Haiku Selection the 2012 Poster Series
In mid December, we selected posters for the 2012 series.

The 15 posters for the traditional aspect of the project (poem comes first, illustration second) will feature poems by the following poets:

Scott Austin of Syracuse, Julia Calagiovanni of Syracuse, Rossalyn Carroll of Manlius, Jennifer Fulco of Syracuse, Aimee Hillman of East Syracuse, Tom Huff of the Onondaga Nation, Linda Liddiard of Auburn, Robert Mengert of Syracuse, William Padgett of New Woodstock, Michele Reed of Oswego, Renee Romance of Baldwinsville, Aime St. Amour of Liverpool, Joan Sauro of Syracuse, Bruce Smith of Syracuse, and Jane Woodman of Syracuse.

The remaining poster is a special poster to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Onondaga Community College. Skip Frost, an art instructor at OCC, created a painting of the campus, and poets were invited to complement the image with a haiku. This poster will feature a haiku by Sara Parrott of Syracuse.

Here’s a summary of submissions:

The OCC poster received haiku submissions from 79 poets. The winning haiku, by Parrott, was selected by a committee of OCC staff and administrators.

For the traditional aspect of the contest, we received fresh or resubmitted work from approximately 120 poets, each submitting up to three poems. With additional poems from past years, we had a total of 593 haiku. Harvey Teres, an associate professor of English at SU, then selected one poem from each poet to pass along for consideration by the student artists. This came to 246 poems.

Artists for the traditional aspect of the project included 24 Syracuse University students and one supplemental artist, Todd Conover, who teaches fashion design at SU. We accepted Conover’s poster and selected 14 posters by the students. The selection committee included Lisa Romeo and Laurie Reed of the Downtown Committee of Syracuse, SU Professor Roger DeMuth, and Lynn McDonald and Jim Emmons, board members for the Poster Project.

We’ll hold an opening celebration, tentatively 6 p.m. Thursday, April 12, at the Atrium at City Hall Commons, 201 East Washington St. Please join this tribute to our poets and artists.

New Products
We've long known that the poster art we create could serve other purposes, and now we're developing these other products, starting with a selection of three note cards. You'll find them in our shopping section. We've also added a section for new and used books about haiku and graphic art. All proceeds help us pay for printing the annual poster series.

Syracuse Arts and Crafts Festival
For the three days of this year's festival, July 29-31, we schmoozed with friends, met fellow vendors, welcomed back faithful customers, and invited folks to write haiku. We also sold a lot of poster prints, and did well selling a new product, three note cards based on popular posters from the past.

Traveling Exhibit
Our travelling exhibit of framed poster prints will be at the Civic Center through December. It then goes to Provisions Bakery in Armory Square for January.

Unveiling of the 2011 Poster Series
We held an opening event for our 10th annual poster series, April 14, in the atrium at City Hall Commons. Poets, artists, their friends and family, and other supporters of public art came together to celebrate the 16 posters of the 2011 series. John Cadley and Cathy Wenthen, an accoustic duo, played music, and Linda "Sparky" Mortimer, of Sparkytown, provided food.

The poet-artist combinations include: Ellen Agnew and Chelsea Fierst; Eric Darby and Sarah Hudkins; Audia Denton and Katherine Mills; Lori DiCaprio-Lee and Keisha Cedeno; Marsha Egan and Bernard Lee; Carrie Ellitott and Patrick Davis; Michael Aaron Gallager and Owen Ingraham; Nan Garner and Jennifer Quach; Jennifer Groff and Michael R. Burns; Robin Gross and Rebekah MacKay; Jim Kenty and Maura McGonagle; Nancy Liccione and Kerff Petit-Frere; Megan Reed and Crystal Choi; Michele Reed and Jackie Evangelisti; Jennifer Sanford and Crystal White; and Louis Wassel and Emily Watanabe.

New Stores
We're adding to the list of stores that carry poster prints, most recently with the Art Store (Commercial Art Supply), at Erie Boulevard and Crouse Ave. If you know of a store that would like to carry prints, let us know.

Incorporation
In April, 2010, the Syracuse Poster Project received New York State incorporation. The Project then completed a lengthy application for federal nonprofit status, and finally received approval in November, 2010. The Project now has nonprofit status under section 501 (c) 3 of the tax code. This exempts us from federal income tax and sales tax, and lets us receive tax deductible bequests and contributions. We owe much of this accomplishment to Jessie Sweetland, class of 2010, Syracuse University College of Law. Through participation in the S.U. Law Clinic, Jessie and a classmate, Akria Ulmer, ushered us into the application process. Jessie and Akira graduated in 2010. A new team of student volunteers, Bobby Rajabi and Jacob Berger, saw us through the final steps of the process.

Audience Development
We’re working with dozens of arts and culture groups participating in the Initiative to Develop and Engage Audiences in Syracuse (IDEAS). The initiative is strengthening arts, culture and heritage groups by building audiences, sharing resources, and developing cooperative activities. Five entities are making the work happen: the Allyn Foundation, Central New York Community Foundation, Gifford Foundation, Dorothy and Marshall M. Reisman Foundation and the Trust for Cultural Resources of the County of Onondaga. Participants are working with Surale Phillips, of Bozeman, MT, a demographer specializing arts and culture. Phillips helped us analyze our membership and customer base, correlate it with census information, and find ways to reach new supporters. Next, we'll apply for marketing funds to take action on Surale's recommendations.

Interns
We welcome the following spring semester interns: Wenhui Li, database development; Mollie Knopf, arts marketing; Lydia Hatch, resource development; Megan Steinberg, graphic design; and Jing Chen, returning as our web developer.

Our internship program dates to 2010, when we developed internships with Byrant & Stratton College, followed by internships with Syracuse University in 2011.

Our first intern, Dan Sawyer, of Bryant & Stratton, prepared posters from past series to be reissued; buffed up our Twitter page; created samplers of annual poster collections; and designed outreach materials.

A second round of interns, Marcus Ayala and Ron Firenze, also from Bryant & Stratton, designed business cards, store contracts, and promotional materials, and loaded content onto our on-line store.

Four SU interns came aboard in January of 2011: Abby Christman, working on marketing a promotion; Terrell Hargrove McShan, resource development; Sibo Niu, web development; Yuan "Tracy" Yang, database development. Over the summer, we had another great team, consisting of Xiangjun Yan, database development; Bin Zhu, website development; and Fangjie Tang, database development. Our fall semester interns were Jing Chen, website development; Meng Shui, graphic design; and Shreetam Naik, database development.