ArtsOhio Blog

Traditional Arts in Ohio: A Blues Journey

Fri, 02 Apr 2021 19:28:03 GMT

In December 2020, I had the good fortune to spend an hour on Zoom speaking with Wallace Coleman, a Cleveland-based blues harmonica player and 2007 Ohio Heritage Fellow. We talked about aspects of his life story, and about a blues itinerary that winds through many decades, states, and countries. Though we were safely hunkered down in our respective homes in Cleveland and Columbus, our conversation was a journey that told a story of musical travels, years of practice, later-in-life discoveries, and well-deserved recognition.

Wallace Coleman did not hear the blues growing up as a child in the 1940s in Morristown, Tennessee. The local air waves were filled with country music, and church was the one place where Coleman heard music played and sung by Black musicians.

That changed one day when he was scanning the dial looking for the Lone Ranger program, and instead picked up WLAC out of Nashville.

“And I said, ‘What in the world is that?’” Coleman recalled.

What he heard was an electrified blues harmonica.

“And when they got through, a guy comes on he says, ‘This is John Richbourg at WLAC, Nashville, Tennessee, that was Little Walter,’” Coleman said. “I had never heard blues, and I had never heard it played electrically. So, I’m saying to myself, ‘What kind of instrument is that?’ I got hooked on it. And then he put Muddy Waters on, and Little Walter was playing harp behind one of his songs. And I said, ‘Man, that really sounds great. I've never heard anything like that before.’”

Coleman started tuning into WLAC every night, and he continued tuning in after he moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to live with his mother, joining families of job seekers from all over the south who came to live in the “Atomic City,” the former site of the Manhattan Project.

“Then I got to meet young Black people from Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, all over,” he said. “And some of those people knew WLAC; they had been getting it on the radio for years.”

In the Atomic City, Coleman could listen to blues on the radio from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. every night, and he often did.

“I’d go to school the next day—I’d be so sleepy,” he said, laughing. “Listened at the radio too many times, I guess.”

Living in Oak Ridge also put Coleman closer to Knoxville, where he saw his first live blues show.

“It was in the Black section of town, it was a theatre called the Gem Theater. And I remember they had Jimmy Reed. That was the first blues musician that I ever saw in my life,” he said. “They had him there one weekend, and I caught the bus from Oak Ridge. And that was a big thrill. You know, here’s a genuine blues guy playing the harmonica and the guitar at the same time. I said, ‘Wow.’ I really got hooked on the blues.”

Around that time, Coleman also started playing the harmonica. He sent for Lonnie Glosson and Wayne Raney’s learn-to-play book, which they promoted through their radio show on WCKY out of Cincinnati. The first song he learned to play was “The Mama Blues,” the title song of the book.

“I learned how to play that – I said, ‘You wave your hands back and forth!’ And after that, it seemed like I started getting better at playing some of this stuff by Jimmy Reed and different harmonica players,” Coleman said.

As a young man Coleman also spent time in Union Springs, Alabama, where he moved with a friend for six months to harvest cotton and cut timber. There, in the evenings he’d go to juke joints—small, informal, Black-owned clubs considered to be the true home of southern blues culture.

“That was my first experience going into a juke joint to hear blues music,” he said. “And I got hooked on that.”

Coleman was in his early twenties when he moved to Cleveland in the mid-1950s. He’s lived in the city ever since.

“When I got to Cleveland,” he said, “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”

It was a thrill living in a city with a major league baseball team and with plenty of places to hear the blues. Legendary blues artists’ tours often traveled through Northeast Ohio, so to Coleman, it seemed that the blues were now coming to him.

“My stepfather started taking me to these places because he knew I liked the music,” Coleman said. “There was a place in Cleveland called Gleason’s that you could go and hear all kinds of blues bands.”

Coleman worked at Cleveland’s Hough Bakeries —a union job that had a 30-and-out retirement policy that would set him up to pursue his second career as a musician. He eventually became a Work Leader, assisting managers and overseeing operations and scheduling. During his years working at Hough Bakeries, Coleman nurtured his love for the blues by seeing as many shows as he could and by playing the harmonica casually, practicing at home and on breaks at work.

In the late 1980s, shortly before he retired, a friend at work told Coleman that he should see about sitting in with Cleveland blues musician Guitar Slim sometime. Coleman didn’t have the nerve to approach Guitar Slim, so his friend invited him to Hough Bakeries one day to hear Coleman play. They sat in a car and played, Guitar Slim on his guitar and Coleman on his harmonica, and Guitar Slim made him promise to come sit in with his band at the Cascade Lounge—which he did two weeks later.

By that time, Cleveland wasn’t just a popular stop for touring blues artists—Robert Jr. Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson II had actually made their homes in the city. About a year after Coleman began sitting in with Guitar Slim, Lockwood visited the Cascade Lounge to hear Coleman play. He was impressed with how Coleman played changes—the technique of playing along with the rhythm section, rather than playing lead. This style of playing was the hallmark of Lockwood’s former musical collaborator, Little Walter Jacobs (who Coleman had first heard on the radio back in Morristown, Tennessee).

Lockwood invited Coleman to come play professionally with his band. Coleman waited another year—until he had 31 years in at the bakery and could retire—and then gave Lockwood a call.

Coleman spent six months practicing with the Lockwood Band and then joined them on tour, launching his new career as a professional musician. He recounted the story of the first time he played in front of several thousands of people, at the King Biscuit Blues festival in Helena, Arkansas, not far from Lockwood’s childhood home.

“The first time I went, we were on the main stage, and it was so many people,” Coleman said. “I’m looking, and Maurice the saxophone player looked at me, and he said, ‘Wallace, you alright?’ I said, ‘I think so.’ He says, ‘You don't look too good.’”

Maurice told Coleman not to look out at the crowd when he played.

“‘You take your harmonica and look up and play like that,’” Coleman remembers him saying. “He said, ‘Don't look at the people. They’ll get on your nerves.’ And that was true. I didn’t realize it.”

Coleman eventually got over his nerves, and he fondly remembers returning to that festival.

“That to me was the greatest blues festival I’ve ever played in. It wasn’t real big, like some of them. But it gives you a good feeling because that’s where the blues came from. And everybody’s so friendly—it’s a cool place,” he said.

When Coleman joined the Lockwood Band, a whole new world opened up to him – he toured Japan with the band in 1990 and 1995, and he played in front of enormous crowds at events like the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival, each with more than 250,000 in attendance.

Especially in the early years, Coleman preferred to stay in the background when playing with Lockwood. That changed one night when a bandmate suggested that Coleman fill in on vocals for a musician who couldn’t play that gig. At Lockwood’s request Coleman sang that night, and after the gig, he took Coleman aside, upset that he never mentioned he could sing: “Don’t you never hold back something like that in this music,” he told Coleman.

After that, Coleman was featured in the opening numbers the band would play before Lockwood came to the stage, often performing several songs by his favorite artists (like Little Walter Jacobs). And when they weren’t touring, several of the band members formed a side band to play local shows, with Coleman at the center.

After they had toured together for several years, Lockwood began telling Coleman that he should think about forming his own band—that the people wanted to hear more from him.

So, in 1997, after 10 life-changing years, Coleman decided to leave the Lockwood Band and formed his own group. He recorded his first, self-titled CD on a local label; after that, he and his wife, guitarist Jody Getz, formed their own label to release their next five albums. Their most recent release, “Live from Sao Paulo to Severance,” features live recordings from shows in Brazil and from Cleveland’s Severance Hall.

Coleman has seen blues communities change significantly during his lifetime.

“In Cleveland—and I’m pretty sure this is not the only city that has done it—the clubs have closed down,” he said. “(There are) at least a half a dozen clubs that we played that I know went out of business.”

Festivals, too, have been shrinking or folding over the last few decades, and the COVID-19 pandemic has hit festival organizers, club owners, and performers hard.

“The whole business of blues is not gonna come back like it was in the ‘50s and ‘60s,” Coleman said. “And you don’t have that many young Black people that are into blues anymore. They’ve got their own thing, which is cool.”

Coleman takes heart in the fact that musicians are keeping the blues alive, even if there are fewer of them.

“(As) long as the music is still breathing, it ain’t completely dead,” he said.

And although the big crowds are certainly thrilling, Coleman said he loves playing informal, intimate music venues just as much, if not more. Smaller spaces are a better fit for performing both electric blues and folk blues, the style he’s playing more of these days.

Today, Coleman said, Clarksdale, Mississippi, is the real blues mecca, home of the Blues Museum and plenty of operating clubs. He has also found larger audiences and eager collaborators overseas.

“When you go out of the country, that’s when you realize that (blues) is definitely not dead, in Europe and South America,” he said. “I mean, those people really come out in big crowds to hear you there.”

Although his in-person appearances have been put on hold during the pandemic, Coleman still tours nationally and internationally, thrilling fans of traditional blues and folk music in the U.S., Europe, and South America.

Coleman recorded his latest album during his most recent tour of Belgium and the Netherlands in 2019 and was backed by The Little Boogie Boy Blues Band from North Holland.

“And man, they can play!” he said.

During our conversation, Coleman asked me if I played any music. I said that I played a little guitar and banjo and added that one of the things I found so interesting about our conversation was how it spoke to the potential to chart new artistic courses later in life.

“You know,” Coleman said, “I thank God. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to play even at that age. But I was blessed being a person with the bakers’ union—30 years and out at any age—and I had my 30 years when I was 51 years old, so I was able to retire. I’m blessed to get that. If I hadn’t have done that, I probably would never have started playing at all. I’d have just been a guy that listened to music.”

As for taking the next step in my musical journey, Coleman did have one piece of advice: “Don’t wait too long!”

ABOUT THE OHIO ARTS COUNCIL
The Ohio Arts Council is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally, and economically. Connect with the OAC on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or visit our website at oac.ohio.gov.

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Article by Cristina Benedetti, Ohio Arts Council Folk and Traditional Arts Contractor
Featured photo: Wallace Coleman playing with the Robert Lockwood Band at Brothers in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1990. Photo by Terry Hardy.

Traditional Arts in Ohio: Seasonal Art and Family Folklife with Pysanky

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 20:41:37 GMT

Many who observe the Easter holiday enjoy the tradition of dyeing and decorating eggs, but few are able to produce eggs as intricate as Carol Snyder’s of Columbus.

Snyder is a ceramic artist year-round, but every winter and spring she returns to her Ukrainian family tradition of decorating pysanky (pronounced pih-SANG-kee). Pysanky eggs are made, displayed, and shared almost exclusively during the Lenten season—the 40 days prior to the Easter holiday, as observed by several Christian denominations.

Decorating pysanky is generally understood to have begun in pre-Christian times in what is now Eastern Europe. Decorated eggs became sacred objects that were given as gifts to ensure well-being and were placed in homes or with livestock to protect them. Many of the symbols used to decorate sacred eggs were carried forward into the Christian era, with new meanings ascribed to align with a Christian worldview.

Ukrainian and other Eastern European immigrants brought the artform to the Americas, where it has thrived as a seasonal family tradition. Snyder’s grandparents on her father’s side immigrated to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and joined a Ukrainian Eastern Rite congregation there. Decorating pysanky is usually passed down by women in Ukrainian families, and Snyder’s grandmother, Anna, brought the tradition to their new home in the U.S.

It was Snyder’s father Charles (Swanick), however, who ended up carrying on the tradition from his mother.

“When Lent started, dad would always pull out all of the supplies and sit down at the dining room table and do pysanky,” she said. “It’s absolutely tradition every year, from the beginning of Lent until Easter, you just decorate eggs. And he kept the tradition. Usually it was in the evening, which obviously works best because he was working.”

Snyder said she sees a connection between her father’s occupation and his love of pysanky.

“He’s an engineer,” she said. “So, I think that was very appealing to him, the design work and everything . . . He was so precise. It was almost scary, like, ‘leave him alone, he’s doing these eggs!’”

Snyder and her four siblings knew to be careful once the pysanky supplies came out.

“It was kind of that, ‘Don’t move the table. Don’t run around. Don’t jolt anything,’ because he’s working on his eggs,” she said.

Snyder does not remember ever decorating eggs with her father—she recalls just observing his annual return to the tradition. In doing so, she was absorbing the techniques and processes of the artform.

