LOVE

Grant Alexandra Grant

Description

A collection of works from the groundbreaking grantLOVE philanthropic art project What is love? In LOVE: A Visual History of the grantLOVE Project, artist Alexandra Grant's exploration of that question is documented through a retrospective of her journey engaging in civic art. In 2008, Grant began making editions of her art based on the concept of love and her trademarked LOVE symbol to raise money for arts projects and nonprofit organizations, and this philanthropic art experiment became the grantLOVE project. Partnering with other artists, makers, customers, and to support art projects and nonprofits, Grant explores how philanthropy and art can effectively intersect. This comprehensive history of the grantLOVE project-complete with paintings, prints, sculptures, textiles, jewelry, and architecture-provides a visual meditation on what "love" is, as conceived by Grant and the numerous collaborators showcased here. Compiling more than fourteen years of grantLOVE works and partnerships, this book invites you to reflect on the confluence of philanthropy and the arts and celebrates building community around the roles of love and empathy in contemporary art and culture.

Informations

• Publié par: ABRAMS BOOKS
• Date de parution: 06 décembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781647008000
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

Phillip Griswold. Massif (love) , 2021. Oil on mat board on panel with digital painting and design, 11 x 14 inches.
Alexandra Grant for grantLOVE, in collaboration with Oscar de la Renta. LOVE (coral, aquamarine, light pink, amber), 2020. Foil prints on acid-free cardstock; 14 x 11 inches. Four editions of 100 + 20 APs. Printed by Maggie Lomeli; curated by Yasmine Zodeh.
Katharine Schudel from central Nebraska.
Project Angel Food staff Franklin Hall, with LOVE neon.
Alexandra Grant, Love, Love, Love (blue), 2018. Colored pencil, collage, acrylic paint and gouache on paper, 37 35 inches.

Nyamal Gony from Nasir, Sudan.
It is easy to love and sing one s love. That is something I am extremely good at doing. Indeed, that is my art. But to be loved, that is true greatness. Being loved, letting oneself be loved, entering the magic and dreadful circle of generosity, receiving gifts, finding the right thank-you s, that is love s real work.
-H l ne Cixous The Book of Promethea 1
1 . H l ne Cixous, The Book of Promethea, trans. by Betsy Wing (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 20.
CONTENTS
WELCOME LETTER
Alexandra Grant
FOREWORD
Roxane Gay
POEM
Define Love by Eman Alami (What is LOVE? by Alexandra Grant)
COLLECTORS
The Seavey-Sermchief Family

PART 1: 2008-2009
ESSAY
The Six Portals by Alexandra Grant
ESSAY
The Origin Story by Alexandra Grant

Love tattoo!
ESSAY
Early Days of grantLOVE Watts House Project by Alma Ruiz
PROJECT
Moneik Johnson and the Love House
COLLECTORS
Nancy Berman Alan Bloch
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE Alisa Ratner
COLLECTOR
Joy Simmons
NONPROFIT
Project Angel Food

PART 2: 2010-2016
ESSAY
Battles by Alexandra Grant
ESSAY
Trademarking the LOVE Symbol by Alma Ruiz
ESSAY
Rebirth by Alexandra Grant
ESSAY
Art Nonprofits and Fundraising by Alma Ruiz
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE Joshua Norton
COLLECTORS
Mark Mikal Eckstrom
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE Devon Tsuno
NONPROFIT
HOLA
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE HOLA Students Alumni
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE RISK
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE ZINK

PART 3: 2017-2021
ESSAY
Growth by Alexandra Grant
ESSAY
Contemporary Artists Stores and Pop-ups by Alma Ruiz
NONPROFIT
X-TRA Contemporary Art Journal
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE andSons Chocolatiers
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE Adr nus Craton
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE ARIZ
COLLECTOR
Kathy Waites
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE Oscar de la Renta
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE Cachetejack
PROJECT
Hammer K.A.M.P.
NONPROFIT
Fresh stART
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE Hartjess
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE Amber Sakai
INTERVIEW
The grantLOVE Cosmology: An Interview with Alexandra Grant by Cassandra Coblentz

PART 4: 2021-INFINITY
ESSAY
Future by Alexandra Grant
ESSAY
The Legacy of grantLOVE by Alma Ruiz
COLLABORATION
grantLOVE Ellie Middendorf
COLLECTOR
Gidi Cohen
POEM
Love, Another Way to Say to Be by Eman Alami

Writers Biographies

grantLOVE Beneficiaries

Index of Searchable Terms

Acknowledgments

Love Cookie recipe

Colophon
Dana P. Helton, Water Oak Glass Art for grantLOVE. The grantLOVE Sunflower, 2020. Stained glass.

