MNartists.org
Encyclopedia
mnartists.org is a free online arts hub with programs and daily updated information for Minnesota's
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 artists and arts lovers. The web site hosts a database of information and artwork from more than 15,000 artists and arts organizations around the state. Supported by the McKnight Foundation
McKnight Foundation
The McKnight Foundation is a philanthropic organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. The foundation's interests lie in the environment, the arts, community development, and other areas....

 and the Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...

, mnartists.org is dedicated to bringing artists and audiences together, providing news and information about the Minnesota arts scene, and fostering dialogue on matters of importance to the arts community.

History

The McKnight Foundation
McKnight Foundation
The McKnight Foundation is a philanthropic organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. The foundation's interests lie in the environment, the arts, community development, and other areas....

 partnered with the Walker Art Center's
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...

 New Media Initiatives group to develop mnartists.org as a result of its 1999 "Cost of Culture" survey of Minnesota artists, revealing the economic survival struggles of several individual artists. From its inception in 2002, mnartists.org has been home to original arts writing published every week and written by a diversity of 35 freelance critics and journalists covering visual art, music, theater, literature, film, new media, design, and dance around the state.

Resources

mnartists.org provides multiple online artist resources, including the twice-monthly e-mag access+ENGAGE, which features cultural events and artist opportunities, as well as artist profiles and selected articles from the main website. The mnartists.org blog features local arts news and notable cultural trends affecting Minnesota’s arts scene, while the member-driven arts calendar provides a guide to the cultural events in the region. An opportunities list provides news and job openings for artists and arts professionals working across every arts discipline throughout many areas of the state.

Off-Line Programming

mnartists.org also presents community events and arts programs throughout the year, including visual arts exhibitions, concert series, literary programs, film screenings, artist workshops, and more. In addition to its online offerings, mnartists.org also hosts juried competitions
Juried (competition)
A juried competition is a competition in which participants' work is judged by a person or panel of persons convened specifically to judge the participants' efforts, either by the competition's stated rubric or by a subjective set of criteria dependent upon the nature of the competition or the...

competitive arts series, which provide local artists opportunities to put their work before a jury of professionals in each discipline from around the country. mnLIT, a program consisting of the What Light Poetry Project and miniStories, a flash fiction competition for local authors in any genre, is mnartists.org's showcase for Minnesota's poets and writers. Through mnLIT, mnartists.org publishes an original poem or short story by a Minnesota writer each week. mnartists.org also offers a number of opportunities for live readings through the year at various venues by the series' winners. mnSPIN, mnartists.org's local music program, spotlights the region's diversity of musical talent via a weekly playlist selected by a panel of artists and professionals working in the music industry. In 2008, mnartists.org hosted live listening parties and professional seminars for musicians. ARTmn, launched in 2009, is a visual art series devoted to providing a juried exhibition opportunity to artists around the state. ARTmn competitions ended with open call for Minnesota artist work, the winners of which are showcased in an exhibition at Hennepin County’s Central Library Cargill Gallery in Minneapolis the next fall.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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