“I know we watched a lot,” she said. “And I was one of those kids that would just probably sit and stare. Just sit at the table quiet, and just watch him.”

However, as she grew older pysanky called to her.

“I started doing them—not during college or earlier years—it was more when I was married and had a family,” Snyder said.

As with her father, she sees a connection between her occupation and her stewardship of the tradition.

“I kind of picked up the torch, probably because I’m the artist of the family, so it was very intriguing to me,” she said. “When I got old enough, I thought, ‘You know what, it’s a beautiful tradition, I want to keep it going.’”

At that time, there was a shop in Columbus that sold pysanky materials—the dyes and kistkas, the special styluses that hold melted wax.

“So, every year I went and got wax and dyes and started doing it myself,” Snyder said. “And like anything, as you do it, you get better and better.”

The eggs that Snyder decorates look intricately painted, but their designs are actually made through a wax-resist process of inscribing and sequential dyeing, moving from lighter to darker colors. The process starts with drawing an initial design in pencil on a chicken egg. The pysanky artist then heats the kistka in a candle flame and scoops up some beeswax. They return the kistka to the flame and melt the beeswax, which flows out of the kistka like ink. The artist then uses the beeswax to draw on the undyed egg, just in the areas that they want to appear white in the final design.

Next, the artist dips the egg in the first color of dye—usually a light color like yellow. The dye absorbs quickly into the spaces that are not covered with wax, and the artist then moves onto the next inscribing step—drawing on the designs that they want to appear in yellow.

Once those designs are complete, the artist dips the egg again in the next-darkest dye—maybe orange or red. The process is repeated until the darkest color of dye has been used. There is no erasing or modification possible in the dying process, so pysanky artists must learn to live with their designs and take any lessons learned onto the next egg.

Once the dyeing process is complete, the pysanky artist melts off the wax inscriptions carefully, avoiding burning the egg. Snyder then seals her eggs with Minwax and sets them out to dry.

Simple pysanky eggs can take an hour or so to decorate, but some of Snyder’s more intricated pieces take several days to complete. But this is part of the appeal for her.

“It’s really kind of nice to look forward to in the evening, to sit down and just have a quiet time, and just sit and do those,” she said. “It’s meditative. It kind of recenters you, you know? It’s really peaceful. So, it’s a good tradition to have and keep going.”

Snyder has hosted pysanky-decorating parties with friends. They’ve been fun, she said, even if the designs suffer a bit.

“It’s not like a quilting-bee kind of activity. In the past, pre-COVID, I would have friends over who aren’t at all Ukrainian, but they’re my artists friends. We would get together, everyone does an egg, has dinner, and drinks wine,” she said. “The eggs that get done aren’t very great, but we have a good time!”

Snyder also described how important the seasonal aspect of pysanky has been to its continuation in her family.

“It just feels good to do around Easter time,” she said. “It’s just the thing to do.”

She added that her grown children don’t currently practice the tradition, but she imagines they might later with their own families.

“I'm hoping so,” she said. “Because it’s so ingrained in our Easter. It’s just something that is part of the household. My kids just grew up that way—all the dyes were out on the kitchen counter. That’s what we were doing in the evenings. I was working on an egg, and they could come and join or not. It’s just kind of what you see, almost like people who grew up with a Christmas tree in the house at Christmas every year. It’s kind of the same thing.”

On the topic of Christmas, Snyder mentioned that some pysanky artists have found success decorating and selling eggs at Christmas time.

“I had a friend who did them for shows,” she said. “She would do them professionally and do them as Christmas ornaments.”

That artist made great sales and had some collectors, Snyder said, but she did remark that something always felt off about the process.

“She said it just didn’t feel quite right,” Snyder said. “It’s like, ‘no, they’re for Easter.’”

Snyder has also tried decorating outside of the Easter season, but she quickly abandoned it.

“I can’t do them any other time than Easter,” she said. “I’ve tried and I just can’t; it just doesn’t feel right. So, hopefully that’s part of it—where it just is part of Easter, and it keeps going.”

The gift-giving aspect of this tradition also helps keep it alive.

Snyder paints eggs for her parents and for her Ukrainian friends every year, and there is some expectation that she will continue adding to their collections.

In her own home, Snyder displays her finished eggs in bowls of rice or oats to keep them safe, so that she, her family, and friends can enjoy them for years to come.

To learn more about decorating pysanky, check out this video from the Capital Ukrainian Festival in Ottawa: https://rebrand.ly/Pysanky-workshop

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Article by Cristina Benedetti, Ohio Arts Council Folk and Traditional Arts Contractor
Featured photo: A basket of pysanky eggs. Photo courtesy of Carol Snyder.

Resilient Ohio: Cutting-Edge Safety Measures Keep Richland Academy Thriving

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 20:14:15 GMT

Picture the titular characters of Ivan Reitman’s 1984 “Ghostbusters” movie roaming around with their special “Proton Packs” strapped to their backs. In the film, the team of supernatural exterminators used these portable particle accelerators to capture ghosts and keep the people of New York City safe from paranormal pests.

Now, picture a similar scene unfolding in the halls of Mansfield’s Richland Academy of the Arts. The faculty and cleaning crew aren’t capturing ghosts, of course, but they are using a similar-looking gadget to keep people safe from a different invisible threat: the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

A new disinfectant sprayer, filled with the same liquid cleaning solution used in hospitals, was purchased by Richland Academy as one of two new cutting-edge safety protocols the organization has introduced since officially reopening its doors in June 2020. The sprayer makes it possible to clean soft surfaces, which are difficult to clean to COVID-19-santizing standards.

Another coronavirus-compliant safety measure installed at Richland Academy is a high-tech HVAC system equipped with a new needlepoint bipolar ionization unit to more thoroughly clean indoor air.

“The new ionization unit works by destroying different pollens or pathogens that can be harmful to humans,” such as mold and other viruses, said Alli Lange, Richland Academy’s marketing and social media coordinator. “This new system (is) proven to kill 99.4 percent of the (COVID-19) virus within 30 minutes.”

The decision to install this state-of-the-art HVAC system came to staff members at a board meeting when the reality of COVID-19 hit and solutions were needed to ensure a safe environment for students and teachers.

“We were very blessed when one of our board members here who owns the company that services our HVAC system brought the actual unit itself to a meeting,” said Richland Academy Executive Director Marianne Cooper “We knew that if we wanted to continue teaching classes, that this was absolutely the direction we needed to go.”

Richland Academy is a nonprofit arts center that receives operating support funding from the Ohio Arts Council. Like many educational institutions across the country, the academy has been greatly impacted by the realities of COVID-19 and had to close its doors for three weeks in February due to a few staff members testing positive for the virus. Upon reopening, the new HVAC installation and disinfectant sprayer, combined with other practices such as social distancing within classrooms and mask-wearing, made it possible to continue offering classes in dance, music, theatre, and martial arts to members of the community in a healthy and safe manner.

“We have had students who have reached out to us expressing how important it was to them that we are open and running so that they had that avenue to really express themselves even during this time,” Lange said. “It’s no secret that COVID-19 has impacted people’s mental health in a negative way, so on top of us wanting to provide arts in education opportunities to our community, we want to make sure that we are taking care of our community’s mental health.”

As institutions everywhere continue to adapt to this new reality, the adoption of health technologies such as the bipolar ionization HVAC unit has already made a large impact in several facilities. Similar units have been installed at the White House, the Mayo Clinic, and Harvard Law School.

Cooper said it’s all about adjusting and responding to information and best practices as they become available.

“(COVID-19) has driven us all to look in a different direction, some other way to keep people as safe as we can,” Cooper said.

And it seems to be working. These new safety protocols have given many students and members of the Mansfield community peace of mind that they are still able to pursue the activities they love—just with some new health and safety aspects added to the experience.

“What we are finding, which is so amazing, is that we are getting new students,” Cooper said. “We have a student population of about 60 percent first- time students, which speaks to the fact that people are really searching for safe activities for their children.”

And it’s not only school-aged children reaping the benefits of Richland Academy’s activities. Programs are also provided for adults ages 60 years and older. Even though COVID-19 is considerably more of a risk for seniors, older individuals have been enthusiastically taking part in Richland Academy’s senior program.

“What we found when we were able to reopen, (seniors) came back in droves,” Cooper said. “They were so eager to become involved in life outside of the home. It was quite interesting to see that happen.”

Looking to the future, Lange said she is confident that investment in health and safety technologies is truly a step toward Richland Academy’s long-term resilience.

“The safety of our faculty and students is our top priority and has been from the beginning,” she said. “We really consider these new projects to be a great step forward in providing a clean and safe environment for our community.”

For more information about programs offered at Richland Academy, visit richlandacademy.com.

Resilient Ohio is an ongoing series highlighting the innovative solutions developed by Ohio arts organizations as they navigate the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The impact of COVID-19 has created incredible financial obstacles for the arts across the country. According to Americans for the Arts, the negative economic impact of the coronavirus on the arts and cultural sector totals $14.8 billion across the nation—and counting. If you have a story to share about creative perseverance within Ohio’s arts community, please email it to communications@oac.ohio.gov.

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Article by Cassie Rea, 2021 Ohio Arts Council Arts Administration Fellow
Featured photo courtesy of Richland Academy of the Arts

Columbus Student Monserrat Tlahuel-Flores Named 2021 Poetry Out Loud State Champion

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 18:54:49 GMT

Ohio’s new Poetry Out Loud (POL) State Champion Monserrat Tlahuel-Flores knows that poetry is best when it feels personal.

“I really tried to look for things that I could personally connect with because I feel like that is one of the important things when picking a poem,” said Tlahuel-Flores, a senior at St. Francis DeSales High School in Columbus. “It really needs to resonate. And it just makes it easier to memorize because it’s like telling a part of my story.”

Tlahuel-Flores was among five students who competed at the Ohio POL State Finals competition on March 5, reciting their poems live from the WOSU Public Media studios in front a virtual audience and panel of judges.

As part of the national POL program presented by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, contests are held at the school, regional, and state level. State arts agencies from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico participate every year. This year, due to coronavirus-related safety restrictions, the Ohio POL State Finals competition was broadcast publicly through Zoom. All participants and production staff followed public health and safety guidelines, such as practicing mask-wearing and social distancing, while on-site and participating in the event.

In round one of the competition, Tlahuel-Flores recited “The True-Blue American” by Delmore Schwartz, a poem she felt told an important story through its references to gilded, golden-age American iconography such as ice cream sundaes, small-town shops, and national landmarks like the Grand Canyon. Tlahuel-Flores said she was curious to explore how the American Dream touted in the poem differed from present-day realities.

“I really wanted to embody Jeremiah Dickson—the character that Delmore Schwartz was describing. I wanted to emphasize the audacity of the story being told because it’s talking about this golden time in America, it’s talking about all of these grandiose things,” she said. “The poem mentions these great ideals and dreams, but at the end of the day, only certain Americans get to have these things that they want, and they come at a cost.”

In the next round, Tlahuel-Flores chose to recite “The Only Mexican” by David Tomas Martinez. The poem, which Martinez wrote about his grandfather, discusses themes of inter-generational conversations, familial history, and identity.

“‘The Only Mexican’ captures the feelings younger Mexican-Americans experience when interacting with older family members who think of us as non-Mexican,” Tlahuel-Flores said. “No matter how much I try, no matter how much I try to perfect the language, I worry that my own Mexican family won’t ever accept me as Mexican and might just only think of me as American.”

In the final round, Tlahuel-Flores recited “And If I did, What Then?” by George Gascoigne, a poem she said that she chose as a technical challenge for its difficulty.

Tlahuel-Flores will have another opportunity to showcase her skills later this spring when she represents Ohio at the POL National Finals, which are being presented as a virtual, video-submission-based competition on May 2 and May 27.

“I’ve been watching the POL National Finals competitions for the past four years,” said Tlahuel-Flores, who placed second in the 2020 Ohio POL State Finals. “As I prepare for nationals, I’m looking over the poems again and finding more meanings, layers, and connections to my own life. When finding the emotion, I want to really look back at my own experiences and just let the poem flow in a natural way. I just want to take in everything that I’ve learned, everything I’ve gathered from the poem, and just really live in that moment.”