Welcome to the grantLOVE project!
Whether this project is new to you or you are a long-term supporter, I m thrilled that you re here and part of this community.
As an artist, I create work about ideas. In my studio practice, where I m a painter, I look at the concept of love philosophically, as well as aesthetically, and think a lot about the spiritual contemplation that seeing art offers us.
But I m also dedicated to taking action toward social justice. After years of being asked to make art to donate to various art auctions and fundraisers, I decided I wanted to be able to find a way that I could give more away and more creatively without negatively impacting my studio work. In 2008, I began making editions of my art based on the concept of love to raise money for arts projects and nonprofit organizations. This philanthropic art experiment became the grantLOVE project.
Since 2008, grantLOVE has helped raise more than $300,000 from the donation of our editions directly to partner nonprofits and from my personal profits from direct sales of LOVE works. What has been striking about this project is the collective action it inspires and the fun I have had of working together with so many artists, makers, customers, organizations, and organizers to find new ways to be philanthropic.
The grantLOVE project is small but, like other collective actions, makes a point. My first museum pop-up shop in 2020-2021 at the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA)-which opened to the public for only twenty days because of the COVID pandemic-led to the museum acquiring a work by artist Carolina Caycedo. The goal was to help increase the number of female-identified artists of diverse background in OCMA s permanent collection.
The launch of my 2020 print collaboration with Oscar de la Renta was also canceled due to the pandemic, but we were still able to raise $20,000 for Project Angel Food s (PAF) Emergency Food Fund within six months through online sales. Past grantLOVE awards and donations have helped support numerous nonprofits, and this book is a celebration of many of the editions and artists, makers and supporters that have been part of the grantLOVE project to date.
My efforts in this volume are to gather together all endeavors made under the grantLOVE umbrella-the scrappy and the elegant, the successes and the failures, the big and the small-and I couldn t have done it without the creative efforts of my collaborators, whom you will get to know a little better in these pages. While I ve written a guided tour, I ve relied on the expertise of curator Alma Ruiz to share her insights about the art history and established business norms the project has touched on. Curator Cassandra Coblentz and I share here an exchange typical between an artist and curator who dream big. Writer Eman Alami was invited to infuse the book with her philosophic musings on the nature of love itself. And I m delighted that both H l ne Cixous and Roxane Gay s voices, whose words I love, could join in this celebration.
I m proud of the work we ve done together and the people we ve worked with and for. I m excited to see what the future holds and am so glad you re here with me for the journey.
In community and with LOVE,
ALEXANDRA GRANT
Alexandra Grant grantLOVE OCMA proposal image, 2019.

Foreword An Ethos of Abundance
BY ROXANE GAY

I am surrounded by love-my family, my friends, and my wife. I am loved in ways I never imagined were possible. At times, it is overwhelming and kind of terrifying. I think, When will this end, and how will I survive without all this love to which I have become accustomed? I know what it means to be loved well, to be seen, understood, respected by the most important people in my life. I know what it means to love well, to care for and take care of my loved ones. And, I hope, I also know what it means to love beyond my intimates, to care for my community, to contribute, to err on the side of kindness. Sometimes, I fall short, but I do at least try.
Professionally, I am a writer. I m also a college professor. I m an editor. Sometimes I am a podcaster. I do a lot of public speaking. I work across several genres-novels, short stories, memoir, essays, creative nonfiction, comics, film, and television. Everything I do is important to me, but the most valuable and necessary work I do is in service of other writers. There is the time I spend in the classroom, nurturing emerging writers, though it is by no means a one-sided relationship. Students are invigorating to my own creative practice. They are smart and imaginative and funny. They bring so much enthusiasm to creative writing and the possibilities of the written word, especially at the undergraduate level.
Each semester, I make sure that every student knows I already believe that they are good writers. With that understanding, our primary task together is to evolve as writers, to understand ourselves as our greatest competition. I am not trying to be motivational; that s not my ministry. I genuinely believe every student is a good writer and just needs help with figuring out how to most effectively use their voice, how to tell a compelling story. When students leave my classroom, I hope they ve learned something valuable and that they want to keep writing.
Beyond the classroom, I do my best to be an active participant in the literary community-showing up for other writers in whatever ways I can, mentoring emerging writers, writing blurbs for as many books as I can, creating publishing opportunities for writers to get their work in the world and be reasonably compensated for that work, always making sure that if I am the first writer who shares any aspects of my identity to do something, I won t be the last. I try to always remember that it is better to believe in an ethos of abundance instead of an ethos of scarcity, which is to say that it is hard to make it as a writer, but it isn t impossible. Our culture may not prioritize creativity, but there are a great many people in the world who care about books and art and music and theatre. We are not the generations who will bring about the end of the creative world.
Whenever I am onstage looking out at an audience, I marvel at the enthusiasm of readers and how generous they can be with their time and energy. It was at one such event that I reconnected with Alexandra Grant, whose creative and community work are the impetus for this book. We actually went to high school together some thirty years ago, and then we graduated and moved into the next phases of our lives. When she came up to me, we were about to serve on a panel in Grand Forks, North Dakota, of all places, at the University of North Dakota s annual writer s conference. Alexandra remembered me