Have you experienced awesomeness? Well Experience Counterpoint might get you close. They’re a guerrilla chamber orchestra dedicated to pushing the boundaries of classical music and performance art who won the March DC Awesome grant for their project “Audio Warhol”. We hope that with our support, Experience CounterPoint can bring their next exciting performance to a wider audience to experience awesomeness! You can listen to some of Counterpoint’s work here: http://www.experiencecounterpoint.org/experience/listen.html Here’s what they had to say about winning the Awesome Foundation Grant: Winning the Awesome Foundation DC grant is something that couldn’t come at a better time for us. We have recently finished a few amazing events, but we are still bursting with innovative ideas! While we would love to not have to think about it, money is definitely a major concern when we are creating and executing a project. This grant will help us bring to life one of our new projects: Audio Warhol. The Awesome Foundation’s support will help spur an exciting and artistically sophisticated experience for both the audience and CounterPoint to enjoy. It will be truly Awesome and we can’t wait to plan it. CounterPoint is about inclusion, bringing music and art to all people. As… read more →
Over at AF-San Francisco, we’ve been a little bit obsessed lately by the “X a day” category of Foundation applications. They’re discrete, highly do-able, and result in a ton of awesome products being released into the universe. We had such a great time seeing Meredith Scheff’s Scarf-A-Day project take shape last month that we decided to follow up that grant with another project that takes the model in a entirely new and great direction. To that end, thrilled to announce that our March Awesome Fellowship goes out to the endlessly wonderful Bay Area artist Adam Davis, who is embarking on a mission to paint one hundred bite-sized (around 4” x 4”) and big sized (yet to come!) paintings of dinosaurs over the next month or so. He will then engage in a worldwide hide-and-seek game, caching the dinosaurs in secret locations and releasing clues (some clues leading to yet more clues) to their location on his project blog. Once the dinosaurs are located, they are yours to keep. Four have been located so far around the Bay Area (including this crazy story and the first dinosaur being hidden at the weird and wonderful Jejune Institute), and there’s many more on… read more →
Come one, come all to our 2nd ever Awesome Foundation Los Angeles party to celebrate our new grant recipient, Jail Door Guitars! We definitely had a lot of fun last time (incriminating pics here). Details about the Fresh Bruises party can be found here and make sure you RSVP here. The $5 cover goes straight to the bands performing and will get you in for an open bar all night long! The fun night is hosted by our friends at Family Industries and sponsored by Brand X, Indigenous, and FILTER magazine. In addition to a ton of awesome live bands playing (Tape Deck Mountain, Handshakes), there will be live screenprinting, an art gallery, interactive VR stations previewing a new casino real money app, classic arcade cabinets, the Grill Em All food truck, AND (everyone’s favorite) a hosted bar with drinks all night long from PBR, Red Bull, Alexander Valley Vineyards, and Jarritos! We love seeing ya’ll out there so please join us for this awesome event!
Drumroll please…Awesome LA has decided to award our 2nd grant to Jail Guitar Doors! Jail Guitar Doors USA is a non-profit that believes in providing new solutions for prisoner rehabilitation. They provide musical instruments, public concerts, and outreach programs to inspire hope and creativity in prisoners who have taken an oath of non-violence. In just 18 months, they have delivered over 30 guitars and various amps into 6 different prisons in California, Texas and New York state! Here’s how it all began (according to the Jail Guitar Doors website): In 1978, The Clash released the song, “Jail Guitar Doors.” The song tells the story of the imprisonment of their fellow musician Wayne Kramer. In 2007, to honor the life of Clash founder, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg launches an initiative in England to provide musical equipment used to rehabilitate inmates serving time in Her Majesty’s Prisons in the United Kingdom. His initiative is named for that very same song, “Jail Guitar Doors.” In 2009, Wayne Kramer partners with Billy Bragg to found Jail Guitar Doors USA. Together, their combined effort continues the mission for prisoners in America. The circle is unbroken. This Awesome grant will go towards their next visit to the… read more →
Awesome Foundation Melbourne is excited to announce the second grant recipient of 2011, aMoment. aMoment’s project spreads awesome across our special city through art; leaving small reminders – teacups, baby hammocks, all with their own message – in the nooks and laneways of Melbourne, for locals and visitors to stumble upon. The message is simple – a reminder to take a moment and slow down, in a frenetic urban environment that can sometimes sweep us away. We’re looking forward to the next ‘drop’, a suprise for Melburnians and visitors around Easter. Read aMoment’s application below: Hello, I am aMoment. I am the street art name for a creative lady who doesn’t usually do street art. You see, I think we all get a little too busy too often. You know, walk around with blinkers on and such. You see, when things get too fast, I think we lose perspective a bit. We get flustered, make bad decisions, get our priorities a little mixed up. This makes me upset So. I wanted to do something to make people to stop for “aMoment”, take a breath and give their day just a little bit of space. And this was how aMoment came… read more →