In addition to securing the title of state champion, Tlahuel-Flores received $200, while her school, St. Francis DeSales High School, received a $500 check to purchase poetry books for its library.

Jakob Tucker, a senior at Archbishop McNicholas High School who placed second at the state finals, and Lexi Gastelu, a senior at Piqua High School who placed third, were also honored for their achievements with an art print by Columbus artist Wendy Kendrick featuring an excerpt of a poem by Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour.

Tlahuel-Flores said she is grateful for the support she’s received throughout her journey with POL. She shared that after she was announced as the state finals winner, she received a flood of celebratory emails and text messages from family members, as well as her teachers and principal, who had all tuned in to cheer her on to victory.

“I really just want to thank my family and school. They have been so supportive,” she said. “At the beginning of the year, I didn’t even know if I wanted to do this competition as a senior. My teachers really gave me that inspiration, that drive to just keep going and see what happens.”

Now Tlahuel-Flores is hoping to make Ohio proud at the national finals come May.

“Being from Ohio, I feel like people think we’re a ‘flyover’ state, and they don’t really appreciate the rich arts and culture community that we have here,” she said. “This competition gives me the chance to represent Ohio and Columbus and show what makes our state great on the national stage.”

Round one of the 2021 POL National Finals will be pre-recorded and streamed from Washington, D.C., on May 2, with a second round streaming on May 27. Both events will be available to watch on the National Endowment for the Arts’ POL website, poetryoutloud.org.

ABOUT POETRY OUT LOUD
The nation’s largest youth poetry recitation competition is presented by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation in partnership with the Ohio Arts Council. The Poetry Out Loud program encourages high school students to learn about great poetry, master public-speaking skills, build self-confidence, and study their literary heritage.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS (NEA)
Established by Congress in 1965, the NEA is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. Visit arts.gov to learn more about NEA.

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Article by Amanda Etchison, Communications Strategist
Featured photo by Terry Gilliam

ArtsChat Ohio: Breaking Down the Budget Process

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 17:51:35 GMT

ArtsChat Ohio is an audio blog bringing you the latest news and updates from Ohio Arts Council staff members. These conversations are recorded to be enjoyed using the audio player below. A transcript and show notes are also included.

Ohio Arts Council · ArtsChat Ohio: Breaking Down the Budget Process

Transcript
Audio transcript edited for clarity.

CARLA: Hello everyone! I’m Carla Oesterle, the Ohio Arts Council’s fiscal operations associate.

JUSTIN: And I’m Justin Nigro, our operations and public affairs director.

CARLA: We’re here to welcome you to another session of ArtsChat Ohio. It’s budget season for the State of Ohio. Justin and I are here today to talk about the state’s budgeting process from start to finish.

How are you today, Justin? Are you feeling ready to talk money?

JUSTIN: With you, Carla, always!

CARLA: Great! So, I think it’s important to start with a few basics about how the State of Ohio goes about budgeting, and then we’ll walk through the budget cycle. First things first, it’s important to know that Ohio budgets biennially. So, we have budgets in place for two years at a time. Things can change, of course, in those two years, but the two-year plan usually does stay intact unless there’s a major recession or unexpected surplus of funds.

JUSTIN: Second, let’s get to know the players. First, you have the governor of Ohio in the executive branch, who makes budget recommendations to Ohio’s legislature, the Ohio General Assembly. So, the governor, as executive, sets the tone to start budget considerations, and the governor also holds a lot of power at the end of the process through the line-item veto. More on this later.

The legislature also holds power all throughout the process, especially as the budget is being shaped and questioned. Like the governor, they look at revenue projections, analyze proposed expenditures, and hear testimony from every state agency and lots of advocates and citizens in order to inform the state’s budget choices.

And, if you remember your middle-school civics, the legislature holds the power of appropriation. They ultimately hold the purse strings. In practice, the legislature works closely with the executive branch to exercise that power.

CARLA: Next, our fiscal year starts on July 1 and ends on June 30, so we currently are living in State Fiscal Year 2021. That means on July 1, 2021, we’ll begin living in the “future”—Fiscal Year 2022.

JUSTIN: Last, I think it’s important to remember—and this is basic, but important—that a budget is made of revenues and expenditures. The revenues are projected, so they can change if there’s a recession or windfall. The expenditures are essentially what we call appropriations. Appropriations are the maximum limit an agency can expend in each line item in any given fiscal year.

Agencies can underspend appropriations or have them cut, but they cannot go over their appropriations within some sort of legislative action. Linked with this idea is that Ohio’s budget—almost all state budgets—must balance. We are not like the federal government and cannot print money, so to speak, to balance our budget, or use major deficit spending for ongoing operations and policies.

CARLA: Very cool. So, with that in mind, that future budget is the one you’re hearing about in the news right now—it covers FY 2022, which begins July 1 of this year, and FY 2023, which begins on July 1, 2022. Those are the budget recommendations that the governor put forward and that the legislature is currently considering.

So, let’s talk next about how the budget process kicks off. It starts with the executive branch and the Office of Budget and Management (OBM). The OBM director is appointed by the Governor and works with the Governor’s Office to start the process. Planning starts early—about a year before the two-year budget is enacted. It starts when OBM gives agencies something called “guidance” to plan their budgets. Yes, “guidance” is the official title, and the purpose is—as the title suggests—to guide state agencies, including the Ohio Arts Council, through the process of putting together their plan for different budget “scenarios.” Those scenarios typically have agencies plan to receive 90 percent of their old (aka current) funding level—that’s a 10 percent cut—or flat funding at 100 percent of their old (aka current) funding level.

JUSTIN: And so, Carla, when does our agency typically receive that guidance?

CARLA: We received guidance for the FY 2022-23 budget in July 2020. And keep in mind, that’s for a budget beginning July 2022.

So that began a two-month process of internal budget planning and development.

JUSTIN: I remember it like it was yesterday! So that entails a compilation of a lot of technical information, which you lead, Carla, as well as some narrative writing, which I help to coordinate along with our executive director, Donna Collins.

CARLA: Oh yes. Lots of work, lots of fun. So, we submit that required information in September, and that gives OBM and the Governor’s Office a few months to review not only our budget information and scenarios, but those of all state government agencies.

JUSTIN: A budget is a set of priorities, and that’s essentially what the governor sifts through. What are the priorities of this administration? And so, February, then, the governor releases the executive recommendations, and that begins the more visible, public discussion of the state budget—which we’re in right now—which lasts right through June.

I should mention that this is often the time when people who care about the arts throughout the state—arts advocates, businesses, patrons, and supporters, all the many artists and organizations who make up our state—that’s their chance to make known why public funding for the arts is important.

And for our part, we have a few resources available on our website to help inform the public about that topic, our Fast Facts and Budget Overview. They’re worth a look. Have you taken a look at those, Carla?

CARLA: You know I have!

JUSTIN: Excellent.

CARLA: Do you want to talk more about the legislative process, Justin? That’s your jam.

JUSTIN: It is my jam, sure. So, both the House and Senate have Finance Committees who review the governor’s budget recommendations and legislation. Given the size of the budget, both chambers also tend to divide the work into subcommittees or distribute the work to other standing committees or jurisdiction in either chamber.

Here at the Ohio Arts Council, our budget tends to be reviewed by the committees with jurisdiction over higher education. That means our executive director, Donna, has the chance to testify on behalf of the agency once in each chamber before House and Senate members on those committees.

CARLA: Which chamber goes first, Justin?

JUSTIN: The House goes first, typically. They spend February, March, and April reviewing the budget, and then the Senate review follows that, usually occurring in April, May, and June, sometimes with overlap in the middle.

In either chamber, there are typically three opportunities for amendments—twice in committee, and then once on the House or Senate floor before final passage. Each of those stages of amendment gets progressively harder within each chamber. Then, by June, the House and Senate will usually have each passed a different version of the budget, with different legislative policies and appropriation levels for agencies.

CARLA: How do they find compromise on those differences?

JUSTIN: Great question. The House and Senate, toward the end of the process, form a conference committee to reconcile the differences between these bills, and they produce a “conference report.” That’s usually done by the last week in June or so. The conference report cannot be amended when it goes back to each chamber, and typically the governor and executive branch have some input into the conference report as well, so that sets the stage for final passage and approval of the budget.

Once a final bill is sent to the governor, the governor can sign it into law and has the power to use line-item veto to delete anything in the budget bill. Although the governor can veto policy items, the governor cannot increase or decrease appropriations at that point—only eliminate them totally. And then last but not least, the legislature at the very end, retains the ability to override the governor’s vetoes through supermajority votes.

Phew. That’s a lot.

CARLA: That is a lot.

JUSTIN: So, this all takes place by June 30, and then, as you said, Carla, we enter into Fiscal Year 2022—the “future”—on July 1 with a new two-year budget in place.

Every so often, there are times when there is not agreement among the governor and legislature. Typically, in those cases, continuing budgets are passed to keep government running at a minimal level, at least. The federal government operates this way a lot, but it’s more rare at the state level here in Ohio to see that type of governance take place.

CARLA: And all the while as that is going on, I’m busy in the fiscal office closing out the old fiscal year, starting up the new fiscal year, doing all the work that goes along with managing the details of the agency’s budget along with our executive director.

JUSTIN: That’s right. And we’re all very thankful for that, and for you, Carla, and your work in the fiscal office.

So, I think that wraps up our chat on the very basic nuts and bolts of how our state government budgets here in Ohio—the broad strokes at least. If you haven’t read Donna’s testimony, you can find a link to it in the show notes on our website. It’s definitely worth reading to learn more about the work we do through our budget and how we put our funding to work in the state of Ohio. Her testimony was well-received in the House—she gave it back in February. Lots of engaged members, and she’s always so good at answering their questions. So, we hope to have a similarly positive experience in the Senate as well once Donna testifies there.

CARLA: Feel free to reach out to me or Justin directly if you have budget questions. We are happy to nerd out and make ourselves available.

JUSTIN: That’s right! And stay tuned for the next edition of ArtsChat Ohio.

Show Notes

ArtsChat Ohio Audio File: https://soundcloud.com/ohio-arts-council/artschat-ep2-state-budget

Ohio Arts Council Agency Fast Facts: https://oac.ohio.gov/Portals/0/about/pdfs/2021%20Fast%20Facts.pdf?ver=sXzKkbLaYIGjX4ygOOMzgA%3d%3d

Ohio Arts Council FY 2022-23 Budget Overview: https://oac.ohio.gov/Portals/0/about/pdfs/OAC%20Budget%20Overview%20FY%2022-23.pdf?ver=qpYBVcBQBaMDQ4H8SPZIUw%3d%3d

House Bill 110 Ohio Arts Council FY 2022-2023 Biennial Operating Budget Testimony: https://oac.ohio.gov/Portals/0/about/pdfs/FY_22_23_OAC_budget_testimony.pdf?ver=9lGOrevaDP0%3d

Justin Nigro: justin.nigro@oac.ohio.gov | 614-728-4445

Carla Oesterle: carla.oesterle@oac.ohio.gov | 614-728-4471

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Ohio Arts Council Announces Spring Board Meeting

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 13:39:25 GMT

Members of the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) board will meet virtually on Wednesday, March 31, 2021 at 10 a.m. The meeting link is rebrand.ly/OACBoardMarch2021.

The meeting is open to the public. The full board meeting agenda is available online here.

Ohio Arts Council Secures New Funding for Creative Aging

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 17:37:32 GMT

The Ohio Arts Council (OAC) recently secured new funding from a national grant program to advance creative aging programs for older adults in Ohio.

Recognizing that older adults have many contributions to make to their communities—but that they often face ageism and isolation and have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19—the OAC sought funding from the Leveraging State Investments in Creative Aging program, a joint initiative of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) and Aroha Philanthropies. Ohio secured $60,000 for the Ohio Intensive Creative Aging Training Initiative.

“The Ohio Arts Council is thrilled to engage in this critical work to expand Ohio’s ability to provide arts programming for older adults,” said Donna S. Collins, OAC executive director. “Through training teaching artists and providing participatory art-making experiences, together we can improve Ohioans’ quality of life.”

The OAC is one of 36 state arts agencies receiving awards from NASAA. With this funding, each state will conduct creative aging activities tailored to the unique needs of its constituents. Activities will include providing professional development for teaching artists and providing direct programming to older adult audiences.

