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Dear Santa...

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SUPPORT YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD ARTIST-RUN CENTRE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON!

The Centre for Art Tapes has a mission to provide affordable access to specialized equipment and facilities for media artists of all kinds, and showcase exciting and thought-provoking works! We strive to be a welcoming place to create, learn and share your knowledge and interest in contemporary media art – but we can’t do it alone…

This has been a big year for CFAT, we’ve welcomed a great many energetic new faces to our organization on our Board of Directors, our committees and even on our staff. We’ve undertaken a massive re-visioning of the organization where we rethought everything from our staffing structure and membership to our programming! It’s been a wonderful opportunity for everyone here to reflect on the strengths and history of our organization, and start to look ahead at how we can continue to grow. With so many changes already behind us and on the forefront, we would like to take this time to thank all of our members for all of your energy, time and boundless support.

As the year comes to a close we would like to humbly invite new and old fans of our organization to show your support. A monthly or one-time donation towards our equipment fund, programming and operations can be a heartwarming gift for the holidays, or a smart way to earn a tax write-off. CFAT is a registered Charity with the CRA and we are pleased to issue tax receipts for any donation made. If you are thinking about making a donation for tax purposes, we would kindly like to remind you that donations should be made by December 31st to be counted on this year’s tax return.

Donors play a key role in ensuring that we can continue to foster and support the rich talent of Nova Scotia and share the works of media artists from around the world with our local community. Your donation can go a long way towards supporting our programs, here are some examples of what a donation of any size and can do:

Fund a Tutorial Hour for a Scholar or Artist in Residence – $35

When our scholars or Artists in Residence need a little extra knowledge to finish the projects they’re working on, we hire local experts to teach them technical skills. Your donation will go towards paying the tutorial instructor.

Become a Supporting Member of CFAT – $100

Supporting members play a key role in growing the operations of our organization. This membership has all of the benefits of an individual membership, which includes discounted rental rates, access to free-Thursdays and invitations to member’s only events. This membership has the added benefit of being a charitable write-off and includes a thank-you from our staff and board and inclusion as a supporter of CFAT on our website.

Fund an Artist Talk or Workshop – $500

CFAT invites many visiting and local artists to lead workshops and master classes or give a lecture to the public about the exciting things that they’re doing. These sponsored events are always free to the public. $500 represents a professional fee to be paid to the artist for their time, as well as workshop supplies.

Fund a Local Artist In Residence – $4,000

Each year CFAT hosts one to two residency programs for local artists, critical writers and curators. Our residents are emerging to established artists undertaking five months of self-directed research while creating new work. Each Artist in Residence also takes on some kind of public engagement like open studio hours, teaching workshop or giving an artist talk. $4,000 represents the cost of artist fees, supplies and production access.

Fund a Scholar – $5,500

Our Media Art Scholarship program is an intensive six-month educational opportunity where we commission new works by local emerging and aspiring artists through 24-hour production access, mentorship and workshop education – this program is offered at no cost to the scholar and requires no previous experience. This is our flagship program and has been running for 30 years! $5,500 represents the full cost of putting one scholar through this program.

Contribute to our Equipment Fund

We welcome donations of any size to our equipment fund – these funds go towards the purchase of new specialized equipment as well as the cost of upkeep for our current equipment. Tom has a wish-list in mind that you can help him achieve:

$370 for an Ergotron monitor arm to adjust the heights and positions of the Online Suite monitors

$380 for Pluraleyes software for fast and easy syncing of multiple camera shots and second-system audio (such as syncing Black Magic video with audio recorded on a Zoom)

$75 for an Allegro 4-Port USB 3.0 card reader to upgrade the unreliable reader in the audio suite

$40 for a Manfrotto 2909 clamp for our LEDzilla mini-lights

In-kind Contributions

We love when our members make themselves at home in our space, and we welcome in-kind donations of items that make us better hosts! Coffee, tea and non-perishable drinks are welcome. We are also in need of forks and have our fingers crossed for a new microwave (small enough to fit in our kitchenette which can hold up to 22”x10”x12”)! Hearty houseplants will always be graciously accepted as well.

Donations can be made by sending a cheque to our mailing or facility address, or online through Canada Helps. We welcome all of our donors to pick the fund that they want to contribute to. Signing up for a monthly donation through Canada Helps is a wonderful way to make an ongoing contribution while keeping to our meager artist budgets.

Society for Art Presentation

o/a Centre for Art Tapes

PO Box 47004

Gottingen St PO

Halifax NS, B3K 2B0

Thank you for your support! We look forward to seeing and working with you in the New Year!

With gratitude,

The Centre for Art Tapes Board of Directors

Annie Onyi Cheung

Francella Fiallos

Kate Walchuk

James MacSwain