Tag: ArtsMemphis

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Art Feature

First Horizon Foundation Grants $450,000 to 18 Local Arts Organizations

Collage Dance Collective was a beneficiary of the ArtsFirst grant. (photo courtesy ArtsMemphis)

The local arts are getting another boost, this time to the tune of a cool $450,000.

Eighteen local organizations are set to benefit from the investment thanks to a partnership between ArtsMemphis — the primary arts funder for Memphis and Shelby County — and First Horizon Foundation.

“Arts organizations have persevered during this pandemic and, as a result, have uncovered new, innovative ways to engage audiences and create works we can all appreciate,” said Bo Allen, regional president for First Horizon. “We’re proud to partner with the arts community to help bring their programs and productions to life.”

The grant is part of ArtsMemphis’ ArtsFirst program, which aims to promote excellence and enrichment in the arts throughout Memphis and Shelby County. Since the program was founded in 2012, it has raised more than $4 million for 43 local arts organizations.

“Our city and county’s vibrancy in the arts would not be possible without corporate generosity,” said Elizabeth Rouse, president and CEO of ArtsMemphis. “First Horizon Foundation’s leadership and support of ArtsMemphis and arts organizations has been transformative. We are honored to celebrate 10 years of the ArtsFirst program and grateful for their investment to enable a powerful return of the arts this year. It’s an honor to work alongside their team to administer this unique grant program.”

Grant recipients pose on the lawn outside the Levitt Shell (photo courtesy ArtsMemphis)

Read the full list of ArtsFirst grant recipients and accompanying programs below:

  • Arrow Creative | Youth Summer Camp Scholarships
  • Ballet Memphis | Ballet Memphis Midtown Campaign
  • Carpenter Art Garden | Mosaic Program
  • Collage Dance Collective | Breaking Through Campaign
  • Creative Aging Memphis | Operating Support
  • Crosstown Arts | Crosstown Theater
  • Dixon Gallery and Gardens | Black Artists in America: 1929-1954
  • GPAC | The Grove at GPAC
  • Hattiloo Theatre | Sensory Friendly Shows
  • Levitt Shell | Operating Support
  • New Ballet Ensemble & School |Springloaded Gala 2021
  • Opera Memphis | Company Artists Sponsorships
  • Orpheum Theatre Group | Annual Auction
  • Soulsville Foundation | Stax Music Academy’s Music Career Fair and Spring Showcase
  • Tennessee Shakespeare Company | Season Sponsorship
  • The CLTV |Juneteenth Gala
  • Theatre Memphis | Season Sponsorship
  • UrbanArt Commission | Revisiting and Responding Project

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News News Blog

ArtsMemphis Gives Another Round of Operating Support Grants

ArtsMemphis has announced its second round of fiscal year 2021 operating support grants – for a total of $850,000 – benefitting 48 local arts organizations.

Funding evaluation criteria includes: grantee narrative reports surrounding organizations’ COVID-19 responses and commitments to advancing racial equity and inclusion; financials from 2019 and 2020 coupled with 2021 projections; and staffing data, including total artist engagement.

As the Mid-South’s primary arts funder, ArtsMemphis invested $2.8 million in 71 arts groups and 137 artists in 2020. During the COVID pandemic, the organization elevated its role as convener and connector for the arts sector by helping arts organizations maintain or rework business plans, create virtual arts events, and develop reopening protocols.

“We recognize that unrestricted operating support is necessary to shape a dynamic and sustainable arts community,” said ArtsMemphis president & CEO Elizabeth Rouse. “In addition to the COVID-prompted Artist Emergency Fund, we continue to prioritize our cornerstone operating support grant initiative, which is made possible each year by our corporate, foundation, and individual donors.”

Of the 48 awarded organizations, 41 percent are led by a person of color, and 77 percent are serving majority people of color participants.

“We are establishing equitable practices through not only the size, history, or genre of our awarded grantees — we are also covering a higher percentage of smaller organizations’ operating budgets, especially since their access to additional relief funds during COVID, such as PPP, has been limited,” said Rouse. “We felt this financial relief should be an immediate priority.”

Prior to the pandemic, 20 percent of ArtsMemphis’ grantees’ budgets were related to 1,300 staff. Arts organizations have reported an 80 percent reduction in the number of artists engaged in 2020 versus 2019, resulting in 8,570 artist engagements lost. Layoffs or furloughs were reported by 53 percent of arts organizations, impacting 560 positions, or 44 percent of the arts sector workforce.