"NASAA is proud to have Ohio in our creative aging cohort," said Pam Breaux, NASAA president and CEO. "This grant will help to grow opportunities for creative aging in Ohio over time, facilitating lifelong learning, joy, social engagement, and improved well-being for older adults."

"Aroha Philanthropies is proud to partner with NASAA to support creative aging through our state and jurisdictional arts agencies," said Ellen Michelson, founder and president of the foundation. "This initiative marks an important step toward broadened awareness, adoption, and funding of creative aging programs across the country."

For more information about NASAA's Leveraging State Investments in Creative Aging initiative, visit nasaa-arts.org/communication/new-initiative-expands-creative-aging-nationwide.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF STATE ARTS AGENCIES
The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) is a professional association of the nation’s 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies. NASAA is a national, not-for-profit, nonpartisan organization that champions public support for the arts in America. Together, NASAA and the state arts agencies advance the arts as an essential ingredient in the well-being and prosperity of our nation’s individuals, communities and families. For more information, visit nasaa-arts.org.

ABOUT AROHA PHILANTHROPIES
Aroha Philanthropies is a nonprofit arts organization, working in the Twin Cities and beyond to improve quality of life through creative self-expression. Built on the foundation of love, Aroha combines selflessness, tolerance, kindness, and compassion to support the development of artistic and creative opportunities—and the personal discoveries that go with them—for everyone. For more information, visit arohaphilanthropies.org.

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Article by Justin Nigro, Operations and Public Affairs Director

6 Ohio High School Students to Compete in Virtual Poetry Out Loud State Finals

Thu, 25 Feb 2021 17:16:40 GMT

Six Ohio high school students will compete in front of a virtual audience for the title of 2021 Ohio Poetry Out Loud (POL) state champion on March 5, 2021.

For 16 years, POL has connected high school students to poetry from a diverse array of poets from around the world and across the centuries. Created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, POL is administered in partnership with the state arts agencies of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. POL encourages students to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation. This program helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about literary heritage and contemporary life.

This year, students will recite their poems live from the WOSU Public Media studios, with the competition broadcast publicly through Zoom. All participants and production staff will follow public health and safety guidelines, such as practicing mask-wearing and social distancing, while on-site and participating in the event.

The six students who will compete at the 2021 POL State Finals competition are:

Olivia Douglas – Medina High School
Lexi Gastelu– Piqua High School
Maxwell Gierke – Toledo School for the Arts
Monserrat Tlahuel-Flores – St. Francis DeSales High School
Jakob Tucker – Archbishop McNicholas High School
Lee Wilkins – John Glenn High School

The State Finals consists of three rounds. Each student will recite one poem in each round. Contest results will be determined by the cumulative scores from all three rounds, with the State Champion title awarded to the student with the highest score overall.

The State Finals will be adjudicated by three guest judges: poets Steve Abbott, Nancy Kangas, and Rose Smith, who will score students’ performances remotely. Also joining the event via Zoom will be the former State Senator Eric Kearney, who will serve as the event’s emcee, and Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour, who will present a reading of a few of her poems.

The winner of the Ohio State Finals will go on to represent the Buckeye State at the POL National Finals, where he or she will compete with other state champions for awards and the title of national champion. This year, the POL National Finals, which are typically held in-person in Washington, D.C., will “take place in the spring as a video submission-based competition,” the National Endowment for the Arts’ POL website stated. Dates for the national finals event are forthcoming.

Ohio’s 16th annual POL State Finals competition will begin on March 5 at 6 p.m. The event, which will be streamed on Zoom for free at rebrand.ly/ohiopol-2021, is open virtually to the public.

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Article by Amanda Etchison, Communications Strategist

Resilient Ohio: Short North Stage Virtual Production Brings Lights, Camera, Action to the Living Room

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 20:09:56 GMT

A virtual performance presented by Columbus’ Short North Stage takes working from home to a new level.

In the play “Bad Jews,” a dark comedy by Joshua Harmon, three cousins and one of their girlfriends are stuck sharing a studio apartment the night after their grandfather’s funeral. As tensions rise, the group is forced to face the harsh truths of family, faith, and legacy as their confinement in a small space continues.

It’s a premise that hits close to home amid a year of social distancing and lockdowns, parallels that are not lost on members of the cast, who all moved into an Airbnb that doubled as a working set for the duration of filming.

“I’ve never lived in the same exact space where I was performing,” said Nick Cosgrove, a new Columbus resident and professional actor who plays Jonah Haber, one of the cousins, in the show. “It’s amazing how we have the cameras set up downstairs, (where) we film the play. Our set has a working sink and a working stove—very different from usual play sets—so we are able to actually use those things in the filming of the scenes. It’s very fun to get to play with that realism.”

The cast came together after a week of virtual Zoom rehearsals. Once everyone completed four rounds of COVID-19 testing—that all turned out negative—the four-person cast, as well as Short North Stage Artistic Director Edward Carignan, met in-person to film the performance, which was then produced and streamed as a virtual play.

“(The process is) somewhere in between making a play and making a movie. It’s theatre-making meets filmmaking,” Carignan said. “We’ve gotten really good at using technology to its fullest.”

The 2020-21 season was supposed to be a big one—the 10th anniversary—for Short North Stage, a professional theatre company “dedicated to bringing first-class live performance to the Short North Arts District” from the historic halls of the Garden Theater, as described on its website.

When the coronavirus pandemic forced performing arts organizations and venues across Ohio and the world to shutter in-person operations in early spring of last year, Carignan said that Short North Stage was inspired to launch an all-virtual slate of shows which formed what would soon be called their “Season 9.5.”

“We forecasted pretty early on that things were going to take a long time to get back to normal and that our options were to just let the Garden Theater sit there and do nothing, or we could try to figure out what was possible,” he said.

“Bad Jews” is Short North Stage’s fourth virtual production. Previous shows have included Andrew Lippa and Tommy Greenwald’s musical “John & Jen”; Howard Crabtree and Mark Waldrop’s “When Pigs Fly”; and the world premiere of “Quarantine with the Clauses,” a musical also penned by Waldrop. A virtual production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” is the next project the Short North Stage team will take on following the final streaming performance of “Bad Jews” on Feb. 14.

Producing modified performances for a digitally engaged audience has required some adjustment from cast and crew, but exploring the possibilities of virtual theatre has “(kept) people engaged and artists working,” Carignan said, adding that their holiday show, “Quarantine with the Clauses,” alone featured more than 50 local performers and interns.

For Cosgrove and his fellow actors, the experience of filming “Bad Jews” was a temporary glimpse back into the world of theatre from pre-pandemic times.

“It was kind of strange taking off your mask and working with strangers. It was exciting! There’s a huge difference between talking to a computer on Zoom and actually acting with the cast in person,” he said. “Once we were done with rehearsals, we’d put the set pieces away and just hang out together in the same space as a cast. We’d share stories, get to know each other, and eventually disperse to our rooms for the evening.”

Although the world is not quite ready to return to (show) business as usual, both Carignan and Cosgrove expressed their hope that performances like “Bad Jews” will give people a taste of the live theatre they’ve been missing until stages and seats can be filled safely again.

“Now more than ever, I think we need a sense of unity and community,” Cosgrove said. “I think we need to be able to connect with one another. I think there’s no better way (to do that) than through the arts—through music, visual arts, and storytelling—that sort of take you away for an hour or two to peer into the world of someone else.”

And when it is possible to gather once more, know that Ohio’s arts organizations are ready for your return.

“When you’re vaccinated and safe, please come back,” Carignan said. “Support the arts however you can right now by watching virtual shows and donating, but then when it’s up again, still continue to support it, because without patrons we are nothing.”

Short North Stage is a Sustainability grant recipient of the Ohio Arts Council. For more information, visit shortnorthstage.org.

Resilient Ohio is an ongoing series highlighting the innovative solutions developed by Ohio arts organizations as they navigate the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The impact of COVID-19 has created incredible financial obstacles for the arts across the country. According to Americans for the Arts, the negative economic impact of the coronavirus on the arts and cultural sector totals $14.8 billion across the nation—and counting. If you have a story to share about creative perseverance within Ohio’s arts community, please email it to communications@oac.ohio.gov.

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Article by Amanda Etchison, Communications Strategist, and Cassie Rea, 2021 Ohio Arts Council Arts Administration Fellow
Featured photo: The cast of Short North Stage's "Bad Jews", including Nick Cosgrove, Ali Foley, Jake Loewenthal, and Annie Winneg. Photo courtesy of Short North Stage.

75 Artists Receive Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 16:53:17 GMT

Members of the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) board have approved $300,000 in grant funding to be awarded to 75 Ohio artists through the OAC’s Individual Excellence Awards program for state fiscal year 2021.

Individual Excellence Awards are peer recognition of a creative artist’s body of work that exemplifies their specific discipline and advances the larger artistic community. These awards support artists' growth and development and recognize their work in Ohio and beyond.

During this funding cycle, applications in crafts, design, interdisciplinary arts, media arts, photography, visual arts 2D, and visual arts 3D were accepted. Each award is $4,000. The grants were approved at the OAC board’s winter board meeting on Jan. 20.

Individual Excellence Award funding is awarded through an open panel review process focused on the basis of exceptional merit of an artist’s past body of work.

“Individual Excellence Awards represent investment in imagination, artistry, and talent by giving artists the resources to innovate, explore their art forms, develop skills, and advance their careers,” said OAC Executive Director Donna S. Collins. “These awards honor the outstanding accomplishments of Ohio artists, who we are proud to support as they continue to shape creative conversations in our state through their work in and mastery of their chosen disciplines and crafts.”

A list of Individual Excellence Award winners follows:

CRAFTS

Tom Bartel (Athens, Athens County)
Stephanie Craig (Berea, Cuyahoga County)
Peter Christian Johnson (Kent, Portage County)
Eva Kwong (Kent, Portage County)
Andrea LeBlond (Cleveland, Cuyahoga County)
Cynthia Lockhart (Cincinnati, Hamilton County)
Sarah McMahon (Homeworth, Columbiana County)
Mychaelyn Michalec (Dayton, Montgomery County)
Marc Petrovic (Euclid, Cuyahoga County)
Stephen Yusko (Lakewood, Cuyahoga County)

DESIGN

Anne Kmieck (Cleveland Heights, Cuyahoga County)
Misty Thomas-Trout (Dayton, Montgomery County)

INTERDISCIPLINARY

Jay Bolotin (Cincinnati, Hamilton County)
Malcolm Cochran (Columbus, Franklin County)
Kara Güt (Avon, Lorain County)
Calista Lyon (Columbus, Franklin County)
Migiwa Orimo (Yellow Springs, Greene County)
Nate Ricciuto (Columbus, Franklin County)
Thu Tran (Cleveland, Cuyahoga County)

MEDIA ARTS

Roger Beebe (Columbus, Franklin County)
Jeremy Bessoff (Athens, Athens County)
Jesseca Ynez Simmons (Dayton, Montgomery County)

PHOTOGRAPHY

Donald Black Jr. (Shaker Heights, Cuyahoga County)
Amanda D. King (Cleveland, Cuyahoga County)
Sharon Koelblinger (Kent, Portage County)
Jacob Koestler (Cleveland Heights, Cuyahoga County)
Bridget Murphy Milligan (Tiro, Crawford County)
Ardine Nelson (Columbus, Franklin County)
Pipo Nguyen duy (Oberlin, Lorain County)
Gina Osterloh (Columbus, Franklin County)
Rachel Girard Reisert (Cincinnati, Hamilton County)
Sheilah ReStack (Columbus, Franklin County)
Gregory Spaid (Gambier, Knox County)
Mary Jo Toles (Cleveland, Cuyahoga County)
Eric Zeigler (Maumee, Lucas County)

