Meet our Knight Arts Challenge recipients

Among the 27 novel ideas chosen to bring art into Akron’s many neighborhoods earlier this month as the winners of the city’s first Knight Arts Challenge are several projects with UA ties. The winners emerged from more than 500 applications and will share $1 million.

A project of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the challenge is a three-year effort to fund the best ideas for engaging and enriching the city through the arts.

“Art can help define and lift the soul, helping to create a sense of place and binding us to each other and to our community,” notes Alberto Ibargüen, president of Knight Foundation. “Here in Akron, where Knight Foundation was founded, our hope is that the arts will continue to build community, in neighborhoods all across the city.”  

The UA winners are:

• Theron Brown ’13, a current graduate student, who was awarded $75,000 to launch Rubber City Jazz and Blues Festival. The event will build on Akron’s musical legacy by launching a downtown jazz festival that features local and national talent.

• Allisyn Just, a vocal performance major, received $15,000 to launch a local chapter of The Cappies, the Critics and Awards program that trains high school theater and journalism students to be expert writers and critical thinkers. Local theater critics will train teams from participating schools to write thoughtful reviews on all aspects of theater, including lighting, costumes, music and acting. At the end of the year, the best pieces and their writers are honored at a Tonys-like celebration.

• Eilsa Gargarella, an associate professor of art, was awarded $45,000 to create Art Bomb Brigade, a traveling group of artists that will visit neighborhoods in need of a facelift and engage the community in public art making.

Also among the Knight Arts Challenge winners were several UA alumni. They are:

• Alison Caplan, who earned an M.S. in Art Education and is director of education at the Akron Art Museum. She will lead the museum’s team that was awarded $67,200 for the Akron Art Library, which is designed to introduce new audiences to collecting art by starting an art rental program, where any resident with a library card can check out works to display in their home.

• Shane Wynn, who holds a BFA in Photography, was awarded $5,000 to produce #overlooked, a series of photographic portraits of a cross section of women leaders in Akron set against the backdrop of underused public spaces. The series will celebrate their accomplishments while empowering them to improve the city's landscape.

• Ben Rexroad ’11, co-founder of Wandering Aesthetics, was awarded $75,000 for Bigger Than a Breadbox, providing a platform for Akron’s artists through a quarterly cabaret show of local talent that will travel to different neighborhoods. 

• Wendy Duke ’73 and ’10, co-founder of the Center for Applied Drama and Autism, was awarded $12,000 for “The Glass Menagerie Through the Prism of Autism.” This adaption of the Tennessee Williams’ play will provide audiences with a theatre experience that shows what life is like on the spectrum.