The majority of state arts agencies have an individual artist fellowship program to recognize and honor the creative achievements of their state’s residents. While these programs generally share broad goals—such as fostering the development of new artwork and advancing creative careers—they each are designed to respond to the particular needs of a state’s cultural ecosystem.…
This fall, California Poet Laureate Dana Gioia—who served as the chair of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 to 2008—completed his term of literary public service to the state by organizing and hosting the first large-scale gathering of California’s poets laureate past and present. The event, which was designed not only to celebrate…
ARTShops is a collaborative effort of the Alaska State Council on the Arts (ASCA) and The CIRI Foundation—with support from the Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation—to catalyze Alaska Native artists’ creative leadership and community development throughout rural Alaska. Every year since the pilot program launched in 2016, a jury-selected cohort of four artists participates in…
Many state arts agencies support cultural traditions and the artists who propagate them through an apprenticeship program. Such programs, as the Maine Arts Commission (MAC) demonstrates, can be adapted effectively to better respond to a state’s changing demographics and growing creative economy. For example, the new Craft Apprenticeship Program, which MAC manages in partnership with…
The Center for Washington Cultural Traditions (CWCT) is a new collaborative effort of the Washington State Arts Commission (ArtsWA) and its state humanities council counterpart, Humanities Washington. Its mission is to study and support the state’s folk and traditional arts and culture. Housed within Humanities Washington and supported with state funding via ArtsWA, CWCT is…
The Indiana Arts Commission (IAC) recently announced the inaugural cohort of 36 artists for its creative-entrepreneurship accelerator program. On-Ramp is designed to help early career artists ramp up their entrepreneurial journey, move faster toward their business goals and navigate professional challenges on the way. Through a three-day intensive training course, participating artists learn business skills…
In recognition of the value of artist residencies—as many artists point to time and space as the factors that foster their most fecund creativity—the Delaware Division of the Arts (DDA) biennially organizes and underwrites the Delaware Seashore Poets’ & Prose Writers’ Retreat. The retreat enables up to 22 Delaware writers to spend four days in…
The Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC), like most state arts agencies, has long supported individual artists through an artist registry that enables curators, collectors and other arts enthusiasts to discover their work. As the Internet became artists’ primary means for self-promotion and the advent of e-commerce websites like Etsy made it easier for artists to…
The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH) has launched the Curatorial Grant Program to help local curators develop and present compelling visual art exhibitions in service to residents of Washington, D.C. The program awards two curators with previous experience an opportunity to stage an innovative and educational exhibition in the agency’s 200 I…
With three consecutive years of funding from the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, AZ ArtWorker, an initiative of the Arizona Commission on the Arts (ACA) and Arizona State University (ASU), has created dozens of opportunities for artists in remote and historically underserved communities to connect with and learn from their local, national and international peers. Based…
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