Thank you so much for the wonderful cover story about the True Body Project ("True Body and the Write Stuff," issue of Sept. 7-13). ArtWorks is proud of all of its summer programs and grateful to CityBeat for its continued support and coverage of the program.
The True Body Project was one of seven spectacular summer projects and special to us for several reasons. The girls' work is brilliant, and the literary journal and film promise to be of the highest quality. We hope that more public attention will help us fund more programs like this for more youth. The hardest part of our job is to turn away qualified, motivated teens because we don't have enough funding to hire them.
Additionally, we're proud of the True Body Project because Stacy Sims has launched a nonprofit group to continue to do this work on a larger scale. We look forward to collaborating next summer on two True Body/ArtWorks programs, and we look forward to helping other artists incubate their dreams.
I also wanted to make sure your readers know that the beautiful cover art was created by Clare Rettig, one of the teen True Body artists. Although Clare was officially in a literary program, many of the youth who apply to ArtWorks are gifted in multiple media.
Finally, we were sad to see that Juliette Rawe's fantastic work was omitted. These 13 girls became so close they functioned as almost one body and one voice. Please make sure your readers get to read her words.
— Tamara Harkavy, ArtWorks Director
Editor's Note: Due to an editing error, one piece was left out of the girls' writing section. Rawe's prose can be found in the Web version of the cover story package at citybeat.com.
Could Have Been Better
As usual, your State of the Arts coverage (issue of Aug. 31-Sept. 6) did a great job recognizing the arts community in and around Cincinnati. So much is happening in the arts in this city thanks to the many hard working people willing to make it so.
I was surprised, however, not to see the founders of Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center mentioned in the article "Getting It Done." Jason Franz, Elizabeth Kauffman and Brigid O'Kane opened the nonprofit art space in Walnut Hills just one year ago, and in that short amount of time it's become one of the premier places for visual art in the area.
What they have done there is nothing short of amazing — Manifest not only presents challenging exhibitions by local, regional and national artists but also publishes high-quality catalogs (supported by a coveted Summerfair grant), provides educational programming for artists in the form of open figure drawing sessions and offers guided travel opportunities for students and artists. The local media, including CityBeat, have praised Manifest again and again for its contribution to the visual arts in Cincinnati.
The young organization has already achieved what usually takes many years to accomplish. And, I almost forgot, the staff has done this entirely on a volunteer basis!
I know it's difficult to mention everyone in the limited space of an annual arts issue. But I couldn't help but notice you had forgotten Manifest, one of the newest, most interesting and worthy additions to the visual arts community.
— Tamera Lenz Muente, Cincinnati