The grantees are:

  1. AngelStreet
  2. Arrow Creative
  3. Ballet Memphis
  4. Ballet on Wheels Dance School & Company
  5. Beale Street Caravan
  6. Blues City Cultural Center
  7. Carpenter Art Garden
  8. Cazateatro Bilingual Theatre Group
  9. Children’s Ballet Theatre
  10. Circuit Playhouse, Inc.
  11. Collage Dance Collective
  12. Creative Aging Memphis
  13. Germantown Community Theatre
  14. GPAC
  15. Harmonic South String Orchestra
  16. Hattiloo Theatre
  17. Indie Memphis
  18. IRIS Orchestra
  19. Levitt Shell
  20. Memphis Black Arts Alliance, Inc.
  21. Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
  22. Memphis Jazz Workshop
  23. Memphis Music Initiative
  24. Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul, Inc.
  25. Memphis Slim Collaboratory
  26. Memphis Symphony Orchestra
  27. Memphis Youth Symphony Program
  28. Metal Museum, Inc.
  29. Music Export Memphis
  30. New Ballet Ensemble & School
  31. New Day Children’s Theatre
  32. On Location: Memphis
  33. Opera Memphis, Inc.
  34. Orpheum Theatre Group
  35. Perfecting Gifts Incorporated
  36. Playback Memphis
  37. PRIZM Ensemble
  38. RiverArtsFest, Inc.
  39. Soulsville Foundation
  40. SubRoy Movement
  41. Tennessee Shakespeare Company
  42. The Blues Foundation
  43. The CLTV (Collective)
  44. Theatre Memphis
  45. Theatreworks
  46. UrbanArt Commission
  47. Young Actors Guild
  48. Youth Artist Development Academy

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News News Blog

Lag in Corporate, Foundation Funding Hurting Arts Groups

Local arts organizations are looking at a 25 percent decrease in 2021 income compared to pre-pandemic figures.

The data comes from ArtsMemphis on the arts groups it funds. It says that contributions from individuals increased in 2020 and that trend is continuing in 2021, but a decrease in corporate and foundation giving is reducing earned revenue for 2020-21 over 2019.

“Our arts organizations have made strategic shifts in operations and programs in order to continue harnessing an audience and providing artists a platform to create,” said Elizabeth Rouse, president and CEO of ArtsMemphis. “Hope and anticipation for a sense of recovery are brimming, but this recovery period requires major support. We’ll need community support to return to the economic powerhouse position the nonprofit arts sector was for the county prior to the pandemic.”

Arts organizations have reported an 80 percent reduction in the number of artists hired in 2020 versus 2019, resulting in 8,570 arts jobs lost. Layoffs or furloughs were reported by 53 percent of arts organizations, impacting 560 positions, or 44 percent of the arts sector workforce.

Hattiloo Theatre’s Ekundayo Bandele, speaking to a group of ArtsMemphis donors recently, said, “As we continue to modify our strategic plan, we’re putting our earned revenue in a separate column. We’re not counting on it, however, we are setting ourselves up for the long haul so we may remain a strong cultural resource for our community and one that is at the tip of the spear for the Black theater network.”

ArtsMemphis distributed $2.8 million in fiscal year 2020 to 137 individual artists and 71 organizations. It also hosted more than 30 convenings of the arts sector, and provided grantees with assistance in CARES funding opportunities. It will award its latest round of operating support grants this quarter.

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News News Blog

COVID Grants Given to Local Arts Organizations

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has chosen ArtsMemphis as one of nine local arts agencies nationwide to receive $250,000 in CARES Act funding. Separately, the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis (CFGM) selected ArtsMemphis to receive a $200,000 capacity building grant from the Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund.

Both grants will help the nonprofit arts community combat the financial implications of COVID-19.

In addition to the CARES Act grant to ArtsMemphis, the NEA announced grants of $50,000 each to four Memphis arts organizations: Blues City Cultural Center, Hattiloo Theatre, Indie Memphis, and Opera Memphis.

The NEA recommended grants for direct funding through the CARES Act to 855 organizations across the country. ArtsMemphis and eight other local arts agencies were selected to receive a larger grant of $250,000, joining Boston, Chicago, Lafayette, Colo., Phoenix, Reno, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, and Tucson. The remaining 846 organizations will receive grants of $50,000.

The CFGM grant is part of a larger block of funding from the Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund intended to address community needs, and to provide a wider safety net for the forward progress of the arts sector. “We will redirect these funds as unrestricted support to nonprofit arts organizations in Memphis and Shelby County,” says ArtsMemphis president and CEO Elizabeth Rouse.

A survey of more than 250 Shelby County artists and organizations conducted by ArtsMemphis indicated a total anticipated loss of income across the arts sector of $7.4 million through June 30, 2020. Nationally, according to data released by Americans for the Arts (AFTA) of 17,000 arts organizations surveyed, projected losses through June 30th at $8.4 billion.

