A late-afternoon reception May 18 served as Frisco Arts’ inaugural Ladies Who Launch Grant Celebration, during which funds were awarded to a trio of area female “art-reprenuers.”
Ladies Who Launch began three years ago with the goal of empowering and supporting creative females as they pursue their artistic dreams. Its name is a play on the phrase “ladies who lunch” (the letter A in launch is a nod to the arts). The program was recently reimagined from a monthly luncheon event to a quarterly happy hour “celebration.”
“We enjoyed hearing from and learning the stories behind many of the `boss babes’ in the community, reaching 1,300 ladies in our audience,” Frisco Arts Chair Tammy Meinershagen says, explaining that the organization hoped to “increase the impact “of Ladies Who Launch by changing its format.
More than six-dozen women attended the event, which was held at the Verona Villa events venue.
It included a demonstration of water marbling, a painting technique employed by Jeanette Johnson at her business Dallas Silk Art. At the shop, located at Grandscape in the Colony, customers are able to design and create their own water-marbled scarves, handkerchiefs and other items.
Ms. Johnson, who shared a bit about her personal and professional background as part of the program, was awarded the $1,000 Ladies Who Launch grant. A pair of $500 Artist Resiliency Grants were also presented to Frisco visual artists Debi Hammond, owner of a local business called Creating Happy, and Heidi Kidd.
“Receiving a grant from Frisco Arts is so much more to me than the money I will use to buy art supplies to create a body of work that I have only dreamed of,” Ms. Hammond shared in a message to Ms. Meinershagen following the event. “I will be able to … take a deeper breath and not worry about making ends meet for a time, while I make the art that’s in my heart to share.”
