Articles by E. James Ford
Staff Profile: Adam J. Natale, Director of Member Services
What do you do for Fractured Atlas? I keep members happy by managing the many services we offer and by developing new programs for independent artists. I also develop partnerships with other arts organizations to provide artists across the country with our services as well as offer our member's access to our partner organization's programs.
What do you think is the most significant way you help members? By finding out what members need,...
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Member Profile: Asian Pacific American Film Festival
The Asian Pacific American Film Festival was founded in the year 2000 by a small group of people that wanted to expand access to independent films being made by Asian Americans. In the seven years since, the festival has had tremendous success in bringing these unique voices to a broader audience.
"We've really grown in terms of the number of films we show and the number of days that the festival runs," says Anna Petrillo, one of the board...
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Member Profile: Looking Glasses
Several years ago, Fractured Atlas member Joshua Frankel was touring Northern Ireland. One of the stops on the tour was an attraction called the Peace Wall. "I expected some sort of wall covered in murals commemorating the peace process," says Joshua. "In fact, the 'Peace Wall' is a twenty-five foot high wall topped with barbed wire that separates Protestant neighborhoods from Catholic neighborhoods. With no opportunity to meet each other,...
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Board Profile: Amy Wrzesniewski
Amy Wrzesniewski is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Yale University and is also the Chair of the Fractured Atlas Board of Directors. Her academic research has focused on how people make meaning of their work in challenging contexts.
"There is a great deal of harmony between my research and the work I do with Fractured Atlas," explains Amy. "I study why people see their work as a job, career, or calling, and what the...
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Benefit Report
Fractured Atlas held its annual benefit at the West Side Loft in New York City on November 9th, 2006. The event was a tremendous success and saw an enormous outpouring of dedication and contributions from our members, patrons, sponsors, and Board. Our heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who showed up to support the Fractured Atlas community!
We would especially like to thank our premier sponsors: The Alliant Insurance Group, Dance Magazine,...
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Member Profile: Play it by Ear Productions
In the 1950's, the writer Norman Corwin asked a little girl which she liked better, TV or radio. The little girl said she preferred radio "because the pictures are better."
That girl has a kindred spirit in Fractured Atlas member Lance Roger Axt, the artistic director of Play it by Ear Productions. Play it by Ear is an audio theatre company devoted to the development and distribution of original plays for radio, the internet and compact...
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Member Profile: Project Shaw
Project Shaw is an ambitious undertaking that will present every play written by George Bernard Shaw as concert readings at New York's legendary Player's Club.
The driving force behind the project is Fractured Atlas member David Staller, the Artistic Director of Gingold Theatrical Group and a lifetime Shaw aficionado. "Shaw's voice has been an anchor of reason for me during most of my life," says David. "It serves as a reminder that it's...
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Staff Profile: Arwen Lowbridge, Program Director, Fiscal Sponsorship
What do you do for Fractured Atlas? I help more than 600 sponsored artists and arts organizations in 44 states who participate in our fiscal sponsorship program to raise more than $2 million per year. I am also the fundraising instructor in our Professional Development program.
How does your work help Fractured Atlas members? Our fiscal sponsorship program gives artists the ability to supplement the revenue they earn from producing...
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Partner Profile: David Leicht, HIP
In 2006, Fractured Atlas offered two new full-featured healthcare plans to its New York members with comprehensive hospital and medical benefits. The plans became available thanks to a long-standing association with HIP/NY and, in particular, the efforts of HIP Association Representative David Leicht.
"I was approached by Adam last winter about the possibility of Fractured Atlas coming on as an association through HIP," says David. "I...
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Treva Wurmfeld
"I see technology as a tool that can be integrated seamlessly with the human mind," says Fractured Atlas member Treva Wurmfeld, a filmmaker, sculptor, and performance artist who will be featured at this year's benefit. Her work explores the relationship between biology and technology and how human beings are adapting to a world in the midst of rapid change.
"As humans become more dependent on computers, it is important to explore the...
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Defining Success
Artists have a complicated relationship with success. The desire for success is what motivates many artists to do what they do, despite the hurdles they face. But once they have embarked on their career, many artists learn a hard lesson: It is impossible to pursue success without first taking the time to define it.
So, how do you define success in terms of your career as an artist? Perhaps the answer begins with sustainability. Can you...
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Evelyn Chan
The Arts Wellness Network is a network of artist-friendly healthcare providers who offer preferred access, special services and/or discounted rates to eligible members of Fractured Atlas. It was established to provide an alternative to health insurance for artists who are unable to afford the prohibitive costs of traditional plans. Practitioners in the network offer services ranging from preventative care to mental health to alternative...
