Elevate #YouthVoice This #Giving Tuesday
Donate Today to Give Youth Access to Art and Amplify their Voices
In a way, the musical“Newsies” was a seed for this. In 2014, staff from PNC Louisville in Broadway and the Courier Journal, where I was the arts writer, had an idea. They would join forces to rally teens to attend touring production and review the show. They asked me to talk to them about ahead of time about American musical theater and how to write a review.
After seeing the show, my then-editor, Jana John, and I scrutinized their pieces to choose those to run in the newspaper. More than a few dozen teens from as far as Paoli and Elizabethtown came to do this. I was floored.
Several years later, I left the newspaper and thought about the future of the arts, writing about the arts, and how young people connected to local arts and writing. I found wonderful collaborators and what now is Arts Angle Vantage, a program of Arts Journalism Trust, emerged.
We have attained some successes (a list below details some of our recent ones) and plan to achieve more. That’s where you come in.
Tomorrow is #GivingTuesday and we need your help to reach our $5,000 goal. Whether you contribute $10 or $10,000, you enable us to continue uplifting youth
voices in our community and connecting them to art and artists. Any donation amount helps! Because the organization is a 501(c)(3), your donation is tax-deductible.
Your generous gift will help our team achieve new program goals and reach more teens in new ways to give them meaningful experiences. Our programs have connected more than 50 teens (ages 14-19) with local arts and artists and amplified their voices through storytelling. These programs provide fulfilling moments when participants see their bylines published in local media.
Attaining our financial goals is essential to enable us to reach new heights as we construct and implement a new strategic plan with program alumni and build a new website. Work on both has already begun. We also are planning a new Louisville HeARTS program with Home of the Innocents (serving teens, of course) and reprising our Earshot, Audio Storytelling program.
We hope you join our community with a one-time or recurring donation. If there is anything you would like to discuss, feel free to contact us at hello@artsanglevantage.org.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Kramer
Director, Arts Angle Vantage/Arts Journalism Trust
SUCCESSES OUR DONORS HELPED US ACHIEVE
Art of the Profile: Arts Angle Vantage held its first workshop where teens learned interviewing and profile writing skills that they applied with guest artists Amy Attaway, Kentucky Shakespeare’s associate artistic director, and artist Ed Hamilton. The session with Hamilton also included journalist Chris Kenning who wrote a profile of the artist. The teens got to ask both guests about the interviewing process for the profile. With donor support, we were able to have extra computers on hand for participants who didn’t have their own and provide logistical support. • An impressive result was how participant Adam West applied what he had learned. He chose to write a profile of Louisville Orchestra Creator Corps composer Tanner Porter which ran in LEO Weekly’s Under21 issue.
Earshot: Teens interviewed artists, curators, and other youth while covering opera and visual art in this new workshop about audio storytelling over the summer. They received hands-on coaching in telling fact-based stories using sounds and how to use equipment and computer programs to gather and organize those sounds. A highlight was the concluding listening party at the Speed Art Museum showcasing the teens’ work. Donor contributions helped us furnish participants with equipment and cover logistical reporting and event costs.
HeARTS: During our participation in the inaugural Louisville HeARTS program in Louisville’s South Louisville and Beechmont community centers, teens wrote about other participating artists and took photos. Those photos are now part of a continuing exhibit at the Beechmont Community Center. Donor support enabled our organization to purchase equipment for the teens, who used DSLR cameras (or digital single-lens-reflex cameras) and received coaching from a professional photographer.
New Community Connections: Our organization has made connections with organizations to bolster our participants’ access to resources in different ways. In 2024, the University of Louisville’s Department of Communications designated Arts Angle Vantage as a Community Partner, giving our programs access to departmental expertise, smart classrooms, and Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning’s Digital Media Suite. • Our organization also collaborated with Louisville Youth Group to connect its members with Actors Theatre of Louisville’s production of Jonathan Norton’s “Art You Delivered’T.” We supported several members who wrote about the play.