VISUAL ARTS 2D

Christine D'Epiro Abbott (Columbus, Franklin County)
Diana Abells (Columbus, Franklin County)
Shelley Brenner Baird (Columbus, Franklin County)
Kelley Booze (Springfield, Clark County)
Christopher Burk (Columbus, Franklin County)
Larry Collins (Oxford, Butler County)
Susan Danko (Parma, Cuyahoga County)
Christian Faur (Granville, Licking County)
Timothy Gaewsky (Cleveland, Cuyahoga County)
Deborah Griffing (Sunbury, Delaware County)
Hiroshi Hayakawa (Columbus, Franklin County)
Glen Holland (Columbus, Franklin County)
Charles Kanwischer (Waterville, Lucas County)
Stanka Kordic (Bedford, Cuyahoga County)
Natalie Lanese (Cleveland, Cuyahoga County)
Nickolaus Larsen (Gahanna, Franklin County)
Jeremy Long (Dayton, Montgomery County)
Taryn McMahon (Kent, Portage County)
Andrea Myers (Columbus, Fraklin County)
Jeannette Palsa (Hudson, Summit County)
Magda Parasidis (Columbus, Franklin County)
Shawn Powell (Kent, Portage County)
Danielle Rante (Dayton, Montgomery County)
Marc Ross (Columbus, Franklin County)
Nikos Rutkowski (Columbus, Franklin County)
Daniel Sapp (Berlin Heights, Erie County)
Dana Saulnier (Oxford, Butler County)
Karen Snouffer (Gambier, Knox County)
Kate Snow (Cleveland Heights, Cuyahoga County)
Christopher Taylor (New Albany, Franklin County)
Edward Valentine (Delaware, Delaware County)
Rebekah Wilhelm (Cleveland, Cuyahoga County)
Eileen Woods (Columbus, Franklin County)

VISUAL ARTS 3D

Kate Budd (Akron, Summit County)
Lauren Davies (Broadview Heights, Cuyahoga County)
Dana Depew (Sullivan, Lorain County)
Paul O’Keeffe (Cleveland Heights, Cuyahoga County)
Priscilla Roggenkamp (Alliance, Stark County)
Brittany Sievers (Columbus, Franklin County)
Lauren Yeager (Cleveland, Cuyahoga County)

To download and view a complete, filterable list of award recipients, click here. To view the list of award recipients as a PDF, click here.

For more information about the OAC’s grant programs, visit oac.ohio.gov/grants.

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Article by Amanda Etchison, Communications Strategist
Correction 01/25/21: Several names of artists receiving Individual Excellence Awards were adjusted per the artists' requests.

Ohio Arts Council Announces Winter Board Meeting

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 14:05:00 GMT

Members of the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) board will meet virtually on Wednesday, January 20, 2021 at 10 a.m. The meeting link is rebrand.ly/OACBoardJan2021.

The meeting is open to the public. The full board meeting agenda is available online here.

ArtsChat Ohio: FY 2022 Arts Learning Grants

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:27:09 GMT

Introducing ArtsChat Ohio, an audio blog bringing you the latest news and updates from Ohio Arts Council staff members. These conversations are recorded to be enjoyed using the audio player below. A transcript and show notes are also included.

Ohio Arts Council · ArtsChat Ohio: FY 2022 Arts Learning Grants

Transcript
Audio transcript edited for clarity.

LET'S GET STARTED (Begins at 0:00)

CHIQUITA: Hello everyone, and welcome to our discussion today. I’m Chiquita Mullins Lee, arts learning coordinator with the Ohio Arts Council, and I’m here with my esteemed colleague, Jarred Small, who is my counterpart at the OAC. We’re glad you’re listening, and we’re happy to talk about the OAC’s Arts Learning Department, especially with two big deadlines approaching in February and March 2021. The TeachArtsOhio deadline is February 1, and the Arts Partnership deadline is March 1.

The unprecedented times we are facing have challenged our creativity to an even higher degree, yet we have seen our constituents meet the challenges in powerful ways. Today, Jarred and I will discuss our programs to give you food for thought as you prepare applications for the upcoming deadlines. We also want to support you in considering options for responding to the impact of COVID-19 on your work. We hope that as you listen to our discussion, you will feel empowered to pursue and achieve your arts learning goals.

JARRED: Thanks, Chiquita, for a great introduction. As with much of our world, a lot has happened at the Ohio Arts Council since March 2020. We have been living through volatile, challenging, and difficult situations across Ohio and our nation related to a trifecta of crises that include the coronavirus, its economic fallout, and a year of great social unrest and reckoning. Indeed, one need not look very far beyond Ohio’s schools and school districts to see these effects play out. We’ve seen forced school closures, transitions to hybrid and fully remote learning models, and an acute focus on work and curricula surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion for all our children.

Here at the OAC, all staff have been working tirelessly to continue serving the needs of our constituency, which has included—among many other things—working with individual grantees on a case-by-case basis to provide the resources and flexibility needed for grant-supported projects to continue and successfully conclude.

Regrettably, one of the bigger OAC headlines since March surrounds state budget reductions across almost all state agencies in Ohio, made necessary by the coronavirus pandemic. Things looked pretty down in the spring before taking a positive turn this fall.

The OAC’s state appropriations for the biennium were reduced to just more than $32 million, a cutback of $2.1 million. In response, agency staff have worked to mitigate cuts to grantees, in part by taking on administrative cuts. The OAC has pursued administrative savings through pay cuts, a hiring and travel freeze, a freeze on new contracts, and an agency-wide cost-savings analysis that eliminated or lowered many expenses and ended various non-essential services.

Crucially, the agency has also so far been able to avoid staff layoffs, employing a mission-critical staff of 18. To further lessen cuts to grantees, the OAC also reinvested the entirety of its $517,200 in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act dollars from the National Endowment for the Arts into grants for Ohio arts organizations.

Then, on October 26, the Ohio Controlling Board approved an additional $20 million in economic relief from the CARES Act for the arts and culture sector to be distributed through the OAC. This funding was initially announced October 23 by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, and legislative leaders of the Ohio General Assembly. Subsequently, the OAC regranted the entirety of the $20 million from the federal CARES Act without retaining any for overhead or administrative expenses. Pursuant to federal law, the OAC expended its CARES Act funds before December 30 and actually completed this monumental work on November 30, ensuring needed funds were in the hands of arts organizations as quickly as possible.

This marked the most significant arts economic relief package ever earned and administered by the OAC. It also represents the second-largest single investment of CARES Act dollars to date of any U.S. state or territory dedicated exclusively to the arts.

Of course, with this good news comes the acknowledgement that there are many financial needs in the arts community beyond that which the Ohio Arts Council and the State of Ohio could ever fully provide. However, the OAC—including its arts learning office—stands ready to steward additional dollars from state, federal, and private sources to invest in Ohio’s future through the arts should they become available.

And so, the OAC’s work continues to move forward, and we’re looking ahead to all that 2021 has to offer. While we await the arrival of a mass-produced COVID-19 vaccine, the OAC is still working hard to continue offering grant programs focused on arts education that will support the work of schools, arts organizations, and teaching artists and invest in future creative endeavors for the benefit of Ohio’s PK-12 students.

With that in mind, today, Chiquita and I wanted to highlight some important arts-learning-focused grant programs offered by the OAC that are available now for schools and arts organizations to apply to. We’ll also discuss how applicants might shape their proposals considering the current, evolving situation surrounding the pandemic. And we’ll do this through a question-and-answer-style format between the two of us.

GRANT APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN FOR FY 2022-23 (Begins at 6:31)

CHIQUITA: Before that, however, we want to mention that grant applications are open now for programs supporting arts education activities occurring next school year—that’s school year 2021-22. You can view all of the OAC’s grant programs on our website at oac.ohio.gov and click on the “Grants” tab to review each program’s Guidelines, a crucial step before beginning your application. Within these Guidelines, you can view things like eligibility requirements, how the grant programs work, how to apply, and even a detailed breakdown of the review criteria by which all applications will be reviewed and scored.

I’ll also note that all applications are submitted through the OAC’s online grants management system, ARTIE. Before you begin your application, you’ll need your own ARTIE profile. If you’re a school that’s new to the OAC, you must reach out to the OAC to get yourself registered, but if you’re a nonprofit arts organization, you can create an ARTIE profile for yourself by searching for your organization in the provided IRS database. To begin your ARTIE journey, go to ohioartscouncil.smartsimple.com.

BIG YELLOW SCHOOL BUS (Begins at 8:03)

JARRED: With that business out of the way, I think we’re ready to dive into the meat and potatoes of our discussion today about OAC arts learning grant programs.

Chiquita, can you start us off by telling us a little about the Big Yellow School Bus program?

CHIQUITA: The Big Yellow School Bus program is one of our most popular programs. It’s highly accessible, and it provides field trips to arts and cultural events within Ohio. The maximum grant amount is $500, with no match required. There is a rolling deadline, so schools can apply anytime throughout the school year, as long as they apply up to eight weeks in advance of their planned field trip.

It’s important to note that the grant activities funded through Big Yellow School Bus are not for student participation in arts events—they won’t be the ones on stage singing or playing instruments. The program instead funds opportunities for students to gain exposure to the arts by observing from the audience or by visiting a gallery.

JARRED: I would assume that the pandemic has probably impacted the kinds of arts experiences funded through this program. As of this recording in early December 2020, what is the status of the Big Yellow School Bus program?

CHIQUITA: The Big Yellow School Bus program is on hiatus until further notice. It has been on hiatus since March 2020 because of the high-contact components of field trips. But it is only a hiatus and not an elimination of the program.

JARRED: So, with that in mind, how can teachers stay connected to the program?

CHIQUITA: Just continue to contact the OAC for updates. They can reach out to me at chiquita.mullinslee@oac.ohio.gov or call me at 614-728-4455.

Teachers can also make note of prospective field trips they are interested in taking so that when we open the program back up again, they will be ready to apply.

JARRED: Throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen almost everything go virtual and online. Do you know of any organizations that are offering virtual learning opportunities, or do you have any tips when it comes to virtual programming for arts education needs?

CHIQUITA: I would suggest that teachers visit the website of any organization that they are interested in and find out what kinds of virtual programming they offer. One example is the Cleveland International Film Festival, one of our most popular destinations for this specific grant program. Because people are currently unable to travel to the theatres in Cleveland, they can go to the Cleveland International Film Festival website, which offers online programming. It’s been great to see how such a popular site for field trips has been able to adjust their operations to address the challenges of the coronavirus. We encourage that continued curiosity and interest in the program.

TEACHARTSOHIO (Begins at 11:20)

CHIQUITA: So now, let’s pivot to another one of our flagship arts learning programs, the TeachArtsOhio program. Jarred, can you give us a quick historical overview of the TeachArtsOhio program and how it’s evolved over the years?

JARRED: It has been an evolution, and that’s a good place to start. TeachArtsOhio (TAO) has evolved from the OAC’s former Artist in Residence program. So, essentially, TAO is a school-based, collaborative opportunity for schools to work with professional artists who are experienced in working with students in grades PK – 12. The pilot phase for TAO began in 2015, and the program was formally launched in 2017.

TeachArtsOhio maintains some elements of the Artist in Residence program, especially in the exposure of students to artmaking opportunities led by professional artists. But TAO revamps some other aspects of the former program, namely, encouraging more flexibility in the structure and length of artist residencies. Schools now have the opportunity to work with artists from a time period as short as one week (five days) to as long as a whole school year (about 120 days).

One of the core tenants of TAO is the longer-term, deeper engagement of students with professional artists. This is great for schools that desire to introduce a spark of innovation or creativity into their curriculum. This is the program for them.

CHIQUITA: It’s a great program. For many folks considering applying to TeachArtsOhio, this becomes their first time ever applying for support through the OAC’s grantmaking process. I know that oftentimes, school districts have dedicated personnel whose full-time job includes managing state and federal grants. But with TeachArtsOhio, many of the primary contacts who apply are teachers or administrators. What can those folks expect when they open the TeachArtsOhio application for the first time?

JARRED: I think you really hit on an important point there in that many schools that apply to the OAC’s TeachArtsOhio program are first-time applicants, potentially navigating the grant application process by themselves for the first time. We at the OAC want to lower the barrier to entry to applying for grant funding as much as possible, and we do pride ourselves on staff accessibility and trying to make the application simple yet comprehensive.

I think the one thing that folks should think about first and foremost is that time is a crucial element when crafting a grant application. So, give yourself time. It’s probably good habit to open the application sooner rather than later, and when you do, become familiar with some key tabs on the application itself. The narrative tab is designed to guide you through the answers we are looking for through a series of bulleted points, so pay close attention to those under each narrative question. If you address each of those bullets, you are setting yourself up pretty well for success.

