ARTSmemphis awards funds to over 70 local organizations
WENDY GUZMÁN | MEMPHIS BUSINESS JOURNAL
ARTSmemphis has awarded $1.33 million to organizations and individual artists from its arts funding initiatives, including a new grant program.
The inaugural ARTSassist program has granted $130,000 to 26 individual artists in the visual arts and dance, music, and film mediums. And ARTSmemphis' Operating Support grants totaling $1.2 million were awarded to 47 local arts organizations this year.
“We’re thrilled to continue investing in our arts ecosystem by providing unrestricted funding to both individual artists and arts organizations,” ARTSmemphis President and CEO Elizabeth Rouse said in a news release. “This year, as government recovery funding dramatically decreases, our sector’s organizations and individuals rely on financial resources like ARTSmemphis to enable them to do what they do best: create and innovate.”
ARTSmemphis is one of the largest art funders in the Mid-South, and ARTSassist is the only unrestricted grant program supporting individual artists in Shelby County.
Musicians and filmmakers notably benefitted from the ARTSassist program via grants through Music Export Memphis and Indie Memphis. Music Export Memphis' Ambassador Access program awarded funds to three musicians and Indie Memphis' Black Creators Forum provided a grant to a filmmaker.
“We continue to be incredibly intentional in our approach to equitable funding and commitment to diversity in this process,” ARTSmemphis COO Tracy Lauritzen Wright said in the release. “Our volunteer panelists have contributed a collective 500 hours toward visiting, meeting, and analyzing our local arts landscape to lead us to today’s announcement.”
The grants to artists were determined by six out-of-market jurors, including Boston-based Anthony Burrell, an associate professor of dance at Boston Conservatory at Berklee; Nashville-based dance judge Melaneice Gibbs; Appalachian-based Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay, who is director of Eastern Tennessee State University's Tipton and Slocumb Galleries; Louisiana-based mixed media artist and professor Rodrecas Davis; Memphis-raised and Harlem-based Hastings Hill, senior manager of communications at Dance/NYC; and Texas-based Tina Fuentes, professor emerita at Texas Tech University.
“The breadth and depth of artwork presented, from emerging to experienced, was refreshing and encouraging, as were the number of artists who figured ‘the community’ as part of their creative practice," Davis said in the release.