The truth is, it takes guts to apply for grant funding. That’s why when we award grant funding, we like to celebrate the individuals who took the time to pitch us the ideas they were passionate about and will make the WNY arts scene pop!
Special thanks to Buffalo & Brandy, Elizabeth Hayes, Gary Earl Ross and Saira Siddiqui for allowing us to interview you! These interviews were conducted in the ASI office after our happy hour celebration of Restart NY Regrant, SCR and NYSCA Individual Artist grant recipients. The good times were rollin’ so you’ll have to excuse the background noise. Apologies to Lake Plains Players, Spark Filmmakers Collaborative and the Japan Culture Center of WNY whose interview footage was corrupted due to a mistake in the filming process.
SAIRA SIDDIQUI: My name is Saira Siddiqui, that rhymes with Tyra.
KEN FERREE: Hi I’m Ken Ferree and this is my wife, Mary Ann.
ELIZABETH HAYES : My name is Elizabeth Hayes and I am a mezzo-soprano opera singer.
SS: I am a visual artist, a painter, I’m also a community development and economic development professional.
GARY EARL ROSS: I’ve been a writer and that has been my reason for being since I was 10 years old.
BB: We’ve been together traveling, performing, entertaining and in the arts since 1977.
ASI: Tell us about your grant project.
KF: What we’re doing with this new project is what’s called the “Living Stage” and we’re going to create through the electronics, a touch sensitive performance for the interaction with the audience.
EH: I’m working on the “Pants Role Project: A Coming Into Queerness Tale” which is a short experimental operatic film production.
GER: The NYSCA grant is for a thriller called “Stoker’s Guest.” It is a thriller about how Brams Stoker came to write one of my favorite books, “Dracula.”
SS: My project is called the “Peace Dots Project” and it is a play off of the idea of crime dots. What it does is it invites people to share random acts of kindness that they have witnessed and then I’m taking all of that data and creating a body of work with it.
ASI: What did you think of the grant writing process?
EH: This was one of the best narratives that I was able to come up with. I had some help from my friend in formulating the language about the project and about myself.
MARY ANN FERREE: It is one of the easiest grants that I have ever ever ever worked with. Everything is outlined. As long as you know what you need to get done by the end of the project, you keep all that in mind, it’s the easiest grant.
GER: The NYSCA grant, the $10,000 grant, $500 of which goes back to ASI, is the largest grant I’ve ever gotten for writing. It amazes me that it comes for a piece that has no social commentary at all; it’s just intended to be fun.
MAF: I encourage people, other artists, if you’re looking for an organization that’s artist-friendly, grant-friendly, etc., please do not overlook ASI because they know how to take care of the artist, basically.
SS: I mean, it was like, working with ASI definitely took the edge off. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to apply but I had a meeting with Jen (Swan-Kilpatrick), executive director, and I was just like, “This is what I’m thinking about, it is it even a good fit?” and she really encouraged me. I mean, I just needed a confidence boost in that moment.
EH: I love what you guys fund, what you do. Everybody that I’ve talked to; everyone has such different and cool and whimsical ideas. And it’s really cool.
ASI: Got any advice?
SS: I would just say “Go for it.” Go for it and try it and if you have an idea, the fact that there’s an organization in town that will help you hone in on it and all of that, it’s a huge added bonus and benefit that we have. So why not? What do you have to lose?
