By SOFIA SINGHER

The Delaware Valley Arts Alliance will offer an exciting new grant category this fall. Administered through their Decentralization (DEC) Program and funded by the New York State Council on the Arts, Artists in the Community will award up to four grants of $2,500 each to individual artists living in Sullivan County. All creative (not interpretive) artists are urged to apply. Students are not eligible.

Artists in the Community will give accomplished artists an opportunity to make new and significant work while involving the community, or a part of their community, in some aspect of the creative process, not merely as an audience for the finished work. For example, local farms could be the subjects of a poem sequence; or a series of paintings could be based on interviews of area residents about an historical event, the texts of which would be included in the exhibition.

Artists in the Community grants will be awarded on a competitive basis by a panel of artists representative of the art disciplines of the applicants. Funding decisions will be based on the quality of the work as exhibited by the support materials submitted. There will be a required grant-writing seminar in September and further assistance will be available on an individual basis throughout the grant-writing process.

Guidelines and applications for Artists in the Community will be available later this summer. The deadline for application submission is October 27. For further information about the grant, or to be considered as a panel member, please call Sofia Singher at 845/252-7576.