Grantmakers in the Arts

Hyperallergic writes about the Creative Economy Revitalization Act (CERA), a new bipartisan bill in Congress that proposes a $300 million federal grants and commissions program for art workers. "The act is a joint effort between hundreds of cultural organizations to stimulate the creative economy through public art projects across the United States," states the article.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation recently announced the inaugural recipients of the new Joan Mitchell Fellowship, which annually awards 15 artists working in the evolving fields of painting and sculpture with $60,000 each in unrestricted funds, distributed over a five-year period.

The Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture announced artist and community organizer Patrisse Cullors has joined its Arts Commission, the LA County Board of Supervisors’ longstanding advisory body for the arts.

Ted Russell, chair of Grantmakers in the Arts and director of arts strategy and ventures at the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, has been named SMU DataArts' third Nasher Haemisegger Fellow.

The Arts Education for All Act is the broadest arts education policy bill ever introduced in Congress, and is currently working its way through the legislative process. Grantmakers in the Arts, in partnership with Americans for the Arts and National Association of Music Merchants, invites you to join us in formally supporting this legislation. You can learn more about the bill here, and submit this form to express support.

The Center for Story-Based Strategy (CSS) recently published a piece by Lenina Nadal with a question for artists, rebels, activists, nonprofit workers, propagandists, creators, makers, innovators, practitioners, organizers and trainers: "How did you wake up your radical imagination today?"

Justin Laing reflects on the methodology and reflections on the experience of leading an evaluation of an arts diversity initiative in which a funder was evaluating the impact of a multi-year initiative intended to help arts organizations. "All but one of the organizations was predominantly White American led. I collaborated with the participants to define key questions, data collection, and data interpretation and applied Critical Race/Critical Pedagogy/socialist frameworks."

The newly released Monument Lab’s audit of the United States' commemorative landscape, in partnership with the Mellon Foundation, answers important questions like: "Who are the 50 individuals most frequently represented by a public monument in the US? What percentage of those 50 are white and male? How many are women? And what are the dynamics that helped shape who is—and who is not—on that list?".