The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) recently announced more than $103 million in funding for its second round of 2023 grants. These grants are dispersed through the organization’s Grants for Arts Projects, Our Town program, and state and regional partnerships.
Of the funds that NEA awards annually, 40 percent are typically granted to state and regional arts organizations. For this fiscal year, nearly $70 million is being recommended for these types of partner agencies. The Texas Commission on the Arts received over $1 million to support arts programs, services, and activities across the state.
The Our Town initiative is a creative placemaking grant program that funds projects undertaken by nonprofit organizations in collaboration with local government entities. Of the 175 eligible applications, 57 projects were approved for funding totaling just over $4 million. Within the state of Texas, three projects received Our Town funding: The Nasher was awarded $100,000 in support of the development and installation of a temporary public art piece memorializing the Tenth Street Freedman’s Town, a historic Black community in Dallas’ Oak Cliff neighborhood, a project that artist Vicki Meek is leading. In Fort Worth, Transform 1012 N Main Street received $50,000 toward its design and planning for an artist live-work space at a former Ku Klux Klan auditorium, a project which was initiated by arts organization DNAWORKS. In Seguin, a small town east of San Antonio, Teatro de Artes de Juan Seguin received $50,000 in support of its artist residency program and the creation of community-based public artworks.
Through its Grants for Arts Projects, NEA provides funding from $10,000 to $100,000 to support arts and arts education projects. For this round of funding, 1,129 projects have been approved for a total of $31 million. Nearly 50 Grants for Arts Projects were awarded to Texas arts and cultural organizations. Among the awardees are the Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts, which received $18,750 for a series of educational seminars for musicians and nonprofits; Contemporary at Blue Star in San Antonio, which received $20,000 in exhibition and programming support; Sweet Pass Sculpture Park in Dallas, which received $23,000 in support of its Sweet Pass Sculpture School, which brings artists to Dallas to learn about the local culture and landscape; the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, which received $40,000 to support its forthcoming exhibition World Outside: Louise Nevelson at Midcentury; and Lawndale in Houston, which received $20,000 in support of its artist-in-residence program.
In a press release, Sweet Pass Sculpture Park’s Co-Director Tamara Johnson, stated, “We’re thrilled that this generous gift, and the prestige that it carries, will bring our Sculpture School program to the next level. It will help us host a new cohort of sculptors in Dallas to engage with the rich cultural landscape and create new works that could only happen here.”
Learn more about NEA Grants for Art Projects via the organization’s website. See the full list of grant recipients here.