The budget tab essentially asks you to tell us not only how much funding you are seeking from the OAC, but also if there are other funds being brought in from outside sources, whether that’s the school or a local business, as well as in-kind contributions like the time teachers or administrators spend on aspects of the project.

Finally, the support materials tab in nutshell is everything beyond the written text that applicants wish to include as part of their application. These materials help to amplify the proposed project, and they can include support letters, previous examples of lessons or curriculum, or artwork produced as part of a similar residency. You’ll also want to include at least a couple of documents that really showcase the qualifications of the artist(s) with whom you’d like to work.

And I mentioned the teaching artists before. The final element I think applicants would really want to pay attention to is the question in one of the first few tabs that asks you to name a teaching artist. Applicants to TeachArtsOhio don’t need to have a teaching artist in mind when they apply, and for those who might not have a specific artist in mind, the OAC’s Ohio Teaching Artist Roster is a useful resource for folks applying for a TAO grant. So, if you don’t have an artist in mind, but the idea of working with an artist seems really attractive to you, visit our website. The roster has about 54 artists from around the state who can lead high-quality creative opportunities for students, including in-person and virtual performances, workshops, and longer-term artist residencies. If you have any questions, definitely reach out to us. You can email me at jarred.small@oac.ohio.gov or call 614-728-4481. Part of my job is to help make those matches a reality.

CHIQUITA: That’s great, Jarred. All of those details really help, and I hope that teachers will really take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. It’s really exciting.

The 2021-22 school year remains a mystery for many schools and school districts, especially the learning models and adaptations schools will employ compared to the current school year. What would you recommend to schools who are considering applying but aren’t even sure whether there will be meaningful progress on the COVID-19 front?

JARRED: It’s like looking into a crystal ball, isn’t it? Especially when we’re asking folks to apply for a February or March deadline for activities that are for next school year. I would say to apply anyway! Have a go at it and know that we are flexible. As an agency, and especially within our grant programs, we certainly know that school districts and schools across the state probably don’t have answers right now as to what the fall is going to look like.

But we would encourage schools to envision what next year could look like with a professional artist, whether in-person or hybrid or all virtual. We know that each school district is different and distinct in their plans. We have seen that play out this past fall. Everyone is tackling learning in their own unique way, what works best for them, which is great.

The biggest tip that I would offer is to assume—make assumptions based on how your school is treating this year, the 2020-21 school year, and roll with that. If you’re school is all in-person right now, maybe make that assumption that instruction will be taking place in-person next school year and that resident artists will be allowed in the building. And it might behoove you to include plans for your school will adapt to COVID-19 in its programming via a contingency document that can be included in the support materials tab. It doesn’t have to be all that in-depth, it doesn’t need to be this huge document. It might be a good idea to demonstrate to a panel that, ‘yes, we want this to happen in person, that’s the plan, but here are some plans we might utilize to shift to remote learning if it ever had to happen.’

So, apply, make some assumptions and make those assumptions clear, and then make a contingency plan.

CHIQUITA: That’s good to know, Jarred. Do you have any stand-out examples of TeachArtsOhio residencies that were successful considering the pandemic, perhaps one that impressed you in its ability to pivot to virtual programming?

JARRED: Yes, I’ve got to tell you, Chiquita, I’ve been really impressed with how schools and education personnel and nonprofit education directors shifted so quickly and so successfully to hybrid and remote learning. There are a lot of examples out there, and it’s difficult to pick one or two. But there are a couple that come to my mind, and a couple of different models.

One is a TeachArtsOhio grantee for the current school year. They have accomplished a flamenco residency—so they were doing a dance residency focused on the flamenco art form—and it was a hybrid model. They had the flamenco artist actually teaching flamenco to the kids on the school’s tennis courts back in early fall, when the weather was still pretty nice. They were socially distanced and masks were worn, and the weather was conducive to teaching dance. That part was great. That was very much like a hands-on artmaking activity. The flip side of that was the hybrid model, when they brought in virtual programming. The flamenco artist worked with numerous Spanish language classes at the school, and they managed to integrate the flamenco artist into these Spanish classes virtually. It really gave a jolt to the Spanish curriculum. And it essentially integrated flamenco into the Spanish-speaking language components of that class. That was a really interesting element because it didn’t really involve teaching flamenco, per se, but it opened the eyes of a lot of Spanish students to the art of flamenco that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. So, it went from a more in-person dance element to a more integrative application of the flamenco culture and history and what that means for the Spanish language.

The other one that shifted to full-remote was a music residency at a high school. And, actually, the teaching artist provided me with a quote a little while back when he shifted to remote learning. So, of course, the idea was to do a music residency in person, the pandemic happened, and they shifted to remote.

Here’s what the teaching artist had to say: “Transitioning to musical remote learning had us thinking in new ways to interact, connect, and teach students. New programs and applications, such as Google Classroom, have been used to create assignments for creative lyric writing, listening and analyzing songs, and posting reference documents, while newer apps such as Soundtrap and Flipgrid were used to record/film a student singing along to a track or writing a new song."

So, essentially, this was actually a songwriting-based residency, and they leaned really heavily on the music technology that is out there to continue the collaboration between students at home with a professional singer-songwriter who is based in Cleveland. That has worked really well. Technology has really been a saving grace for some of these things.

CHIQUITA: What a wonderful way to amplify learning in the arts in your classrooms. It’s just amazing to me what people can do.

JARRED: It really is. And, of course, credit goes out to all the hardworking educators and teaching artists out there who so successfully responded to shifting times in education and really provided a creative outlet for kids when it was—and still is—needed. Hats off to all of our grantees for doing that.

ARTS PARTNERSHIP (Begins at 26:45)

JARRED: I want to dive into a bit about Arts Partnership, which is another one of our major OAC grant programs. And, of course, Chiquita is the lead on that program. Chiquita, will you describe what Arts Partnership is all about?

CHIQUITA: The Arts Partnership program provides funding for community-based arts education projects. So, in this regard, grants are offered to arts and cultural organizations, supporting projects in various disciplines. Arts Partnership grants support in-depth, intensive sequential study of an arts discipline along with hands-on artmaking. So, it is studying art but then also making, actually getting your hands into the paint or into the clay or whatever the discipline might be.

The grants support the engagement of professional artists working with project leaders and participants. So, again, these are artists who have a lot of experience in their given field. Arts Partnership also serves participants from preschoolers through older adults, so this is truly intergenerational. We talk about lifelong learning, and Arts Partnership supports that to a major degree.

Project leaders for Arts Partnership grants work intensively to plan a project that serves specific community needs. The partnership can take different forms. For example, a theatre could partner with an elementary school to allow students to work with theatre professionals and learn all aspects of theatre production. An art center could partner with a senior center to offer painting classes to an older adult audience. A museum could partner with a high school and technology center to help students learn to create and later display digital art projects. So there are a lot of variations, and it is just a matter of applicants using their imagination and thinking about what they’d like to bring to their communities in the area of arts learning.

Arts Partnership offers two-year funding for nonprofit applicants. The maximum grant amount is $25,000, and a cash match is required. Project partners often contribute funds to support the cash match. The partnership aspect of Arts Partnership is critical.

JARRED: So, I spoke a little bit about how COVID-19 has affected TeachArtsOhio. How should applicants to Arts Partnership address their intentions to respond to COVID-19, if necessary?

CHIQUITA: When applicants are completing their application in ARTIE, they can do a couple of things. There are a couple of options. They can include a brief statement in their grant application narrative, but we want to remind folks that they need to be mindful of the word count because ARTIE will limit your word count.

On the other hand, applicants could also include a separate statement in their support materials. That gives them more freedom or flexibility to elaborate as much as they might need to.

JARRED: Yes, that’s good! Use that support materials section if you’re running out of words. That’s a good tip. So, I’m curious to see if you have any strong examples of Arts Partnership projects that pivoted to virtual programming.

CHIQUITA: There are a couple of projects that come to mind. For example, the Columbus Museum of Art offered what is called “Studio in a Box.” The museum is committed to providing virtual experiences to support arts learning at home for students and for families. So, they provided funding to provide stipends to engage local artists to work in partnership with museum staff to create blog posts. But in addition to blog posts, the museum was able to provide up to 300 “Studio in a Box” kits at no cost to Central Ohio families. They worked with a network of teachers and schools to identify families and students who were at-risk. So, they got arts materials, were able to follow instructions and create art at home and not be completely cut off from the arts experience. So, the Columbus Museum of Art was really great at pivoting to deal with this current emergency.

Another one was the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s PROJECT38. They have an annual theatre festival, but, of course, theatres were shut down. So, what did they do? They pivoted to an online festival. So, the PROJECT38 virtual festival for 2020 featured virtual content from each play in Shakespeare’s canon through the PROJECT38 Facebook page. Many students had already completed projects, which they were able to film or photograph prior to schools closing. So, they were still able to have their virtual experience on stage. A lot of schools did have to withdraw from the festival due to the circumstances, but there were still projects from the last five years of the festival that PROJECT38 was able to highlight. Plus, they included content from the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. Many of the resident actors also joined in to create their own contributions. So, they did a really great job of pivoting. And, for anyone who may have been unaware of it, if you go onto their Facebook page, you can watch what the students were doing in the Cincinnati area during May and June of last year and learn a little bit about Shakespeare.

JARRED: I love that. Two really wonderful examples of great pivots to virtual programming. What about in general, though? For Arts Partnership, can you give us one or two examples of really strong Arts Partnership proposals or projects?

CHIQUITA: Sure. One example would be the Wexner Center for the Arts, their Pages program. This is a year-long program that includes arts experiences at the Wexner Center. There are classroom sessions led by Wexner Center educators, as well as local artists. The project encourages writing and artmaking all year long by students. And all of this culminates in an open-mic reception and a professionally designed and published anthology of the students’ work. It’s a great literary and interdisciplinary arts program.

Secondly, WYSO in Yellow Springs is sponsoring the Dayton Youth Radio Project. This project offers in-school training in radio production. It provides an introduction to radio journalism and audio and interviewing techniques, and it includes field trips to WYSO. The project supports the creation of radio documentaries and feature stories for broadcast on WYSO.

FINAL THOUGHTS (Begins at 34:10)

JARRED: Innovation at its finest with all of the folks that you mentioned. They are certainly changing the game with arts education.

I think we can leave things there for now. We hope this has been helpful to folks out there listening and considering applying to an OAC arts learning grant program. Of course, this doesn’t need to be the end of the conversation for you, our audience.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss any matters you heard today more in-depth, both Chiquita and I pride ourselves on our openness and availability. Should you like to get in touch with either or both of us, just head on over to our website at oac.ohio.gov, hover over the “About” tab, and click “Staff Directory,” where you’ll find a listing of all OAC staff members and ways you can get in touch.

So, that does it for now! We really hope you and your loved ones have a bright holiday season, however you plan to celebrate or connect. From all of us at the Ohio Arts Council, we wish you a safe and happy 2021.

CHIQUITA: Safe and happy! Good talking to you, Jarred!

JARRED: You as well, Chiquita! Take care, folks!

CHIQUITA: Goodbye!

Show Notes

ArtsChat Ohio Audio File: soundcloud.com/ohio-arts-council/artschat-ep1-arts-learning-grants

Ohio Arts Council Grants Page: oac.ohio.gov/grants

ARTIE: ohioartscouncil.smartsimple.com

Big Yellow School Bus Guidelines: oac.ohio.gov/Portals/0/grants/Guidelines/Big-Yellow-School-Bus.pdf

Cleveland International Film Festival: clevelandfilm.org

TeachArtsOhio Guidelines: oac.ohio.gov/Portals/0/grants/Guidelines/TeachArtsOhio.pdf

Ohio Teaching Artist Roster: oac.ohio.gov/Resources/Ohio-Teaching-Artist-Roster

Arts Partnership Guidelines: oac.ohio.gov/Portals/0/grants/Guidelines/Arts-Partnership.pdf

Columbus Museum of Art "Studio in a Box" Program: columbusmuseum.org/blog/2020/06/24/studio-in-a-box/

PROJECT38 Facebook Page: facebook.com/PROJECT38

Wexner Center for the Arts Pages Program: wexarts.org/education/pages

WYSO Dayton Youth Radio Program: wyso.org/podcast/dayton-youth-radio

Ohio Arts Council Staff Directory: oac.ohio.gov/About/Staff-Directory

Chiquita Mullins Lee: chiquita.mullinslee@oac.ohio.gov | 614-728-4455

Jarred Small: jarred.small@oac.ohio.gov | 614-728-4481

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Ohio Teaching Artist Roster Welcomes 10 New Artists in Second Year

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 16:33:36 GMT

Ten new teaching artists with expertise ranging from music and dance, to creative writing and visual arts, have been added to the Ohio Teaching Artist Roster, an online tool that helps connect communities with well-qualified Ohio teaching artists.

