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LINEAGE Residency Fund
The cultural landscape of Lafayette has been shaped by Basin Arts' Inaugural LINEAGE Award Winners, Cissy Whipp and Robert Dafford. These two incredibly impactful artists have rooted their careers in our community for over 40 years. But, the LINEAGE Award is not only about honoring past achievements, it is also about investing in the future of our artistic community.
In receiving the LINEAGE AWARD, Cissy and Robert, will enter into a year-long artistic residency at Basin Arts where they will work directly with artists in the Basin Arts community and beyond through mentorship, workshops, and the creation of new work.
The idea of "residency" and "residing" is at the heart of Basin Arts, knowing that where artistic creation exists, so does innovation, progress, and community collaboration.
Basin Arts is motivated to continue creating opportunities for the "artists among us" so that generation after generation of artists can contribute to the betterment of our overall community.
To make this inaugural LINEAGE Residency happen, we need to raise $5000 -- funds that will directly support our honorees and allow them to continue nurturing artistic production within (and beyond) the walls of Basin Arts.
Your support of LINEAGE will be the foundation of a unique residency program to foster the development of the next generation of artists in Acadiana -- cultivating a cultural lineage across generations and creating a multitude of intersections that will flow back into the broader community.
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ABOUT THE LINEAGE RESIDENCY ARTISTS
CISSY WHIPP
Mary Frances "Cissy" Whipp has been working as a performer, choreographer, and dance educator for over 40 years. She received her BFA in Choreographic Design from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and her MA in Performing Arts: Dance from the American University in Washington, D.C. She co-founded Louisiana’s first professional modern dance company, Moving South Dance, Inc., toured for several years with Young Audiences of New Orleans, and performed in France and Belgium with La Compagnie Louisianaise. She has taught for university dance programs at American University, George Washington University, Potsdam State University of New York, and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 1999 she joined the John F. Kennedy Center’s roster of National Teaching Artists and presents workshops nationally for teachers on integrating dance into the curriculum. She is the author of three professional development workshops for the Kennedy Center: “Kinesthetic Learning: Linking Language and Dance,” “Exploring Ecosystems Through Movement,” and “Moving Ways to Read and Write About Culture: West African Textile Art.” She recently retired as the Dance Specialist at the J. Wallace James Elementary School for Arts & Technology, where she worked for 19 years. Ms. Whipp is an Artist Fellow with LA A+ Schools. She worked for the Louisiana Board of Regents’ LOUIS project to help write an OER (Open Educational Resource) Dance Appreciation course/textbook for dual enrollment. She is piloting it at UL Lafayette, where she is currently teaching Philosophy and History of Dance.
ROBERT DAFFORD
Robert Dafford is one the most prolific and successful American muralists working today, with over 350 large scale public works in the United States and overseas. He studied art at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette and interrupted his art work to serve three years as a naval illustrator and draftsman during the Vietnam War. His first mural was a rainbow trout painted in 1969 for a fish market in Lafayette,La. His work has garnered him numerous awards--including the Bronze Medaille d’Honneur de la Suresnes, France, and an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Shawnee State University (Portsmouth, Ohio)--and has been featured in Smithsonian, National Geographic, Southern Living, the New York Times, the Seattle Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Ottawa Sun, and Le Droit.
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ABOUT BASIN ARTS
OUR MISSION & PURPOSE
Support artists.
Support artistic creation.
Connect community to artists.
Connect artists to community.
Basin Arts is an arts incubator focused on supporting Louisiana artists towards a sustainable creative practice with the goal of increasing access to professional contemporary arts experiences and creating authentic relationships between artists and the greater community.
Basin Arts supports visual and performing artists in their creative process through performance and exhibition opportunities, residency programs, public art, dance and art classes, professional development, and mentorship. Our artistic endeavors are centered around creativity, collaboration and community – the arts are a powerful vehicle to make a lasting community impact. Basin Arts believes that a direct investment into artists and creative process will be an impactful investment in the overall innovation, opportunity, and cultural identity of our broader community.
OUR IMPACT
Since 2016, we have housed over 30 resident visual artists in our studio program and 1/3 of these artists have gone on to receive advanced art degrees, teaching positions in visual arts, full-time curatorial positions, significant grant funding and more! Roughly 2500 people visit Basin Arts each year during our monthly ArtWalk Openings and we have hosted over 50 exhibitions since 2016.
The BARE Walls program now boasts a roster of over 75 artists, 1000+ pieces of artwork, 18 gallery sites including the Lafayette Regional Airport, and has contributed over $100,000 directly back to artists in our community since 2019.
Our ProjectSpace Residency is the only formalized residency program for local artists in Lafayette that provides developmental and exhibition space for multidisciplinary artists in collaboration with community. We have supported 14 distinct residencies since 2021 and have more projects slated into 2025. In 2024, Basin Arts launched its Dance Lab Residency Program, inviting professional dance artists from around the region to Lafayette for choreographic development and community engagement.
Basin Arts facilitates large and small scale public art projects throughout Lafayette including the annual Window Wonderland initiative in Downtown Lafayette, and the recent mural installation/site-specific dance performance/community block party event at Historic Four Corners.
Basin Arts is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported in part through grant funding from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Lafayette Consolidated Government, and Lafayette Travel.
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We need program partners like YOU to help us sustain and continue to advance our work. Today and everyday, we pledge to stretch your dollar and return the investment right back here to artists in our uniquely creative region of South Louisiana!
You can donate directly to Basin Arts using the form below.
Basin Arts is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. All donations are fully tax-deductible.
Verified
Organized by Basin Arts
501(c)(3) Public Charity · EIN 82-3669789
[email protected]
