Wedgwood 2016 Patron Report

Wedgwood Circle
2016 Patron Report

FROM JACOB MARSHALL
WEDGWOOD CULTURAL CURATOR
This fall, Wedgwood Circle, will celebrate its 10th year of community. As we
reflect back on the accomplishments of the last decade, we are so proud to
have worked with you to support over 100 artists through Patron granting.
This simply would not have happened without your help and dedication to
serving an up and coming generation of artists. Thank you.
We have two goals for the Patron Fund this year.
First, we would like to address a long-standing challenge in our process. Each
year we speak to artists who have been put forward by our vetters and we
learn about needs that a Wedgwood grant could meet. We deploy 100% of
Patron funds raised in each year directly to artists, however these funds
typically don’t accumulate until the end of the year. Since many of the artists
we work with have needs that are timely, our ability to be meet those needs in
a helpful way is diminished.
In reviewing this process, we have decided to take a pause and not build out a
new slate of artists this calendar this year. Instead, we will focus on raising
capital so that we have reserves on hand at the beginning of next year in order
to be able to address artist needs in real time. When we resume building the
artist slate in 2017, we will also continue to fundraise each year moving forward
to replenish the capital that will be outlaid.
Would you consider contributing to the Patron Fund this year to
help us build a strong foundation for giving?
Second, we have been using this year to reconnect with all the artists who have
been a part of our patron program for the past 10 years and to collect stories
and insights from their experiences. We have already spoken to a significant
number of them and their stories and reflections are profoundly encouraging.
In the following pages you will see snapshots of these stories and hear words
directly from a few of the artists who have been impacted by the generosity of
the Patron Fund over the years. We can’t wait to share even more with you at
the Annual Event in Nashville in November.
We look forward to continuing this work with you and to re-launching the
patron slate in early 2017.
Thank you again for your presence in our community and your extraordinary
generosity of time, resources, energy, wisdom, spirit, and love.
Jacob and the Wedgwood family

TABLE OF CONTENTS
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CANNON BLUE
3
NEULORE
4
THE LIGHTHOUSE & THE WHALER
5
TRACE
6
PAPER ROUTE
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NATIVE RUN

