BRATTLEBORO — The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) and Elliot Street Café, will present the fourth BEAN (Brattleboro Essential Arts Network) micro-grant dinner on Sunday, January 22 at 6 p.m.
For $12, guests will enjoy dinner and the live music of the Marlboro-based duo Red Heart the Ticker at the museum and help decide which community-oriented art projects will receive the proceeds from the event.
Projects up for consideration must be submitted by Monday, Jan. 16 - online at www.brattleboromuseum.org or in hard copy at the Elliot Street Café. Proposals are welcome from anyone - individuals, businesses, non-profit organizations, and others.
The only criterion, according to the BMAC website, is that the proposed project “would contribute to the vitality of art and artists in our community and benefit from a small grant of just a few hundred dollars.”
According to BMAC Director Danny Lichtenfeld, BEAN micro-grant dinners “are fun gatherings that provide artists and others with financial support and encourage dialogue and collaborative decision-making around local art projects.”
BMAC and the Elliot Street Café have hosted three such dinners previously, which, according to Lichtenfeld, were great successes, raising $2,000 for such projects.
“That's not including the special BEAN dinner we held to raise funds for artists impacted by Tropical Storm Irene, which brought in $8,000 on its own,” he said.
Previous micro-grant recipients have included alumni of New England Youth Theatre, artist Alicia Hunsicker, dancer and early childhood educator Cyndal Ellis, Marlboro elementary school teacher Erica Morse, and In-Sight Photography Project.
In a new twist to the standard BEAN micro-grant dinner format, the event will feature live music by the Marlboro-based duo Red Heart the Ticker, comprised of Robin MacArthur and Tyler Gibbons.
With three acclaimed albums to their credit, Red Heart the Ticker draws comparisons to Will Oldham, Gillian Welch, and Iron & Wine. Their music has been described as a blend of MacArthur's penchant for '60s folk and old-fashioned country music, and Gibbons' love of jazz fusion and esoteric '60s rock.
“Our sound is born out of necessity, not some musical aesthetic,” MacArthur said. “We don't always agree on what we like, musically, but where we overlap is where Red Heart the Ticker lies.”