The creation of an "Art Church" in Danby and a "Corn Street Garden" in downtown Ithaca are among the 1999 community outreach projects to be funded through new grants awarded by Cornell University's Council for the Arts (CCA).

Four grants of $2,000 each were awarded for the first time in January under a joint project with CCA and the Cornell Faculty Fellows in Service Programs and with the support of the Rose Goldsen Fund. The grants help fund creative public service efforts of Cornell faculty and students who collaborate on off-campus projects that benefit communities in our region, nationally or abroad.

"We hope this will be the first of a continuing collaboration between the CCA and FFIS," said Anna Geske, CCA's executive director, "and, in 2000, more faculty will propose projects creatively involving students in community outreach in the arts."

The following projects were awarded $2,000 plus expenses for documentation of the completed project. After completion, the projects will be publicly presented in the form of exhibition, video, photographs and-or performance.

• Jim Self plans to create an "Art Church" in West Danby. Self, a dancer, choreographer and faculty member in the dance program in Cornell's Department of Theatre, Film and Dance, will collaborate with Brandon Miller '97, an installation artist, choreographer and community member. The project will bring Cornell students in art, architecture, theater, film and dance together to work with community members in the creation of an art venue for public performances, installations and workshops. The processes of building, performing, teaching and documenting will be carried out this spring. Public venues include an installation-performance, three movement workshops and a one-day open space performance.
• Felecia Davis, architect and visiting assistant professor in architecture, is working on the design and construction of an easy care garden-play area that will actively involve architecture and landscape architecture students. Called the Corn Street Garden, it will enhance a space in the city of Ithaca between supportive houses for homeless individuals and families in transition operated by the Economic Opportunity Corp. of Tompkins County (EOC). As part of a fall 1999 course, the project will serve as a model to provide students in architecture and landscape architecture an alternative educational design experience and the opportunity to work with community action organizations.
• Stan Taft, painter and Cornell associate professor of art, will work with Jon Katz, EcoPartners coordinator in the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP), and students to execute a series of murals in the mountain village of El Limon in the Dominican Republic. Use of teleconferencing technologies and digital transmission-manipulation of visual materials allows residents of El Limon to send drawings and paintings they have generated for the murals directly to students at Cornell. These are organized into images suited to the various wall surfaces to be painted. Cornell students traveled to El Limon over spring break to participate with that community and five students from the School of Fine Arts in Santo Domingo in painting the murals. One may follow the progress on the El Limon Mural project by visiting the following web site: <www.sas.cornell.edu/cresp/ecopartners/art/mural.htm&gt;. The entire process and the completed mural will be documented in a video for use as an educational tool and for public presentation.
• Dorothy Fennell, director of special projects at Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) extension campus in Manhattan, along with volunteers and Cornell students in ILR and Theatre, Film and Dance, will produce a public history arts event in Union Square Park on May 15, during Labor History Month. The performance and walking tour is produced and directed by Matthew Macguire, playwright, author of the science fiction opera Chaos and OBIE award-winning co-artistic director of Creation Production Co. in New York City. The event also features a series of dramatized readings and musical performances based on historical events that took place in the park. Mary Pearsall, graduate student in landscape architecture at Cornell, is collaborating in researching the design history of Union Square Park.

Recognizing the valuable role of the arts in social change, faculty members Paula Horrigan, associate professor of landscape architecture, and Risa Lieberwitz, associate professor in ILR, are actively engaged in establishing and continuing these collaborations with the community.