Sarah Anne Johnson Needs Your Vote

Sarah Anne Johnson, Ben, 2005 from The Galapagos Project I recall the first time seeing Sarah Anne Johnson's work thinking that if someone had explained the work before hand I would've scoffed. Thankfully I encountered her work without that knowledge and discovered her wonderful interplay between photographs, and memories/interpretations of an event through sculptures. Her installation at Julie Saul Gallery consisted of sculptures, photographs, photographs of sculptures, photographs of kids camping in the woods recreated after sculptures of a memory of the same event, etc... Sarah's work is one of the rare ones where she can effortlessly combine all this media and I can say that the work exists as a whole. (Though her portrait above has me downright jealous). Well Sarah like many of us needs cash. In fact she's up for a sizable sum of $50,000 and she needs your votes to get it. The Grange Prize is an annual award given to Canadian and International photographers. You can vote easily online here for Sarah or any of the others.

I Need Your Help

Last August I posted on proposed budget cuts to the Illinois State Arts Council. Arts funding has continued to dwindle in the United States for years now even though some of our superstarblockbusterfavorites were often only able to make their work through government support. It is amazing that this is even an issue; art organizations, individual artists, museum exhibitions, etc... all get affected. Without grants the ability to survive as an arts organization or artist becomes dependent on commercial venues and profitability of art work. Your community of art depends upon venues, without support those venues will cease. What you can do.... • Join the online petition here. • If you live in Ohio or Texas vote ;) • Demand that your states increase not decrease budget funding for the Arts. • Spread the word. Update: Ed Winkleman also takes up the cry for Arts Funding in relation to a certain democratic candidate from Illinois, and says it much more eloquently than me.