Knight Arts-funded project still seeks matching funds through Kickstarter campaign
— “Made-Up with Danny Volk: The Akron Sessions” announces the eight artists that will be interviewed for the next season of the show. The popular You-Tube series kicks off its seventh season in Akron as a winner of the Knight Arts Challenge this September with eight live performances.
The project was awarded a $12,500 matching grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The show is an artist interview series where Volk asks artists questions while they create art on his face using everyday makeup. Danny’s face is revealed at the end of the interview, creating a fun and exciting climax to the informative conversation.
Featured artists are:
+ Hui-Chu Ying – Print Maker and professor at The University of Akron
+ Kate Budd – Sculptor and professor at The University of Akron
+Mahwish Chishty – Multi-media artist and professor at Kent State University, Recipient of a 2017 Guggenheim Fellowship
+Shani Richards – Metalsmith, Alumnus of The University of Akron and SUNY New Paltz
+Elisa Gargarella – Art Educator/Administrator and professor at The University of Akron
+Breanne Trammell – Multi-media artist and former professor at Kent State University
+Jennifer Ling Datchuk – Ceramicist, Kent State University alumnus, lives San Antonio, TX, Recipient of the 2017 Emerging Voices Award from the American Craft Council
+Isabel Farnsworth – Sculptor and professor at Kent State University
Eight interviews will be scheduled as live events at local venues. The selected interviewee artists live, work or have ties to the Akron region. The events will be free of charge and open to the public. The official schedule will be announced later this summer on www.madeupwithdannyvolk.com. Videos of the interviews will be available for a larger national and international audience via the series YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/user/MUwDV).
This seventh season of MUwDV will also include a bio-fictional story that will complement the interviews and incorporate an extended array of Akron cultural producers and hotspots. Teasers and clips of the bio-fictional narrative and the spring 2017 fundraiser, when Danny interviewed Victoria Rogers, VP of the Arts at Knight Foundation, will be posted on the Made-Up with Danny Volk social media platforms to give viewers a taste of what is to come.
The project has also received additional support from the Akron Community Foundation with a grant of $2,500 to help match the Knight Foundation’s $12,500 grant. A Kickstarter has been launched to help raise a portion of the matching funds for the project. Reward levels offer sponsors incentives such as night cream from local cosmetics company bodisafe Beauty, an exclusive enamel pin, a tote bag made by Danny Volk and even your own private Made-Up event where Danny will come do an interview with the person of your choice. The Kickstarter campaign can be found here: http://kck.st/2uqVLp0.
For info, visit www.madeupwithdannyvolk.com or follow the series on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Danny Volk is an Akron native living in Chicago who earned his M.F.A. in Visual Arts from The University of Chicago. He has done six previous seasons of Made-Up with Danny Volk in Chicago and the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada as a way to promote artists and organizations. He has interviewed nationally and internationally recognized artists such as Jessica Stockholder, Pope.L, and Theaster Gates using this platform.