Launched in 2019, the Ohio Teaching Artist Roster is presented by the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) in partnership with Art Possible Ohio, Center for Arts-Inspired Learning, Ohio Alliance for Arts Education, and OhioDance. The roster is designed for use by the community, particularly educators, to assist in identifying teaching artists who can lead high-quality creative opportunities for students, including in-person and virtual performances, workshops, and longer-term artist residencies.

The Ohio Teaching Artist Roster is available as a resource for applicants to OAC grant programs, including TeachArtsOhio and Arts Partnership, who wish to work with a high-quality teaching artist. Deadlines to apply to TeachArtsOhio and Arts Partnership are February 1, 2021, and March 1, 2021, respectively.

Inclusion on the roster indicates an artist’s artistic excellence; ability to integrate academic content; effective classroom management and student engagement; and strong communication with education, arts, and cultural partners. Artist profiles are reviewed and approved by the Ohio Teaching Artist Roster’s partner organizations.

The 10 new teaching artists approved for inclusion on the roster are:

Utpola Borah, music, Columbus
Susan Byrnes, visual arts, Cincinnati
Diana Chittester, music, Lakewood
Jennifer Hambrick, creative writing, Worthington
Andrea McCormick, dance, Cleveland
Klaire Smith, visual arts, Wheelersburg
Fariha Tayyab, multidisciplinary, Columbus
Lara Troyer, music, Cleveland Heights
Hans Utter, music, Columbus
Kerri Wilde, dance, Napoleon

The 2020 cohort of new artists joins the 44 teaching artists who were accepted for the roster’s launch last year and who will remain on the roster through the end of the 2020-21 school year.

One of those artists, Columbus-based poet Nancy Kangas, explained how her experiences working with students has influenced her professional artistic practice.

“Being a guest artist in schools gives me the chance to learn and practice all the good stuff: how to listen, what sorts of questions engage students, which poems help launch our own, how to roll with the unexpected, and how to collaborate with other educators,” she said. “It’s the kind of hard work you yearn for.”

Teaching artists commit to receiving ongoing professional development related to their placement on the Ohio Teaching Artist Roster on matters critical to success in collaborating with schools, educators, and learners of diverse abilities and backgrounds. Professional development is planned and implemented in concert with the roster’s five partner organizations.

“Through the Ohio Teaching Artist Roster, I have been able to meet and partner with other amazing creatives, experience networking events, and create programs that previously I never could have imagined,” said Terry Boyarsky, a roster artist and performing musician from Cleveland Heights. “There is nothing standard about being an artist-in-residence—it calls me to be my best, on every level and challenges me to be flexible in my teaching.”

Teaching artists interested in applying to join the Ohio Teaching Artist Roster can do so in the spring of 2021, when applications will again be accepted. The roster is open to working artists living in Ohio.

To access the online Ohio Teaching Artist Roster or to learn more, visit oac.ohio.gov/Resources/Ohio-Teaching-Artist-Roster or contact OAC Arts Learning Coordinator Jarred Small at jarred.small@oac.ohio.gov.

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Article by Amanda Etchison, Communications Strategist
Featured image courtesy of Countess Winfrey and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company.

Governor DeWine Appoints Adam Shank of Powell to OAC Board

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 18:06:25 GMT

Governor Mike DeWine has appointed Adam Shank of Powell to the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) board for a term expiring July 1, 2024.

Mr. Shank is the executive director of the Ohio Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs, where he is responsible for leading Clubs in Ohio through a strategic shift to grow organizational capacity and extend the impact Clubs have to all Ohio’s youth. Previously, he served as the director of strategic planning and transformation for Dublin City Schools, overseeing the district’s operational excellence programming.

Mr. Shank is a licensed attorney and active contributor to the Association of Corporate Counsel, a national nonprofit organization aimed at advancing the corporate legal profession. As the past president of the Central Ohio Chapter, he worked closely with local and national contacts to grow and advance the offerings for members in the area.

A statewide nonprofit leader focused on service to youth, Mr. Shank is an ardent believer in the mission of the Boys & Girls Clubs to ensure that all children, especially those that need us the most, can reach their full potential as responsible, caring, and productive citizens. He holds a BA in politics and government from Ohio Wesleyan University, a Juris Doctorate from the Franklin Thomas Backus School of Law at Case Western Reserve University, and a master’s in business operational excellence from the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University.

“We are excited to welcome Adam to the Ohio Arts Council board,” said OAC Executive Director Donna S. Collins. “His expertise in nonprofit leadership is well-matched to the work undertaken by the OAC that seeks to provide transformational art experiences to Ohioans of all ages, from professional masters to youth just beginning their artistic journeys.”

All appointments remain subject to the advice and consent of the Ohio Senate.

ABOUT THE OHIO ARTS COUNCIL'S BOARD
The OAC Board is composed of 15 voting members appointed by the governor, and four non-voting members—two each from the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives. The Council Board is responsible for final approval of funding requests. The Board meets four times during a calendar year and all meetings are open to the public.

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Article by Amanda Etchison, Communications Strategist

9 Ohio Arts Organizations Receive COVID-19 Relief Grants from Arts Midwest Totaling $260K

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 21:26:16 GMT

Sixty-one Midwestern arts and culture organizations, including nine based in Ohio, have received COVID-19 relief grants from Ohio’s regional arts organization, Arts Midwest, through the second phase of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund.

Selected organizations will each receive a grant ranging from $10,000 - $50,000. Recipients may direct Resilience Fund grants to their most pressing needs and opportunities, from response activities to investments that build resiliency and sustainability.

The Resilience Fund’s goal is to support historically under-resourced arts and culture organizations across the United States as they work to weather the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with these priorities, 32 of the funded organizations are based in rural areas, 25 are led by and serving people of color, and five are led by and serving Native and Indigenous communities.

In November, Arts Midwest announced that 30 mid-to-large-sized organizations, including four in Ohio, received a total of $1.5 million in aid during a first wave of funding. Today’s second round of award announcements was made possible by an anonymous donor who provided a matching investment of $1.5 million to support smaller organizations with annual budgets between $50,000 - $249,000.

A list of Ohio recipients in round two of the Resilience Fund grants and their award amounts follows:

Passion Works Studio (Athens) - $50,000
Black Swamp Arts Festival (Bowling Green) - $35,000
Majestic Theatre (Chillicothe) - $15,000
Maroon Arts Group (Columbus) - $15,000
Ohio Regional Music Arts and Cultural Outreach (Homerville) - $20,000
ArtSpace Lima (Lima) - $40,000
Paper Circle (Nelsonville) - $10,000
Piqua Arts Council (Piqua) - $25,000
The Youngstown Playhouse (Youngstown) - $50,000

Ohio Arts Council Executive Director Donna S. Collins thanked Arts Midwest for their leadership in providing much-needed aid to more Midwestern arts organizations through this second round of funding.

“We are grateful to Arts Midwest and the anonymous donor who expanded the Resilience Fund to reach organizations that are the binding threads in the fabric of their communities,” she said. “The arts in Ohio are strengthened through the work of arts and cultural organizations of all sizes. We applaud the tenacity and creativity championed by arts leaders throughout the state and thank them for their hard work and dedication in such trying times.”

“As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the nation, smaller arts and culture organizations are deeply hurting,” said Torrie Allen, president and CEO of Arts Midwest. “We are grateful to the Mellon Foundation and our anonymous funder for investing in the creative core of the Midwest. We are hopeful that these funds will help organizations across our region weather the storm so that they can keep serving their communities for years to come.”

For more information on all the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund recipients, visit the Arts Midwest website.

ABOUT ARTS MIDWEST
Arts Midwest believes that creativity has the power to inspire and unite humanity. Based in Minneapolis, Arts Midwest grows, gathers, and invests in creative organizations and communities throughout the nine-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. One of six nonprofit United States regional arts organizations, Arts Midwest’s history spans more than 30 years. For more information, visit artsmidwest.org.

ABOUT UNITED STATES REGIONAL ARTS ORGANIZATIONS
Arts Midwest, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, South Arts, and Western States Arts Federation occupy a unique niche in the U.S. cultural ecosystem. They partner with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, state arts agencies, and others to develop and deliver programs, services, and products that support and advance the arts. Learn more at usregionalarts.org.

ABOUT THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION
Founded in 1969, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the largest national supporter of the arts and humanities, endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies by supporting exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work. Additional information is available at mellon.org.

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Article by Amanda Etchison, Communications Strategist
Featured image: Athens, Ohio's Passion Works Studio is one of nine Ohio arts and culture organizations selected to receive COVID-19 relief grants from regional arts organization Arts Midwest through the second phase of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Photo courtesy of Passion Works Studio.

Ohio Arts Council Awards $20 Million in CARES Act Economic Relief for the Arts

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 16:38:39 GMT

Today, the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) announced 296 grant awards totaling $20 million in economic relief from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act for the arts and culture sector.

The OAC will not retain any dollars for its own overhead or administrative expenses.

“This investment will go a long way in supporting the recovery and resilience of Ohio’s creative economy, which is among the pandemic’s hardest hit sectors,” said Executive Director Donna S. Collins.

CARES Act funds were made available to the OAC through the initiative of Gov. DeWine and state legislative leaders and through the approval of the state’s Controlling Board.

“In this season of thankfulness, I join with the OAC board to express my gratitude to Governor Mike DeWine and leaders of the Ohio General Assembly for investing in Ohio’s performing and cultural arts organizations,” Collins said.

Awards were determined through a tiered, need-based formula that considered each eligible applicant’s budget and reported expenses qualifying under the CARES Act.

For a complete list of awards, click here to view an Excel spreadsheet or here to view a PDF.

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Article by Justin Nigro, Operations and Public Affairs Director

Ohio Arts Council Statements on $20 Million in CARES Act Economic Relief for the Arts

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 18:38:26 GMT

View funding guidelines and an announcement to eligible grantees here.
View a list of Frequently Asked Questions here.

Today, the Ohio Controlling Board approved $20 million in economic relief from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act for the arts and culture sector to be distributed through the Ohio Arts Council (OAC). This funding was previously announced Friday by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, and legislative leaders of the Ohio General Assembly.

The OAC will regrant the entirety of the $20 million in federal CARES Act dollars without retaining any for overhead or administrative expenses. Pursuant to federal law, the OAC must expend CARES Act funds by Dec. 30.

“This significant investment comes at an urgent time to ensure the resilience of Ohio’s arts and cultural organizations,” said Ginger Warner, chair of the Ohio Arts Council. “On behalf of the Ohio Arts Council, I deeply thank Governor Mike DeWine, House Speaker Bob Cupp, Senate President Larry Obhof, and legislators of the Ohio General Assembly.”

“The arts make us stronger. They are crucial to educating our children for the 21^st century workforce, improving our quality of life especially in difficult times, and helping our communities restore their vitality,” said Jim Dicke II, vice-chair of the Ohio Arts Council. “I am grateful that our elected leaders recognize the merit of providing relief for one of the hardest hit economic sectors.”

“Sound stewardship of tax dollars is critical to maintaining Ohioans’ broad support for public funding for the arts. This investment is essential to sustaining to the performing and cultural arts in Ohio, and the OAC stands ready and able to play a role in helping our state to recover from COVID-19,” said Executive Director Donna S. Collins.

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Article by Justin Nigro, Operations and Public Affairs Director

Poetry Out Loud Goes Virtual in 2021

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 18:18:36 GMT

Ohio’s Poetry Out Loud (POL) program is set to host virtual events for its 2021 regional semifinals and state finals competitions.

