Cooper grants help local artistic talent to flourish

Jun. 30—The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is quoted as saying, "The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude."

This week, four local artists are experiencing a healthy amount of gratitude for the support of their work courtesy of the Cornelia Dozier Cooper Endowment Fund.

On Monday, four $1,000 checks were given out by Cooper, one of Pulaski's most passionate patrons of the arts, and Peggy Sherry, who works diligently on the grant project on behalf of Cooper, at Sherry's home.

Cooper, wife of the late Ricard Cooper and sister-in-law of the late U.S. Senator John Sherman Cooper, has received the state's prestigious Milner Award, recognizing outstanding philanthropic, artistic, or other contributions to the arts, joining other names such as former governor Julian Carroll, local author Harriet Simpson-Arnow, eastern Kentucky writer Jesse Stuart, and author and activist Wendell Berry. Since 2006, the Cornelia Dozier Cooper Endowment Fund has provided funding for different artists around the communities who submit an application based on a specific project on which they're working.

"We decided this year to select applicants who hadn't gotten the grant before, because we've done several repeats before," said Sherry. "There were so many interesting applicants that we thought we should just go with the people who hadn't gotten the grant before. We look at the impact that the grant would have on the community, and we especially love it when youth are involved. ... We were so excited about the quality of the applicants and the variety."

Funds for the grants are generated by the annual Nutcracker Ball event in December. This year, enough money was raised for four grants of $1,000 each.

"It started out as just two grants a year, and then one year, there was a third one we really wanted to give, and before we knew it, there were seven or eight that we really wanted to give, and we had enough money," said Sherry. "The number of grants just depended on (the amount raised)."

The recipients included:

—Erica Spurgeon, 4-H Extension Agent, for plans to create a 4-H Theater Club.

"We don't have that many opportunities for youth in the theater," said Sherry, noting the work of previous grant recipient Lake Cumberland Children's Theatre in that field. "Erica said that people think 4-H just has to do with livestock and farming, but actually they do all kinds of activities for the youth and this was one they were excited about starting.

—Elizabeth Loiacono, for the training of callers and musicians for and the promotion of Somerset Contra Dance.

"That group has grown, from a small group doing their dances in church halls to performing in the (Lake Cumberland Farmers Market) with live music, and people from Berea come down for that," said Sherry. "They really want to have a workshop to expand, to teach new callers and include new musicians."

—Local art student Glenna Denny, for a painting series focus on natural beauty.

"She is doing beautiful paintings and is hoping to become an art professor," said Sherry. "She is working on a project involving the evolution of monarch butterflies. She's (going to) include Kentucky wildflowers. She's very talented."

—Todd Clayton of The Makers Mill in Somerset, related to an artistic Foucault pendulum project, a device originally created in the 1850s to demonstrate how the earth moves.

"A lot of people don't know what a Foucault pendulum is," said Sherry. "There's one in the central library in Lexington, and there's also one in the Smithsonian. It's a large pendulum that swings slowly and turns with the rotation of the earth. ... The one that they were hoping to build at Makers Mill would involve being able to apply paint to the pendulum, so you could create a piece of artwork through the swinging of the pendulum. Then they were going to do a workshop with the youth so that they could understand how it all works."

As always, the recipients of the grants were happy to have extra money courtesy of the Cornelia Dozier Cooper Endowment Fund to make their artistic projects a reality.

"The money will be used to help train local dance callers and musicians to help further the community-building tradition of folk dance," said Loiacono. "We are grateful for Cornelia's commitment to building strong families and strong communities through the arts."

Added Denny, "I feel very honored to have received a grant and to have met Cornelia Cooper at the check presentation."