Public Space One Launches Campaign for New Headquarters

Public Space One (PS1) is creating a permanent home for artistic experimentation and community in downtown Iowa City in two historic houses at 225 & 229 N. Gilbert Street:

—a gallery embedded in a welcoming community space

—increased space for the Iowa City Press Co-op, a community-access educational print and book arts studio, with a new dedicated classroom space
—a public reading room & archive for The Center for Afrofuturist Studies
—a dedicated residency studio for the CAS and Free Studio Residency
—light-filled private studios for local artists

—an outdoor space for community gatherings and creative events of all kinds 

Please visit PS1's Kickstarter campaign site to learn more about this vibrant community arts organization and how you can help fulfill the vision for their new space. 

Kickstarting CursiveLogic

At a time when cursive writing is being dropped from the curriculum of countless schools around the United States, Linda Shrewsbury has developed a simplified teaching methodology that significantly reduces the amount of time necessary for mastery of this fundamental literacy skill. Her Kickstarter campaign ends shortly, but it has already surpassed its fundraising goal, thus ensuring that the teaching materials will be produced for broad dissemination. More information on the method can be found at the CursiveLogic website.

Sex and Broadcasting: A Film about WFMU

The long-awaited documentary about freeform radio station WFMU by filmmaker Tim K. Smith will be having its world premiere at the DOC NYC film festival on November 15 & 17, 2014. Originally entitled Freeform or Death for its Kickstarter campaign, which raised over $81,000 from 736 backers during the summer of 2012, the film is now called Sex and Broadcasting, after the book of the same name by community radio pioneer Lorenzo Milam.

WFMU first hit the airwaves on April 24, 1958 at the now-defunct Upsala College and has never looked back. Currently based in Jersey City, New Jersey, WFMU broadcasts at 91.1 Mhz and via a second signal at 90.1 Mhz in Mount Hope, New York. The station has also been a leader for years on the Internet, streaming in multiple formats and archiving all shows online.

Kickstarting the Morbid Anatomy Museum

Spearheaded by Joanna Ebenstein, creator of the Morbid Anatomy blog in 2007, the Kickstarter campaign for the new Morbid Anatomy Museum located in Brooklyn, New York has just surpassed its goal of $60,000. There is, however, still another five days to contribute to this worthwhile project, which will:

. . . feature permanent and temporary exhibitions, a café/bar, a gift shop, an expanded library and more ambitious programming. It will be a beautiful and inspiring space to foster our unique international community of supporters, friends, artists, rogue scholars and like-minded enthusiasts; a place which enshrines that which we hold dear, a place to study, to delight; a place to “meet the others.”

To learn more about this ambitious undertaking, visit the Morbid Anatomy Museum project page on Kickstarter. Ebenstein, along with co-editor Colin Dickey, recently concluded another highly successful Kickstarter project with the publication of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology, a well-illustrated and handsomely-produced volume of essays on a number of fascinating topics.

Kickstarting the Morbid Anatomy Anthology

Joanna Ebenstein of Morbid Anatomy is joining forces with author Colin Dickey to edit and produce the Morbid Anatomy Anthology, "a lavishly-illustrated book comprising a collection of articles based on some of the best of the Morbid Anatomy Presents lectures and presentation series." The Morbid Anatomy Library and Cabinet is located in Brooklyn, NY, and is dedicated to "surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture." Numerous scholars, writers, museologists, morticians and scientists are signed up to contribute works to the anthology, and more on the project, including a short video, can be found at the Kickstarter project page 

"my eyes are not shut"

"my eyes are not shut," an exhibition of photographs by Sandra Louise Dyas, opens at the Anderson Gallery at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa on September 7 and runs through October 12, 2012. A reception will be held from 5 to 7 pm on Friday, September 7, and the artist will give an informal gallery walk beginning at 6:30 pm. The exhibition received great support through a recent Kickstarter campaign, and features a new body of work. In January, Dyas published a book of the same name through Blurb, which serves as the template for the upcoming show. An earlier book, Down to the River: Portraits of Iowa Musicians, was published in 2007, and is available from The University of Iowa Press. "Caroline Flies" is the title of Dyas' photograph shown above.

