Kristin McWharter, 2015 AHA Grant

Say Hello To. . .

KRISTIN McWHARTER

2015 Artists Helping Artists Grant Recipient

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FROM Baltimore, MD to THE VERMONT STUDIO CENTER in Stowe, VT
“I am thrilled to be a recipient of the Artists Helping Artists Grant. This opportunity has provided me with time and space to fully commit myself to a new work titled “Hear Charm City” at the Vermont Studio Center. The work aims to bring the voices of Baltimore City Community members to an easily accessible, public platform through a series of 30 second animated videos posted in an online format. These videos hope to foster and encourage open communication within the Baltimore community as well as sub communities and cultures within the city. The project is scheduled to launch to the public in March 2015.” — Kristin McWharter, 2015
Kristin McWharter is a multi-disciplinary artist working and residing in Baltimore, Maryland.  Her work, often in the form of immersive sculptural installations, videos, and viewer-inclusive performances, is an exploration of how groups socially choose to connect or created distance and how the personal experience of awkwardness manifests from within those groups. The boundaries of social intimacy and personal narrative physically and visually manifest themselves in her work as she uses performative objects and environments as a means to invoke viewer’s individual relationships towards proximity, competition, sincerity and comfort.
 
She recently has begun a new body of work addressing how personal narratives, when recounted, have the ability to profoundly move and motivate us as viewers. As such, she has embarked on a series of short animations inspired by street interviews through which she attempts to capture the importance of personal narratives and use their sense of intimacy to instill a sense of agency within individuals and communities.

Kirstin McWharter’s Website: http://kristinmcwharter.com

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On behalf of Rate My Artist Residency, Kristin McWharter, was awarded a $200 unrestricted grant to offset the cost of attending The Vermont Studio Center in Stowe, Vermont. McWharter is one of three grant recipients based in the United States that demonstrate financial need to be able to attend a residency they have been accepted to in 2015.
Our Hopes, at Rate My Artist Residency, is that the grant inspires artists to keep helping each other and enables the opportunity to attend an artist residency anywhere in the world.
Thank you to the following contributors on our indiegogo campaign: Charlotte Henning, Ben Seretan, Molly Segal, Liz Harney, Sarah M. Divi, Becca Wallach, Amanda Bonaiuto, Katrina Neumann, Piero Passacantando, Helena Hsieh, Christopher Ford, Joanna Tam, Sue Burickson, Loretta Park, Paula Damasceno, Aaron Finbloom, John Guy Petruzzi, Kimberly Ruth, Eunice Choi, Andrea Rosen, Stephanie M Clark, Sarah Witt, Sarah Folts, Shannon Gilbert, Emmy Bean, Alma Leiva, Carrie Ruddick, Kira Simon-Kennedy, and Rate My Artist Residency. 
A Special Thank You to a dear friend and contributor, Crystal Ruth Bell, co-founder of China Residencies and Constant supporter of RMAR’s Dreams and Goals, whom recently passed away in 2014. Too Young. Too Soon. You Are Missed. Every. Day.