JOB DESCRIPTION – PUBLIC ART DIRECTOR

Project Row Houses (PRH) is seeking to hire a creative and energetic professional with a passion for working with community to serve as the Public Art Director. Working closely with both the PRH Founder and Executive Director, the Public Art Director will realize PRH’s artistic goals, provide oversight of the year-round art programs and events, and implement the day-to-day responsibilities of the program.

PRH is a neighborhood-based nonprofit art and cultural organization in Houston’s Northern Third Ward, one of the city’s oldest African-American communities. With a mission to transform community through the celebration of art and African American history and culture, PRH has established programs that encompass arts and culture, neighborhood revitalization, low-income housing, education, historic preservation, and community service. For further information, visit www.projectrowhouses.org.

The Public Art Program provides opportunities for local, national and international artists to create original projects within the context of the Historic Third Ward neighborhood.  Utilizing ten of the original 22 shotgun houses and various other locations around PRH’s ten-block site, we offer a variety of artist programs which include: The Artist Rounds, Summer Studios, Incubation Projects and Special Artist Projects. 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Artist Projects

• Planning, organizing and managing the twice yearly “Rounds” of artist projects in seven shot gun houses, including related events/ workshops and opening receptions; of annual “Summer Studio” residencies and projects, including field trips to Houston artists, curators, museums and community organizations
• Primary point person for all artists prior to and during their time at PRH
• Oversight of long-term residencies, studio rentals, and Incubation program
• Create artist contracts for all participating artists/projects

Special Projects

• Reaching out and making connections in the community and working collaboratively with organizational partners
• Programming for the main office space, Dupree Park billboard, organizing the annual fundraising art auction (physical and online), and site specific artist projects
• Overseeing Public Programs – those not directly related to projects on view, such as Movie Nights, Black History Month, etc.

Development/Marketing Support

• Assist Development Director writing and compiling images for art-related grant applications
• Coordination with Marketing/Communications Manager and graphic designer to create printed materials
• Responsible for the coordination of the physical and digital art-related items within the PRH Archives with Marketing/Communications staff

Other Duties

• Participation in weekly staff meetings
• Working collaboratively with the other PRH programs (Education, Young Mothers Residential Program and Row House CDC) in cross-programming opportunities
• Other related duties, as assigned

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES: This position has direct supervisory responsibility for the weekend docents, art-related work study students and interns.

QUALIFICATIONS: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required: 

EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE:    

• Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts, Art History, Arts Management,  or some other related field from an accredited university; advanced degree is preferred
• Five years Curatorial and/or Arts Administration/Management experience in non-profit arts and/or community organization(s)
• Experience organizing and managing site-specific artist projects and working closely with artists

OTHER SKILLS:

• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Community minded, able to communicate well with a variety of personality types and flourish in a multi-disciplinary, diverse and dynamic environment
• A team player, works well both independently and collaboratively
• Flexibility and problem solving skills; ability to multi-task and to be highly detail oriented
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint),  Adobe Photoshop ,Word Press, Constant Contact, and Social Media

WORKING CONDITIONS (TRAVEL, HOURS AND ENVIRONMENT):

• This is a full-time, exempt staff position with full benefits
• Requires periodic weekend and evening work
• No more than 25% travel
• Employee should be able to lift up to 25lbs

Salary will be commensurate with the applicant’s background and experience. The position will remain posted until it is filled.

Please submit your resume and a thoughtful cover letter that clearly describes how your skills and experience meet the qualifications of this position to cflores@projectrowhouses.org (please DO NOT call).  Additionally, be sure to explain your interest in working at Project Row Houses. 

Note:  All duties and responsibilities listed may or may not be considered essential job functions and requirements. Marginal functions of the position (those that are incidental to the performance of fundamental job duties) have not been included.   However, the omission of specific statements of duties does not exclude them from the position if the work is similar, related or a logical assignment to the position.

Project Row Houses is committed to equal opportunity and nondiscrimination in all programs and services, and does not discriminate on the basis of race/ethnicity, color, religion and/or sex (including marital status and/or sexual orientation) national origin, ancestry, age, disability, or veteran status.

Join Nameless sound at the Historic Eldorado Ballroom and experience Jazz Legend, Alvin Fielder, live in concert.

Friday, January 20, 2012, 8pm

Eldorado Ballroom
2310 Elgin Street
Houston, TX 77004

$13 General, $10 Students
Everyone under 18 gets in for free

Visit http://namelesssound.org for more info.

 7-9 p.m 

2310 Elgin Eldorado Ballroom

The Idea Fund will be honoring the 2011-2012 grantees with a reception on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, from 7-9 p.m. at the Eldorado Ballroom. This reception is open to the public. Reception will feature light appetizers and drinks. For more information visit:  ww.theideafund.org   

Since May of 2010 Project Row Houses (PRH)  has been working with Hunt to create a map of the Third Ward Community, with particular focus on PRH’s 10-block site as well as the surrounding 35 block area that PRH refers to its immediate community.

Through Hunt’s ongoing conversations with community members and questions about what it even means to make a map today, the project expanded into a framework for community-based research, featuring five parallel activities and numerous collaborations with artists and organizations around the Third Ward.   

The title, “Communograph,” combining “community” (communo-) with “writing” (-graph) grounds this research in “a writing of community from the perspective of the community itself.” In this way, each research activity serves as a platform for community members to enter into conversation, thinking about authorship in different ways.   With the aim of building local questions, knowledge, audience and interpretation, the final map will serve as an atlas for community members and institutions.