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William Harvey
Of all the artists featured at this year's Benefit, few are as well-traveled as violinist, composer, and Fractured Atlas member William J. Harvey. Over the past two years his project Music for the People has ventured to Zimbabwe, Moldova, the Philippines, and Tunisia to present concerts, classes and workshops to underprivileged populations. He considers his music a form of cultural diplomacy.
"Cultural diplomacy is distinct from the...
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Reel Venus Film Festival
Melissa Fowler launched Reel Venus Film Festival in July 2003. The Festival is a three day event that celebrates the diversity of film and video work by emerging and established women filmmakers. The 4th Annual Festival was held in July 2006 at NYC's prestigious Peter Norton Symphony Space and drew submissions from all over the world, including the UK, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and Korea. Selections from this year's festival will be...
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Alexandra Gray, Director of Development
What do you do for Fractured Atlas?
I design and oversee all of our direct fundraising activities.
How does your work help Fractured Atlas members?
Our members are at the center of everything we do, so I focus on them in every grant application. Any grant-maker that receives a proposal from Fractured Atlas gets an education about the emerging arts community. I like that I'm contributing to increased awareness of emerging artists...
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Strength in Numbers
Since the founding of Fractured Atlas, there has been one guiding principle inherent in all of our programs and initiatives: strength in numbers. Artists, as a rule, are a nationally fragmented community all trying to make it on their own and usually trying to differentiate themselves from each other rather than find commonalities. While the "do-it-yourself" attitude often fuels the passion of artists, no individual or company...
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Fractured Atlas Member Profile: Antonia Fairchild and Sarah Overman
"It's that moment when you identify someone you want to work with," says Fractured Atlas member Sarah Overman of her experience seeing fellow member Antonia Fairchild's production of Diary of a Chambermaid . "I basically sought her out, excited at the prospect of collaborating with someone in possession of the kind of drive and passion as I possess myself."
That moment has led to a fruitful collaboration between these...
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Dynamic Headphones: Fractured Atlas Member Profile
"The experience of listening to headphones in public is very disorienting for me," says Michelle Rosenberg, a Fractured Atlas sponsored artist whose series of installations titled dynamic headphones explores our relationship with these peculiar little beasts. "When you put on headphones, you effectively move into a private place. But it's a little strange to be private in a public place. As a headphone user, you risk alienating people."
...
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The Virus as Idea
When you talk about viruses, you're usually talking about something bad. You might be referring to a bout with the flu, but nowadays you're probably talking about something dreadful that has happened to your computer. Viruses get a lot of play as destructive little programs that crawl around the internet annihilating everything in their path. They spread through e-mails, web sites, pop-ups, or file sharing programs and bear names like...
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The Karel Husa Project: Fractured Atlas Member Profile
"I was the only music major in my class at Cornell University," begins Mark Mandarano, the conductor and composer behind the Karel Husa Project, a recently approved sponsored project of Fractured Atlas. "There was a class called orchestral conducting. From what I gathered, it hadn't been taught for years because there had to be at least five students enrolled. So I went around campus and rounded up anyone I could to take the class. Finally, we...
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The Phatory: Fractured Atlas Member Profile
The Phatory is a gallery in New York City's East Village that was founded by Fractured Atlas member Sally Lelong, a visual artist in her own right who became frustrated by the lack of feedback available working in a studio. "There can be too long a gap between creating a work and exhibiting it to maintain an ongoing dialog," says Lelong. "I often envied those artists who had storefronts to work in."
Fortunately for Lelong, a storefront...
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Works Productions: Fractured Atlas Member Profile
A Fractured Atlas member since 2002, Works Productions is a New York City based multimedia organization that was recently honored with three Drama Desk Award nominations for Julian Rad’s adaptation of Moby Dick. They used Fractured Atlas’s fiscal sponsorship program to raise more than $12,000 from both individual and corporate donors such as AT&T.
“Our use of the term multimedia is not the same as the current popular...
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Fiscal Sponsorship vs. Getting Your Own 501(c)(3): The Case for Fiscal Sponsorship
You have to be a little crazy to work in the arts. Profit margins have never been high for the creatively inclined and those in the industry need support from the community to keep themselves afloat. That support can come in the form of grants, individual contributions, or in-kind donations. But ask anyone how to get your slice of the pie and you'll find the same advice repeated ad nauseum: Incorporate as a not-for-profit and get
your...
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Busking Bonanza: Fractured Atlas Member Profile
Each issue of the Fractured Atlas newsletter we will be profiling a member artist whose work harmonizes with our own “strength in numbers†approach to an artistic community. This issue we look at Subjective Theater Company, one of our oldest fiscal sponsees.
A member of Fractured Atlas since 2002, Subjective Theater Company is guided by a philosophy of accessibility. At the core of its mission is the belief that theater...
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