School registration for the 2021 competition is now open at oac.ohio.gov/Programs/Poetry-Out-Loud/POL-Register.

The switch to competitions presented digitally ensures that POL can continue safely as schools and communities operate according to reopening guidelines shared by the Ohio Department of Health and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine.

“Ohio Poetry Out Loud’s ‘sweet sixteen’ will look a little different, but we are grateful to be able to offer this transformative program to high school students throughout Ohio in a new, digital space,” said Ohio Arts Council (OAC) Executive Director Donna S. Collins. “We know so many students look forward to sharing their love of poetry on stage each year, so it was important to Ohio Poetry Out Loud and our regional partners to find a way to safely continue this beloved annual tradition.”

To participate in POL, teachers, librarians, and administrators from around Ohio register their high schools with the OAC and organize contests with one class, several classes, or a whole school. Finalists from these school-specific contests are then invited to participate at local semifinal events organized by Ohio POL regional partners, which include the Piqua Arts Council in Piqua, and the Cuyahoga County Library in Parma, ELEMENTZ in Cincinnati, Wild Goose Creative in Columbus, the Marathon Center for Performing Arts in Findlay, and Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville.

In addition to hosting the virtual semifinal events this year, POL regional partners also offer workshops for teachers and school champions.

Students who receive the top scores at their regional semifinal competitions advance to the next level of competition: Ohio’s POL State Finals. Like the regional semifinal events, the state finals will also be held virtually this year. The event will take place on Friday, March 5, 2021, beginning at 6 p.m. More details will be released in the coming months.

High school teachers are strongly encouraged to register their schools and offer students the chance to develop a lifelong love of poetry on the page and performed onstage. Contests, workshops, and multi-media program materials, including curricula, are free. POL is aligned with Common Core and National Council of Teachers of English NCTE standards.

More information and a school registration form are available at oac.ohio.gov/Programs/Poetry-Out-Loud/POL-Register. Registration closes on Dec. 1, 2020, at 11:30 p.m.

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Article by Amanda Etchison, Communications Strategist
Featured photos by Terry Gilliam

4 Ohio Arts Organizations Receive COVID-19 Relief Grants Totaling $205K

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 16:01:03 GMT

Funds Provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Will Help Historically Under-Resourced Arts and Culture Organizations Weather the COVID-19 Crisis

Thirty Midwestern arts and culture organizations, including Ohio-based organizations Cleveland Public Theatre, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Karamu House, and Stuart’s Opera House, have received COVID-19 relief grants from Arts Midwest through the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund.

The Resilience Fund’s goal is to invest in historically under-resourced arts and culture organizations across the United States as they work to weather the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with these priorities, 22 of the funded organizations are led by and serving people of color and/or Indigenous communities, and 11 are based in rural areas.

The 30 selected organizations will each receive $50,000 – $55,000 as a one-time investment with no matching funds required. Recipients may direct United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund grants to their most pressing needs and opportunities, from response activities to investments that build resiliency and sustainability.

A list of Ohio recipients of Resilience Fund grants and their award amounts follows:

Cleveland Public Theatre (Cleveland) - $50,000
Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (Dayton) - $55,000
Karamu House (Cleveland) - $50,000
Stuart’s Opera House (Nelsonville) - $50,000

Ohio Arts Council Executive Director Donna S. Collins thanked the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Arts Midwest for their support of arts organizations that provide crucial access to the arts in Ohio communities.

“We are grateful that four Ohio arts organizations were able to receive support through this national funding initiative generously offered by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Arts Midwest,” she said. “We know so many of our colleagues in the arts are facing unprecedented challenges and uncertainties in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, especially those serving under-resourced communities. We commend their strength, innovation, and perseverance as they continue to work each day to provide transformative arts experiences accessible to all audiences.”

The impact of COVID-19 has created incredible financial obstacles for the arts, with Americans for the Arts estimating current losses for the creative sector at more than $12.5 billion and counting. These losses exacerbate deep, existing inequities present across the Midwest and the nation. Historically under-resourced communities and organizations now face an additional lack of access to critical support, investment, and capitalization to weather the pandemic, putting their work acutely at risk.

The United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund began in June 2020, when each of America’s six Regional Arts Organizations, a national collective of place-based nonprofit arts service organizations, received allocations of a $10 million emergency grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. To distribute its $1.5 million share, Arts Midwest shaped an equity-focused trust-based philanthropic investment model to ensure that rural communities, Indigenous communities, and communities of color were integral voices in the funding process. Decision making on how to allocate Resilience Funds was guided by rural culture makers and arts leaders of color from across the Midwest as well as representatives from Arts Midwest’s nine partner State Arts Agencies.

In total, more than 500 Midwestern organizations were nominated by community members to receive money through the Resilience Fund.

“These organizations play a critical role in the civic and economic vitality of our communities and are core to our quality of life in the Midwest,” said Torrie Allen, president and CEO of Arts Midwest. “We are proud to be partnering with our state arts agencies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and our fellow U.S. Regional Arts Organizations on this recovery effort and are humbled by the continued need for support within and beyond these communities.”

The United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund will continue to support organizations across the Midwest beyond this first wave of funding. Thanks to a gift from an anonymous donor, an additional $1.5 million in support will be invested in Midwest organizations that are small, rural, and/or led by and serving people of color and Indigenous communities. Recipients of this second round of funding will be announced in late November 2020.

For more information on all the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund recipients, visit the Arts Midwest website.

ABOUT ARTS MIDWEST

Arts Midwest believes that creativity has the power to inspire and unite humanity. Based in Minneapolis, Arts Midwest grows, gathers, and invests in creative organizations and communities throughout the nine-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. One of six nonprofit United States regional arts organizations, Arts Midwest’s history spans more than 30 years. For more information, visit artsmidwest.org.

ABOUT THE UNITED STATES REGIONAL ARTS ORGANIZATIONS

Arts Midwest, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, South Arts, and Western States Arts Federation—occupy a unique niche in the U.S. cultural ecosystem. RAOs partner with the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, State Arts Agencies, and others to develop and deliver programs, services and products that support and advance the arts. Learn more at usregionalarts.org.

ABOUT THE ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION

Founded in 1969, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the largest national supporter of the arts and humanities, endeavors to strengthen, promote, and, where necessary, defend the contributions of the humanities and the arts to human flourishing and to the well-being of diverse and democratic societies by supporting exemplary institutions of higher education and culture as they renew and provide access to an invaluable heritage of ambitious, path-breaking work. Additional information is available at mellon.org.

ABOUT THE OHIO ARTS COUNCIL

The Ohio Arts Council is a state agency that funds and supports quality arts experiences to strengthen Ohio communities culturally, educationally, and economically. Connect with the OAC on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or visit our website at oac.ohio.gov.

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Article by Amanda Etchison, Communications Strategist

Athens Musician, Composer, and Professor Paschal Yao Younge Awarded 2020 Ohio Heritage Fellowship

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 15:49:51 GMT

Dr. Paschal Yao Younge, a master artist specializing in African Traditional Musical Arts, has been awarded the 2020 Ohio Heritage Fellowship Award for Performing Arts from the Ohio Arts Council (OAC).

Ohio Heritage Fellowships are awarded in recognition of the significant impact an individual or group has had on the people and communities of the state through their advancement and preservation of the folk or traditional arts. The award, which is $5,000, is given in one of three categories: Performing Arts, Material Culture, or Community Leadership.

Younge is a professor of music education at Ohio University, where he also serves as director of the annual International Summer Program in African Interdisciplinary Arts and co-artistic director of the African Ensemble. A musician, composer, scholar, and author, Younge is a specialist in African choral and brass music and a clinician in sub-Saharan African musical arts. His research focuses on topics such as intercultural and multicultural music education and fine arts curricula, creative performance issues and practices in music and dance, and world percussion. Younge also directs Azaguno, an Ohio-based performance group focusing on the “research, preservation, and performance of African, African-American, Caribbean, and Latin American music and dance,” according to its website.

WATCH: "THE STRUGGLE AHEAD (LIFE IS SHORT)" PERFORMED BY AZAGUNO

Video courtesy of Azaguno on YouTube

Through Azaguno, as well as his career as a solo artist and teacher, Younge has performed and taught traditional African Musical Arts throughout Ohio and abroad. As part of this work, Younge has created opportunities for children, university students, academics, and professional artists to engage, study, and perform African music.

Younge said he is “delighted and humbled” to be selected for the 2020 Ohio Heritage Fellowship Award.

"My heritage and identity are intricately tied to Ghanaian (African) history, culture, and the arts, which I have been performing and promoting from an early age of 8,” Younge said. “I am forever thankful to the Ohio Heritage Fellowship Committee and the Ohio Arts Council’s board for this prestigious honor. What a privilege to be joining the exclusive group of past awardees. A country, a state, a town, or a village without a conscious mechanism put in place to promote the arts is undoubtedly a society without a soul."

Rising to the level of traditional master artist through years of study and practice, Younge acquired the skill, techniques, and knowledge of traditional African Musical Arts and Culture from the Republic of Ghana and in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Throughout his career, he has worked closely with nearly 100 traditional masters and performance groups and has presented and performed in more than 16 countries.

WATCH: "CLAIM YOUR SPACE!" A TEDx TALK BY DR. PASCHAL YAO YOUNGE

Video courtesy of TEDx Talks on YouTube

The Ohio Heritage Fellowship program supports artists who are not only masters of their chosen art form, but who also contribute to the public visibility of the folk and traditional arts in Ohio as practitioners, mentors, or community leaders.

OAC Executive Director Donna S. Collins said Younge routinely occupies all three of these roles at once.

“Paschal’s passion for his life’s work is evident in his performances and compositions, as well as his experience as an educator,” she said. “The devotion with which he approaches his art and research inspires others to deepen their awareness of the artistic and cultural traditions that flourish throughout Ohio. The OAC is pleased to present Dr. Younge with this award in honor of his continued exemplary accomplishments.”

To learn more about the Ohio Heritage Fellowship program and Ohio folk and traditional arts, visit folkarts.ohioartscouncil.org.

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Article by Amanda Etchison, Communications Strategist
Featured Image Photo Credit: Kelly O'Quinn

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Columbus Student Monserrat Tlahuel-Flores Named 2021 Poetry Out Loud State Champion

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Transcript Audio transcript edited for clarity.

Show Notes

Ohio Arts Council Announces Spring Board Meeting

Ohio Arts Council Secures New Funding for Creative Aging

6 Ohio High School Students to Compete in Virtual Poetry Out Loud State Finals

Resilient Ohio: Short North Stage Virtual Production Brings Lights, Camera, Action to the Living Room

75 Artists Receive Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council

Ohio Arts Council Announces Winter Board Meeting

ArtsChat Ohio: FY 2022 Arts Learning Grants

Transcript Audio transcript edited for clarity.

LET'S GET STARTED (Begins at 0:00)

GRANT APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN FOR FY 2022-23 (Begins at 6:31)

BIG YELLOW SCHOOL BUS (Begins at 8:03)

TEACHARTSOHIO (Begins at 11:20)

ARTS PARTNERSHIP (Begins at 26:45)

FINAL THOUGHTS (Begins at 34:10)

Show Notes

Ohio Teaching Artist Roster Welcomes 10 New Artists in Second Year

Governor DeWine Appoints Adam Shank of Powell to OAC Board

9 Ohio Arts Organizations Receive COVID-19 Relief Grants from Arts Midwest Totaling $260K

Ohio Arts Council Awards $20 Million in CARES Act Economic Relief for the Arts

Ohio Arts Council Statements on $20 Million in CARES Act Economic Relief for the Arts

View funding guidelines and an announcement to eligible grantees here. View a list of Frequently Asked Questions here.

Poetry Out Loud Goes Virtual in 2021

4 Ohio Arts Organizations Receive COVID-19 Relief Grants Totaling $205K

Funds Provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Will Help Historically Under-Resourced Arts and Culture Organizations Weather the COVID-19 Crisis

Athens Musician, Composer, and Professor Paschal Yao Younge Awarded 2020 Ohio Heritage Fellowship

Transcript
Audio transcript edited for clarity.

Transcript
Audio transcript edited for clarity.

View funding guidelines and an announcement to eligible grantees here.
View a list of Frequently Asked Questions here.