These five platforms include:

Communograph House (2505 Holman Street), an exhibition of research-based artworks by Houston artists, featured in one of the Art Houses as part of Round 35.  Participants include:  Regina Agu, Lisa Harris, journey, Michael Khalil Taylor, Rebecca Novak, and Ifeanyi “Res” Okoro.  The exhibition is organized collaboratively between the artists and the project’s organizers, project manager Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle and Ashley Hunt.

Communograph: Mapping Community Through Creative Action,  a series of public programs presented in collaboration with the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts (MC).  This series was curated by Bree Edwards (MC) and Ashley Clemmer Hoffman (PRH) and features artist talks by Mel Chin, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, a conversation between Rick Lowe and Ashley Hunt, and architectural and photography tours of the Third Ward, led by Stephen Fox and Ray Carrington.   

Sidewalk Talks,  a neighborhood conversation series that will take place in front of the Communograph House twice a month and is being organized by the artists from the Communograph House and members of the surrounding community.

The PRH Welcome Center, featuring participatory Third Ward mapping (2521 Holman Street) will be open for the public to visit and interact, and is being constructed by students of Cheryl Beckett’s Graphic Design class at the University of Houston’s School of Art. 

An interactive website (www.communograph.com) is being designed by the students of Beckham Dossett’s Graphic Communications and Web Design class at the University of Houston’s School of Art and will include information about the Communograph project while acting as an archive for all components of the research process.

A full listing of all related programs and events will also be available at:

www.mitchellcenterforarts.org  / www.communograph.com

 November 4-5, 8pm
Doors open for installationviewing at 7:30pm

LOCATION: Wortham Theatre, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts,

University of Houston, Entrance 16 off Cullen Blvd
ADMISSION: $20 general admission, $15 UH faculty and staff, $10 students
Click here for tickets.

red, black & GREEN: a blues (rbG:b) is a full-length, multimedia performance work designed to jumpstart a conversation about environmental justice, social ecology and collective responsibility in the climate change era. The poetry and performance in rbG:b puts forward the idea that valuing your own life, and the life of your community, is the first step to valuing planet Earth. Combining dance, text and visuals in a new mode of kinetic performance, rbG:b combines the talents of University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center Artist in Residence, Marc Bamuthi Joseph;

director Michael John Garcés; choreographer Stacey Printz; drummer/beatboxer Tommy Shepherd; documentary filmmaker Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi; and video designer David Szlasa. Joseph is joined onstage in the performance by Shepherd, dancer/actor Traci Tolmaire and vocalist/visual artist Theaster Gates, who is designing the set.

Developed partly in residence in Houston and including imagery and text of our local neighborhoods and characters, rbG:b utilizes a dynamic research-to-performance methodology that yields community input as artist resource material: specifically, the voices of people often left out of discussions about “living green”. This research has taken place through Life Is Living, a series of hip hop based community festivals in urban parks nationwide featuring art, activism and education. Life Is Living: Houston took place November 6, 2010 in the Third Ward’s Emancipation Park. Interviews, poems, films and murals from Life Is Living are translated into text, choreography and imagery that express the challenge of living green where crime and poor education pose a more imminent danger than an ecological crisis, and that reveal emerging definitions of environmentalism in these communities.

red, black, and GREEN: a blues is co-commissioned by the Mitchell Center, along with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Walker Art Center, and Lehigh University. Developmental residencies have been provided by Carolina Performing Arts at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Critical production support for rbG:b is being provided by the Technical Residency Program at Z Space. red, black, and GREEN: a blues was made possible by the MetLife Community Connections Fund of the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project. Major support for NDP is also provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation, and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust.

Photo by Chuy Benitez 2009

Project Row Houses’ Staff and Community would like to wish you Happy Holidays and a great New Year!  Thank you for your support during 2011.  Our offices will be closed from December 23rd at 2pm through January 2nd.  However, the Art Houses will be open regular hours, Wednesday through Sunday, 12 – 5 pm.  Please note that the Art Houses will be closed on Christmas and New Year’s Day. 

Our PRH Children’s Kwanzaa Celebration will take place on Thursday, December 29th, 2:00 – 4:00 pm at Eldorado Ballroom, 2310 Elgin.  For more information, please call 713.526.7662.

For more information about Kwanzaa Celebrations around the city, visit the SHAPE Community Center webpage.

“All roads lead to home.” – Compositions of Comparison and Contrasts. This talk will consist of area and out-of-state implants, be they artists, community workers, or family men and women, each speaking on the change and impact that they bring about in 3rd Ward. This is like a national map, akin to the saying, “All roads lead to Rome”. This also encompasses and uncovers the pathways, layers, and histories that are often left untold in “The Tré”. Key Speakers (Previous or Current Residence) : Malcolm Sumisu (New York), Robert Hodge (Texas/Houston’s 3rd Ward), Hamdiya Ali (California), Journey Allen (Louisiana), Ifeanyi Okoro II (Texas/Prairie View)

Learn more about the Communograph project on our website, or visit www.communograph.com.

Date

Lunch Time: 12:30pm
Location: Eldorado Ballroom, 2310 Elgin
Admission: $10, RSVP required 713.526.7662 or email Cheryl Flores

Ray Carrington, photographer known for his innovative Arts Education program at Yates High School, Eye on the Third Ward, leads a walking tour focused on community spaces that are the result of creative thinking and grassroots leadership. The tour will be followed by a lunch at the Eldorado Ballroom featuring cultural leaders within the Third Ward who will serve as conversationalists.

This program is presented as part of a series of programs called Communograph: Mapping Community Through Creative Action, offered in conjunction with Communograph, an original project by artist Ashley Hunt commissioned by PRH. This series is curated by Bree Edwards (MC) and Ashley Clemmer Hoffman (PRH).

See a full listing of the programs.