Kickstarting "Freeform or Death": A Documentary about WFMU

Directed by Tim K. Smith, Freeform or Death is a documentary about iconoclastic freeform radio station WFMU. With support through his Kickstarter project, Smith intends to:

. . . share the intimate story of New Jersey’s WFMU, the world’s longest-running freeform radio station, and one man’s attempt to keep it independent and alive in the face of a recession, the persistent threat of commercial media, and the challenges that come with keeping a rebellious group of outsiders together.

With 24 days to go, Smith's project has attained 2/3 of his funding goal with over 300 backers. Two brief videos as well as further information about the documentary can be viewed at Kickstarter.

Kickstarting "Shell Game"

"Shell Game: An Art Show about the Financial Meltdown" is a Kickstarter project by artist Molly Crabapple. As she describes it:

Shell Game is an art show about the world financial collapse, and the people who have risen up in protest against it. I'll create nine giant paintings about the different parts of the collapse and the global movement fighting back (including Goldman Sachs, Greece, and Occupy Wall Street), but filter them through my lens of burlesque, surrealism, satire, and symbolic animals. Then, I'm going to rent a storefront in New York city, rig it out like a gambling parlor, and invite the city and the Internet to check it out for a week.

Crabapple's project has already elicited widespread support from over 600 funders, more than doubling its $30,000 goal well before deadline; pledges may be made at Kickstarter until March 27, 2012. The image shown here, entitled "The Great American Bubble Machine," is the first in a series of nine large (6' x 4') paintings planned for the project. Of related interest is the illustration Crabapple executed for The People's Library at Occupy Wall Street.

Kickstarting "Take This Book: The People's Library at Occupy Wall Street"

"Take This Book: The People's Library at Occupy Wall Street" is a Kickstarter project to document the eventful history of the library, which evolved quickly in the early days of the Occupy Wall Street movement in NYC (see earlier Common Curator posts: The Occupy Wall Street Library and The Destruction of the People's Library).

Author Melissa Gira Grant describes the project as follows:

This is one story of the People's Library at Occupy Wall Street, as told to me by many of the librarians behind it: how the library began, what happened after the November 15 raid on Zuccotti Park, and why they're rebuilding. It's a story about books, danger, and freedom.

Take This Book is an extended essay -- just over 10,000 words -- based on the stories of the librarians and the library's patrons. (Maybe you were one of them.) It can't be the whole story, because it's still happening.

If successful in reaching her fundraising goal, Grant intends to publish both an ebook and print version of her essay. For further details, or to contribute, visit the Kickstarter website.

Note: The poster shown here was designed by the artist Molly Crabapple, and is being offered as a premium for supporters of the project.

Kickstarting "The Ludlow Project"

The International Printing Museum in Carson, California is currently seeking backers for The Ludlow Project via Kickstarter. With significant holdings of historical presses and materials important for the study of printing and graphic design, such as the Earnest A. Lindner Collection of Antique Printing Machinery, the Museum proposes to:

. . . .to rescue a collection of approximately 100 full fonts of antique Ludlow Typecasting matrices, catalog & organize the fonts into our working collection & digitize Ludlow Type Specimen books with notes on available fonts for letterpress projects. Along with the Museum's other metal, wood type fonts, these matrices will be available for casting type to be used by museum patrons, graphic designers & letterpress printers nationally for all kinds of projects including letterpress poster and business card printing, invitation and greeting card printing projects and creative jewelry making and art projects. We will also develop and offer training and classes on Ludlow operation and maintenance to ensure Ludlow's legacy. The success of the project would make this the largest active collection of hot metal type in the world available to the public.

Consider supporting this worthy initiative; to learn more, visit the Kickstarter website.

Kickstarting "To Catch a Dollar"

The Common Curator only just heard about this Kickstarter project, but consider supporting filmmaker Gayle Ferraro as she works to complete the documentary, "To Catch a Dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on America." Professor Yunus is a pioneer of microcredit, and in 2006 was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Grameen Bank, which he founded in Bangladesh.

Ferraro describes her project as follows:

The film follows Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Yunus as he brings his unique and revolutionary microfinance program to the US. We witness the birth of Grameen America and the compelling stories of the first women borrowers; from the challenges they face to the successes they achieve, as they learn to sustainably lift themselves and their families out of poverty by starting and growing their own businesses with the education, support, and non-collateral microloans they receive.

As of early afternoon September 19, 2011--the last day for funding--the project has garnered over 100 backers but is still short of its $20,000 goal. To learn more, visit Kickstarter.

Update: With a final burst of support, "To Catch a Dollar" surpassed its goal, netting $20,909 from 118 backers.