MAPMakers Grant

Each year, The Pine Lake Municipal Arts Panel (MAP) awards a MAPMakers Grant to a resident artist.

Pine Lake is a city of creatives: musicians, writers, dancers, comedians, sculptors, potters, poets, and performers of every kind. Our local government, holds the community's collective and individual imagination in high esteem. Here is what our first MAPmaker Grant winner said:

"The scope and application of this first MAP grant has been far beyond the confines of our dear Pine Lake, and I am filled with heartfelt thanks for the generosity of spirit that has brought forth such a loving, supportive program for Pine Lake artists.”

The $500 award goes to a resident artist of merit. This grant recipient is determined by selected non-resident judges who are professionals in the field. The MAPMakers Grant is awarded in a different arts category each year to ensure that the diversity of imaginations in our municipality is represented.

In 2019 Grant Category was Photography .

Amy Pence – 2019 MAPMakers Grant Winner

A resident of Pine Lake since 2016, Amy Pence, www.amypence.com, is a writer and enjoys taking travel photographs. Her trip to Alaska, where she took her winning photo, was an inquiry into the effects of climate change. She’s authored four poetry collections Armor, Amour (Ninebark Press), The Decadent Lovely (Main Street Rag), Skin’s Dark Night (2River Press) and Your Posthumous Dress: Remnants from the Alexander McQueen Collection (dancing girl press) as well as a hybrid book on Emily Dickinson. Titled [It] Incandescent, the book combines poetry, fiction, and literary biography (Ninebark Press). She’s also published short fiction, interviews, reviews, and essays in a variety of magazines, including Western Humanities Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, The Writer’s Chronicle and Poets & Writers. A graduate of the University of Arizona’s MFA program, she’s a full-time tutor in Atlanta, and has taught poetry writing at Emory University and in many workshop settings.  

In 2018 Category was Song Writing. 

Elise Witt - 2018 MAPMakers Grant Winner

A Pine Lake Resident since 1988, Elise Witt’s concerts of Global, Local & Homemade Songs™ and her Impromptu Glorious Chorus™ workshops create and connect singing communities around the globe. Recipient of the William L. Womack Creative Arts Award, Elise currently serves as Director of Music Programs at the Global Village Project, a school for teenage refugee girls in Decatur GA. Elise is a 41-year member of Alternate ROOTS, a coalition of artists whose work is at the intersection of arts and activism.

In 2017 Grant Category was Poetry.

Jo Brachman - 2017 MAPMakers Grant Winner

Jo Brachman’s work appears or is forthcoming in: Birmingham Poetry Review, Poetry East, The Southern Poetry Anthology by Texas Review Press, Waccamaw Journal, Town Creek Poetry, San Pedro River Review, Tar River Poetry, Moon City Review, Poet Lore, and Cimarron. She attends the low- residency MFA Creative Writing Program at Pacific University in Portland, Oregon.

2017 Sponsors: Mosaic Counseling, Chris Clark, Duck’s Kitchen, Erika Brown, The Bead Shoppe Online, PLAIN, Shades Of Green Permaculture, and Mayor Melanie Hammet.

Susan Lightcap – 2016 MAPMakers Grant Winner

A resident since early 2011, Susan works in mixed media, designing and building one-of-a-kind figures that reflect historic doll forms and talismanic influences. Incorporating found objects, cast off textiles, and other scrap materials.  Her pieces celebrate human marks made on the world, honoring the divine feminine and the eternal protector.

A volunteer designer with Peace Thread and producer for sewing classes for refugee women in Clarkston, Susan is also active in PLAIN Pine Lake Association of Involved Neighbors.