VOA标准英语2010年-Spooning Out Funding for the Arts

For the cost of a bowl of soup, St. Louis residents become art patrons

David Weinberg | St. Louis, Missouri 18 May 2010

Funding for the arts has been hit hard by the economic downturn. So many local groups have turned to small-scale private donors¹.

Patrons like Amelia Collete Jones and Maggie Ginestra, partners and art lovers, who wanted to help put money into the hands of local artists.

Sloup

They started with about 25 people and a pot of soup on a rainy Sunday evening. Attendees milled around a downtown bookshop holding hot bowls of carrot leek² soup and talking about which art project they planned to vote for. 

Sloup attendees enjoy a soup dinner before casting a vote for the proposed art project of their choice.

It was the first night of Sloup, a now-monthly soup dinner where everyone gets a meal for just $10. Diners also receive a packet containing proposals from various artists. At the end of the evening, they cast their vote, and the project with the most votes gets all the proceeds from the dinner. 

"I don't really see it as a competitive sort of thing," said Jordan Hicks, one of the artists who submitted a proposal at the inaugural³ dinner. "It's just a fun night to get together." 

For his project, Hicks collaborated⁴ with a couple of photographers and an art historian to create a set of postcards about urban decay and population decline in St. Louis. If awarded the Sloup grant, he planned to print dozens of sets of the cards and leave them around the city in public places. But the important thing, he said, wasn't the money. It was about sharing his project with the community. 

"If anything a lot of people will see the cards that I've never met before and didn't know about the project, so either way it's a good night," he said. 

Artist Claire Wolf also submitted a proposal. She's the assistant director of the Urban Studio Cafe, a local nonprofit coffee shop and social outreach center. 

"All of the profits from coffee and food sales will fund arts programs and community programs for the neighborhood," she said. 

If Wolf were to win the grant, she planned to buy a silkscreen printing machine for the cafe. "We're really wanting to market ourselves, but we don't have a lot of money, and I think it will be a really cool way to do our own printing of our own apparel and involve some of the youth in the area."  

Amelia Colette Jones with her friend, Maggie Ginestra (seated), at the venue⁵ where they hold Sloup.

Patrons for a pittance⁶

Enjoying her second helping⁷ of carrot leek soup, Annmarie Spitz said that coming to a Sloup dinner was a chance for her to support the arts in a way that she hadn't been able to before. 

"I wouldn't consider myself a patron really because I don't have any money, but that was what was great about Sloup was that I felt like I could be a patron with $10." 

The day after the inaugural Sloup, the votes were tallied⁸, and the winner, by a very narrow margin⁹, was Claire Wolf's proposal for the screen printing machine. 

A couple weeks after the dinner, the screen printing was already in action at Wolf's coffee shop. Neighborhood kids were drying silk screens with a squeegee. It was clear that the machine is a big hit. 

"It actually cost $239.99 and our Sloup grant was for $240," said Wolf. "So it was perfect." 

Accessible art

From the time Wolf submitted her proposal to the day she purchased the screen printer was less than a month. 

"That's a very quick turnaround," said Jeff Hnilicka, cofounder of an organization called FEAST. It stands for Funding Emerging Artists with Sustainable Tactics and is one of the groups that inspired Sloup. He says getting an arts grant is usually a protracted¹⁰ process... 
"It takes a year-and-a-half to go from writing a proposal to implementation¹¹. Your idea and what you're responding could have drastically changed in that period of time." 

Hnilicka spends a lot of his time traveling around the country helping groups set up their own monthly dinners. There are now events like Sloup in Boston, Portland and Chicago and the number is growing. 

Since the first Sloup in St. Louis three months ago, each dinner has attracted more artists and diners, which has helped bring more exposure to artists and larger grants.

The hope is that this model will not just change the way art is funded but change the relationship between artists and patrons, making the art world feel less exclusive and more like a dinner party with friends.
 

1 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 leek   

n.韭葱

参考例句：

• He is always confusing wheat with leek.他对麦苗和韭菜总是辨别不清。
• He said the dumplings with the stuffing of pork and leek were his favourite.他说他喜欢吃猪肉韭菜馅的饺子。

3 inaugural   

adj.就职的；n.就职典礼

参考例句：

• We listened to the President's inaugural speech on the radio yesterday.昨天我们通过无线电听了总统的就职演说。
• Professor Pearson gave the inaugural lecture in the new lecture theatre.皮尔逊教授在新的阶梯讲堂发表了启用演说。

4 collaborated   

合作( collaborate的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾结叛国

参考例句：

• We have collaborated on many projects over the years. 这些年来我们合作搞了许多项目。
• We have collaborated closely with the university on this project. 我们与大学在这个专案上紧密合作。

5 venue   

n.犯罪地点，审判地，管辖地，发生地点，集合地点

参考例句：

• The hall provided a venue for weddings and other functions.大厅给婚礼和其他社会活动提供了场所。
• The chosen venue caused great controversy among the people.人们就审判地点的问题产生了极大的争议。

6 pittance   

n.微薄的薪水，少量

参考例句：

• Her secretaries work tirelessly for a pittance.她的秘书们为一点微薄的工资不知疲倦地工作。
• The widow must live on her slender pittance.那寡妇只能靠自己微薄的收入过活。

7 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

8 tallied   

v.计算，清点( tally的过去式和过去分词 )；加标签（或标记）于；（使）符合；（使）吻合

参考例句：

• The girl tallied them with her eyes for a moment. 新娘用目光把这些化妆品清点了一下。 来自教父部分
• His account of the accident tallied with hers. 他对事故的陈述和她的相吻合。 来自辞典例句

9 margin   

n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘

参考例句：

• We allowed a margin of 20 minutes in catching the train.我们有20分钟的余地赶火车。
• The village is situated at the margin of a forest.村子位于森林的边缘。

10 protracted   

adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The war was protracted for four years. 战争拖延了四年。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We won victory through protracted struggle. 经过长期的斗争，我们取得了胜利。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 implementation   

n.实施，贯彻

参考例句：

• Implementation of the program is now well underway.这一项目的实施现在行情看好。