As Director of the TriBeCa Partnership in 1997, an initiative of the umbrella organization, Association of Community Employment Programs (ACE), Bartelme left in 2000, to form a new entity: The TriBeCa Film Festival. Proceeds were designed to support ACE's out reach programs for The Homeless in New York City. Her premise for the Festival involved independent films that embrace a Common humanity among people with unique sound tracks.
Bartelme was the Editor and Photographer of the independently published TriBeCa Guide 2000.
The first public call for entries, “Documentary Films: Give Context to World Issues” was printed in the DownTown Express, December Issue, 2000. On December 9, 2001 within an hour after the website tribecafilmfestival.com was launched over 800 inquiries and congratulatory notes were posted. After the attacks to the World Trade Center, Bartelme negotiated and relinquished trade mark and intellectual property rights to The TriBeCa Film Center. Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Trina Wyatt subsequently commenced with the TriBeCa Film Festival in April 2002.
Bartelme’s work in sound and with the poetry of Hafez have been recorded on The Green Sea of Heaven, translations by Elizabeth T. Gray Jr., White Cloud Press and Water From The Well, by Reza Derakshani, Pomegranate Records, 2001. Much of the content recited in the poetry, literature and lore are inspirations for her visual works. Interiors, both commercial and residential as well as Set Designs are an extension of Bartelme’s paintings/photographic collages. Patterns and textiles are the foundation. Backdrops have textures filled with reference, woven together with tension both torn and whole. Dancers held high reveal unfolding costumes that serve as a foreground scrim to conceal or reveal their movements. “Being connected to the TriBeCa Community serves as a lynch pin for my creative endeavors” Bartelme said, “It’s a think tank of colleagues and shared ideas”.
