The Mary L. Nohl Fund Suitcase Export Fund Launches Summer Funding Cycle

The Lynden, in collaboration with the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and joined by Joy Engine (formerly Black Box Fund), announces the summer cycle of the Mary L. Nohl Suitcase Export Fund. The program, funded by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund and Joy Engine, was created to help visual artists with the cost of exhibiting their work outside the four-county area (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington counties).

The Fund is designed to provide greater visibility for individual artists and their work as well as for greater Milwaukee. To date, the Fund has supported a diverse group of 372 individual artists and twenty-two artist collectives for a total of 418 artists who have exhibited their work throughout North America, and in Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, and Asia. More than $227,200 has been awarded to artists working in a variety of media, from film to ceramics. They include well-established artists as well as those at the start of their careers. A special effort has been made to support Nohl Fellows as they exhibit work made during their fellowship year.

The Suitcase Export Fund is open to practicing artists residing within the four-county area who want to export their work beyond the area for public display. Priority is given to artists with exhibitions outside of Wisconsin. The Fund provides support in two areas: transportation of the work (packing/shipping/insurance) and transportation of the artist. Artists may apply for up to $1,500, with a $1,000 limit on each of the two categories. Funding is only provided for upcoming opportunities (exhibitions or screenings commencing between July 1, 2022, and February 28, 2023.

The Suitcase Export Fund opens twice a year, disbursing awards in response to demand until the funds for each cycle are exhausted. The Summer Cycle is now open. Approximately $10,000 will be awarded in this cycle. The guidelines are now online at http://www.lyndensculpturegarden.org/content/mary-l-nohl-suitcase-export-fund. For those without computer access, paper applications are available from Polly Morris at pmorris@lyndensculpturegarden.org or (414) 446-8794.

The Suitcase Export Fund was created to increase opportunities for local artists to exhibit outside the four-county area, and to provide more visibility for individual artists and their work as well as for greater Milwaukee. In a typical year, the fund assists as many as thirty artists, enabling them to take themselves, and their work, around the world. In the first half of the year, the fund made 14 awards.

Artists take advantage of Suitcase travel to layer on residencies, meet their counterparts (activists, organizers of DIY spaces) in other locations, or undertake research on new projects. These trips often open doors. Awardees seek out connections with local artists, and they keep an eye out for ideas and projects that could be adapted back home. As they meet other artists and collectors, or begin relationships with galleries, they are able to explore future collaborations, make plans for artist and curatorial exchanges with the host city, or make the essential contacts filmmakers require to get their work in front of an audience.

Artist Mary L. Nohl of Fox Point, Wisconsin, died in December 2001 at the age of 87. She left a $9.6 million bequest to the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. Her fund supports local visual arts and education programs, keeping her passion for the visual arts alive in the community.

The Greater Milwaukee Foundation is Wisconsin’s largest community foundation and was among the first established in the world. For more than a century, the Foundation has been at the heart of the civic community, helping donors achieve the greatest philanthropic impact, elevating the work of changemakers across neighborhoods, and bringing people and organizations together to help our region thrive. Racial equity is the Foundation’s North Star, guiding its investments and strategies for social and economic change. Leveraging generations of community knowledge, cross-sector partnerships and more than $1 billion in financial assets, the Foundation is committed to reimagining philanthropy, recentering communities and remaking systems to transform our region into a Milwaukee for all.

Joy Engine, a nonprofit organization, was founded in 2019 with the belief that art can be a positive unifying force to connect community. Joy Engine partners with local and international artists to create inclusive arts experiences that reflect the diversity of Milwaukee and that are welcoming, family-friendly, and free to all.

ABOUT THE 2022 WINTER CYCLE AWARDEES
In the first half of the nineteenth funding cycle, the Fund made fourteen awards, providing assistance with shipping and travel to fourteen individual artists. We were also able to see projects through to completion from the previous cycle that had been postponed during the pandemic. The awards made in the 2022 cycle took (or are taking) artists—six of them Nohl Fellows–and their work to Los Angeles and Santa Paula, California; Duluth Minnesota; New York City; Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; Tacoma, Washington; and Appleton, Wisconsin. Destinations abroad include Winnipeg, Canada; Caylus and St. Erme, France; Berlin, Germany; Verona, Italy; and Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

For further information about the Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowships for Individual Artists program and Suitcase Export Fund, please visit lyndensculpturegarden.org/nohl.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.