional opportunities to our members. Through this empowerment and our combined resources, they will continue to expand the artistic and economic opportunities for locally-produced media and the filmmakers who create it.  SOFA helps film professionals, students, and freelance crew people build and grow through educational workshops, demonstrations, and speakers. It provides members a venue to screen their work through a film festival called “Underneath Cincinnati.”  They help filmmakers build their network, advance their skills, and introduce them to opportunities to make a living in the field they love.

InLiquid, of Philadelphia, PA, is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to providing opportunities and exposure for visual artists and designers, serving as a free public hub for arts information and resources, and making the visual arts more accessible to a broader audience. More than just an online presence, InLiquid also nurtures their creative community through a continuing series of venue-based art exhibitions and events.  By providing the public with immediate access to view the works of over 260 artists via the web, through “real world” activities and exhibitions, and through an extensive online body of timely art information – including gallery listings, articles, reviews, artist resources, links, and discussions — InLiquid hopes to bring to light the richness of our region’s art activity and broaden audiences for all forms of visual art.  InLiquid was founded in 1999 by local artist Rachel Zimmerman under the observation that the Philadelphia region boasted a huge number of talented visual artists, yet only a small fraction were seen by the public, and the artists themselves were not actively engaged in dialogue and cooperation. Through regular partnerships with other cultural organizations, including the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and the Painted Bride Art Center, InLiquid has brought considerable local exhibition opportunities to its membership base; through such events as “Artists Outside the Box,” a public discussion on nontraditional artist-curators, they have stimulated interaction and dialogue among separate artist groups. InLiquid’s partnerships have introduced their artist community to the work of many different organizations, encouraging them to become tangibly active in, and exchange inspiration and knowledge with, a world outside of their immediate cultural environment.

Finally, the Minnesota Theater Alliance is a brand new organization based in the Twin Cities that is being incubated by another Open Arts Network partner organization, Springboard for the Arts.  The mission of the Alliance is to leverage the collective strengths of Minnesota’s theaters and theater professionals to promote, support, and advocate for the Minnesota theater industry locally, nationally, and internationally, believing that theater is an essential public good, critical to a healthy and truly democratic society and invaluable as a source of personal enrichment and growth.  Leah Cooper, the Alliance’s founding executive director, formerly led another Open Arts Network partner organization, Minnesota Fringe.  The Alliance seeks to become a model of unique partnerships, fostering collaboration and cooperation between Minnesota theaters and theater professionals, striving to provide resource sharing, advocacy throughout the general public, a strong network of communications between members and between the membership and the public (both existing and potential audiences), while supporting the individual visions of its members and partners.

Welcome to all of our new partner organizations!!