State arts agencies play a pivotal role in providing support and opportunities for individual artists, using a variety of strategies to do so. Often, state arts agencies support individual artists directly through grants that encourage the development of new works or advance artists’ careers. Investments in individual artist grants have significantly increased over the past…
In a move to foster and celebrate the creativity of youth, the Arkansas Arts Council has launched the Arts Across Arkansas initiative. This annual program nurtures artistic expression and creativity, develops local talent through mentoring with teaching artists, and fosters community engagement in arts learning. The project aims to encourage and expand high school students’ creativity by…
Many state arts agencies facilitate art exhibitions, not only to support the work of artists in their states but also to celebrate creativity and invite civic engagement around art. Touring exhibitions are a special strategy state arts agencies use to make those benefits accessible to diverse communities. Small Works on Paper is a unique annual…
The Arkansas Arts Council recently launched a new grant initiative to increase access to the arts for Arkansas’s military veterans. Among more than 21 million veterans who live in the United States, about 237,000 live in Arkansas, and the majority of them have served in Vietnam and Gulf wars, according to recent U.S. Census Bureau…
No matter the medium or discipline, crafts develop through contemporary practice as much as preservation of tradition. The Arkansas Arts Council (AAC) realizes this through its Arkansas Made Living Treasure Films Series, through which it collaborates with the Historic Arkansas Museum and filmmakers to produce documentaries about the artists and craftspeople who have received AAC’s…
Education policy is a complex tapestry in America, consisting of a dynamic mixture of federal, state and local resources and regulations. Within this multilayered system, many important decisions affecting the quality and availability of arts education are made at the state level. This year, a number of state legislatures introduced bills affecting arts education. Some…
Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe recently released a special $500,000 appropriation to the Arkansas Arts Council. These funds will be distributed via a new Cultural Regional Arts Grants program. The program aims to promote the public’s awareness and enjoyment of Arkansas’s heritage and creative economy by funding significant projects that: make arts and heritage programs possible…
The Arkansas Arts Council (AAC) has recently published an Online Social Networking Guide to provide nonprofit arts organizations with information about the current climate of social networking and media. The guide explains the basic language and demographics of some of the most widely used on-line sites and includes cost‐benefit analyses to guide decision making for…
Unveiling the Creative Economy in Arkansas: Strategies to Increase Creative Capacity and Competitive Advantage is the fourth report in the Arkansas Creative Economy project. The report includes a summary of some of the most important findings to date, illustrates preliminary outcomes from a series of creative community building grants, and offers recommendations on how Arkansas’s…