Arizona: Empowering Rural

Tatiana Crespo performing at Patagonia State Park, Arizona State Art Residency Program

State and jurisdictional arts agencies play a vital role in ensuring rural communities have access to the arts. The Arizona Commission on the Arts rural programming—developed through deliberate community engagement—addresses different rural and remote barriers to participating in the arts and reflects the specific needs of Arizonans. By engaging in an extensive statewide strategic planning process, focus group gatherings and community discussions, the arts commission has been able to better understand and prioritize the varied needs of its constituents, regardless of where they live in the state.

One recent example is the arts commission’s Empowering Rural: A Capacity Building Training Series. After receiving feedback from over 20 listening sessions throughout the state regarding various barriers rural grantees were facing, the arts commission created the webinar training series to offer free technical training on the foundations of capacity building that center rural and remote experiences. Each of the five sessions in the series features subject matter experts and showcases a different facet of empowering rural grantees and communities. These sessions are:

The Arizona Commission on the Arts issues a survey after each session to evaluate its impact on participant confidence levels, skills gained and other benefits. Building an evaluation process into the program provides another opportunity to receive community feedback and help deepen an understanding of the needs of constituents throughout the entire state.

In addition to the training series, other programming that serves rural communities includes the arts commission’s Arizona State Parks Artist Residency Program, which embeds artists in state parks. Often in remote areas, the program is a collaborative initiative between Arizona State Parks and Trails and the Commission on the Arts, designed to immerse Arizona based artists in the state’s natural ecosystems. The program provides artists with dedicated time, space and resources to create work inspired by local landscapes in state parks, promoting aesthetic appreciation, environmental education, community engagement and cultural heritage. Moreover, the Arizona Poet Laureate, Laura Tohe, provides free community poetry workshops throughout the state, crediting her experience “growing up with stories all around me in a rural community on the Navajo Nation Homeland” as the inspiration for her poetry.

As codified in its strategic plan, the Arizona Commission on the Arts prioritizes rural communities at an agencywide level, which is also reflected in other agency practices, such as grant panels. As part of the Commission’s implementation of transparent, fair grant-making and resource allocation practices that reflect the full spectrum of Arizona’s arts and cultural landscape, rural communities are ensured representation on all panels, and grants are awarded to each county.

For more information on the ways state arts agencies empower rural communities, contact NASAA.