Poetry, art and beans

Plus: What everyone at Mirror Indy is doing.

Esteemed Play Listers,

I return to you from a week away in New Orleans with happy news.

But first, I want to thank arts & culture reporter Mesgana Waiss for holding down the fort and writing this newsletter last Wednesday. If you missed it, you can read it here. 

The happy news is that in New Orleans, Mirror Indy’s arts & culture work was recognized with an INNovator award from the Institute for Nonprofit News. 

The judges highlighted stories that include “Indianapolis artists as newsgatherers.”

Some of the examples they looked at were: 

• “Love is Found in the Kitchen,” a video poem we did with poet Januarie York that celebrates restaurant Just Judy’s.
• Our “Local puppets remind voters to register by April 8” video that Mirror Indy art director Jenna Watson and service reporter Sophie Young recorded with puppet artist Matt Holdzkom.
• Sound artist Clockwork Janz’s “What does joy sound like?,” which included beautiful illustrations by Jeneca Zody.
• Our spring interview with music duo Caldwell/Tester that included the release of their single, “A Catalogue of Seeds”
• And the traveling exhibition that brought Mirror Indy data reporter Emily Hopkins’ Greenlawn Cemetery investigation to different community spaces. It featured portraits by artist Shaunt'e Lewis.

All this to say that while we do have fun every day, looking at all that is beautiful and worthy in our city, we also see our work as a service to our community.

We want you to know about the amazing talent here and we hope to continue shouting about it from the rooftop, for as long as we can. 

Here’s a photo of representatives of our team winning big in NOLA.

Now, let’s get to what’s up this week!

Get more Indianapolis arts and culture coverage at MirrorIndy.org.