2016 PATRON REPORT
CANNON BLUE
DANIEL JAMES
GRANT
PURPOSE
$5000 IN 2012
ALBUM PRODUCTION
HOW DID YOUR WEDGWOOD
GRANT IMPACT YOU?
“I just finished my record a month
ago now and it’s been a long time
coming, obviously. It was one of
these things where the grant came at
what was a very pivotal time in the
genesis of what became the album. It
was able to provide me a window of
time to clear my schedule and my
head and dive into what would become the core songs of the album. It was a longer
process than I anticipated to get the album to where it needed to be.
I signed a publishing deal last year and am producing a lot more, including the last
Joy Williams record. As I was waiting to find the words for my album I found these
side projects to sustain me during that process. Now I feel like I have a lot of different
avenues to create in, beyond just the band. The band can stay more pure that way
because I can do what I want to do and not depend on it to be my livelihood. Which
I’m grateful for because I can more freely express myself without having to worry
about it as much.”
WHY HAVE YOU GIVEN YOUR LIFE TO ART, BEAUTY, AND CULTURE?
“The creative life and the art world are luxuries, but they provide a lens for beauty,
shape civilization, and create rituals that give meaning to our inner landscapes. We
can’t put these things into words; they can’t be explained by scientific data. Nothing
has been as impactful on my life, on how I view the world, and how I communicate as
art. I don't have any other way of looking at life except through the records I grew up
listening to or the movies I've seen. They give words and meaning to unspeakable
things and offer value and awareness to society at large. I really feel like ultimately
that is what art can do - raise awareness and consciousness. It’s a vital lifeblood for
any culture.”
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2016 PATRON REPORT
NEULORE
ADAM AGIN
GRANT
PURPOSE
$5000 IN 2012
RECORD MASTERING
HOW DID YOUR WEDGWOOD GRANT IMPACT YOU?
“I remember when we found out about the Wedgwood grant. We had no idea how
we were going to finish this project. We were out of money and I remember it being
such a joy and really shocking that someone would want to help us put out music. It’s
a very rare thing to have allies in this industry and a lot of times you feel alone.
Having a community of people with like-minded beliefs keeps the wind in your sails
when it’s very easy to give up. It provides a hope.
Right after the grant, we were signed to a major label and that was awesome at the
time... We had a couple of very successful years with licensing and in the sync world.
You guys helped us master our record. A lot of that music was used on different
television shows and commercials. We wouldn’t have been able to live off of music if
it wasn’t for Wedgwood helping us out to be able to get those licenses. That’s kept
my lights on for four or five years now.”
WHY HAVE YOU GIVEN YOUR LIFE
TO ART, BEAUTY, AND CULTURE?
“There is this burning passion that just seeps
out of me. It’s really like I don’t have a
choice. Songs are constantly coming out of
me because it’s been a gift that I’ve given to
have songs just pour out of me. And they’re
not songs I write necessarily, they definitely
are songs I have just been given.
I feel like a lot of the Christian industry hurts what is beautiful about Jesus. I’ve seen a
lot of fronting that everything is perfect instead of showing your true self. I used to
think I had to act like a rock star and be an icon. Now I’m just trying to be more open
to who I am, and I feel like it’s starting to break down that fan-to-artist wall. We’ve
gotten to have some really good conversations with fans, which has been really nice.
We get to actually influence lives rather than be “better” than other people. Because
we’re not.”
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2016 PATRON REPORT
THE LIGHTHOUSE &
THE WHALER
MATTHEW LOPRESTI
GRANT
PURPOSE
$2,000 IN 2011
ALBUM PRODUCTION
HOW DID YOUR WEDGWOOD GRANT IMPACT YOU?
“The grant helped us finish our second album, ‘This Is An Adventure’. We had no real
financial support whatsoever for the album; we had raised about $10K on Kickstarter
from friends and family to record, but the grant got us over the hump. We recoded
with Ryan Hadlock in Seattle, who worked with the Lumineers and Brandi Carlile. The
Wedgwood grant was monumental in helping us get over the hump of basically
being a Cleveland local band to jumping into the music industry in a more serious
way.
Financially the help from Wedgwood was huge, but even more so was connecting to
a group of people who were pursuing the same thing as us in terms of being people
of faith making art outside of the Christian music scene. Through Wedgwood, we
were brought into this conversation and realized there are a lot of people doing this;
that really emboldened us and encouraged us to continue.”
WHY HAVE YOU GIVEN YOUR LIFE TO ART, BEAUTY, AND CULTURE?
“As a band, we want to create
something so beautiful that people
outside of a faith conversation will
say, ‘I respect this and I think you
make good art, so I want to hear
what you have to say about the
world and about life,’ in order to
build bridges for people back to
God.
Music is also a gifting God has given
me. I want to cultivate it to bring
beauty into the world, to bring people back into a conversation about God and who
Jesus is, but also use it as a platform to do good in the world. I took stock of my life
and asked, ‘What do I have and what can I give to make the world a better place?’
Right now, that’s music.”
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2016 PATRON REPORT
TRACE
TRACY LE
GRANT
PURPOSE
$5,000 IN 2015
LIVE PERFORMANCES
HOW DID YOUR WEDGWOOD
GRANT IMPACT YOU?
“I feel like the timing of everything has
been pretty dramatic, but I feel like it’s
been sovereign timing. I’ve been doing
music for 18 months. Money is a tool
and I think for me, I don’t have any, so
when I met Wedgwood and got the
grant it really gave me the confidence
and wisdom to invest it smartly.
Any type of money as a gift is a gift,
and I have seen it being used in really
big ways. The biggest has been being
able to pay for live performances. That alone I feel has grown me as an artist the
most because I can write songs alone in my room, but I can’t magically get a band
together, do rehearsals, get gigs, get someone to get me gigs and play without
monetary assistance. In terms of where my career is going, a big part of where it’s
going is because I’ve been able to do live music as I’ve been releasing new music.”
WHY HAVE YOU GIVEN YOUR LIFE TO ART, BEAUTY, AND CULTURE?
“My mom is a singer, she’s been singing for 55 years, and it’s just rooted in me. My
story is that I never ever wanted to sing or sing in front of anybody until two years
ago. Writing has always been a big part of me and so it make sense that it turned
into songwriting. It’s kind of foolish, I think, to be 28 and think I’m going to start
music now as my career, but for some reason music just makes sense to me. I think it
is a calling.
It’s crazy to know in my heart this is what I’m supposed to do. It’s laughable. I’m still
shocked by it, and I want to continue to be shocked by it because I know I want it
really badly. It’s so cheesy, but I literally feel like it gives me life and it makes me see
God, personally, clearer.”
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2016 PATRON REPORT
NATIVE RUN
RACHEL BEAUREGARD
GRANT
PURPOSE
$2,500 IN 2011
RECORDING
HOW DID YOUR WEDGWOOD GRANT IMPACT YOU?
“Our grant was used for the recording, mixing and mastering of a live house show
called ‘Setting the House on Fire’. That was really important because financially it
freed us up to make these trips back and forth to Nashville that we’d been doing
almost every month for about a year, which is not cheap. That is the make or break
for most artists at that level: the finances to be able to have freedom to do things like
that, because if you cannot do that then you cannot get to the next level. You can’t
meet the people you need to, you can’t take meetings, you can’t have co-writes.
Writing and being able to go on some incredible tours was really the beginning of
our trajectory into the Nashville music scene. Being able to do that and having the
freedom to do that allowed us to sign a publishing deal, which is what allowed us to
officially quit our jobs and move to Nashville and be full time musicians and writers.”
WHY HAVE YOU GIVEN YOUR LIFE TO ART, BEAUTY, AND CULTURE?
“You just never know how your music is
going to affect people, but sometimes it’s
the only thing that can affect people. For us
as entertainers, we get to live this constant
energy transfer between us and an audience
and back, and that is life-giving. The music
itself is life-giving and the experience is lifegiving,
both for us and for the audience. I
think if I were to sum it up I would say that I
want to be in music and play music even if
it’s just for a private set or a major arena.
You never know how it’s going to change
someone’s life and help them. Music is the
universal language that does that, I think
more than anything else.”
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