This is the second distribution of funds received by ArtsMemphis from CFGM’s Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund since the pandemic forced arts organizations to close on March 16th. ArtsMemphis established the Artist Emergency Fund (AEF) in partnership with Music Export Memphis (MEM) and together they distributed $308,000 to 443 individuals in the Mid-South arts sector.

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News The Fly-By

Week That Was: Data, Abortion, and Domestic Violence

Clockwise from top left: abortion, domestic violence, art fund, Gov. Bill Lee, transmission rates, Mid-South Food Bank, shop local


New Data

Tennessee’s coronavirus transmission rate fell over the past week, according to new data from researchers at Vanderbilt University, though the virus situation here remains “delicate and uncertain.”

Virus models from the Nashville university pushed the state’s peak of the virus from mid-April, according to one national model, to mid-May or mid-June, depending on new restrictions on social distancing.

Protecting Abortion

The Center for Reproductive Rights, along with two other organizations, is challenging an order by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee that essentially bans abortion procedures in the state.

Earlier this month, in an executive order responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lee moved to limit “non-emergency healthcare procedures” until at least the end of the month. The order does not specifically cite abortion services, but instead reads in part, “All healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities in the state of Tennessee shall postpone surgical and invasive procedures that are elective and non-urgent.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the ACLU of Tennessee filed an emergency lawsuit last week to challenge the order.

The lawsuit argues that the governor’s order effectively bans abortion in the sate, violating Roe v. Wade, as well as women’s rights to liberty and autonomy under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Domestic Violence

As the pandemic continues and stay-at-home orders remain in place, one advocate said it is “common sense” that domestic violence will heighten.

Deborah Clubb, executive director of the Memphis Area Women’s Council, said most in her field are “very worried” for those in abusive or violent domestic relationships.

The biggest concern during this time, “as people are locked in together day after day, week after week,” Clubb said, is a rise in domestic violence homicides. However, there are resources to help those in dangerous situations at home.

Clubb said how one seeks help and relief from domestic violence depends largely on each individual’s circumstance. See a list of agencies and their phone numbers below.

Schools Closed

Governor Bill Lee said last week that he wants all Tennessee schools to remain closed throughout the remainder of the school year.

In a tweet after the announcement, Lee said he’s working with the Tennessee Department of Education to “ensure there is flexibility for districts to complete critical year-end activities.”

The tweet garnered dozens of responses within the first hour after it was published. Many of them from students, were like this:

Week That Was: Data, Abortion, and Domestic Violence

Food Bank Needs

Reports and photos are emerging from across the country showing cars, lined by the hundreds, with people waiting to receive food packages from food banks.

Cathy Pope, president of the Mid-South Food Bank, said as the agency has nearly doubled the amount of food it distributes, it is beginning to see long lines form at a few of its mobile food pantries.

Pope said the key to avoiding the long lines and turning individuals away is having enough dedicated distribution sites located throughout the city. That means securing partners who are willing to set up mobile food pantries.

The best way to ensure the agency has enough food to meet the need, Pope said, is to donate. Find more information on how to do that here.

Model Revised

Tennessee’s coronavirus peak and fatality numbers got another downgrade last week from the widely used epidemic model from the University of Washington.

The numbers from the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) have been used by the White House and state and local governments across the country. It has long predicted a virus peak here in mid-to-late April.

But the model has been recently diminished as too optimistic after a Tennessee-specific model was developed by health-care officials from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. That new model holds that the state’s peak won’t come until mid-May or mid-June under different scenarios. Numbers from the Vanderbilt model are not publicly updated.

Art Funds

ArtsMemphis and Music Export Memphis are distributing $77,190 to 159 artists in Shelby County. The funds come from the Artist Emergency Fund, which became public April 1st and supports artists of all types across music, visual art, film and media arts, literary art, theater, and dance.

Shopping Local

With the newly added stresses caused by COVID-19, some of us need a little shopping therapy. Luckily, while we can no longer step inside most shops, local retailers still have us in mind with online and phone ordering for shipping, same-day delivery, and curbside pickup. We’ve amassed an online and curbside shopping guide, featuring products and offerings from our advertisers. View the guide here


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News News Blog

Artist Emergency Fund Distributes Grants

ArtsMemphis and Music Export Memphis are distributing $77,190 to 159 artists in Shelby County. The funds come from the Artist Emergency Fund, which became public April 1st and supports artists of all types across music, visual art, film and media arts, literary art, theater, and dance.

The fund was created through a Community Foundation of Greater Memphis COVID-19 Regional Response Fund grant and was compounded with contributions from the Assisi Foundation, Crosstown Arts, Hyde Family Foundation, and individual donors to Music Export Memphis.

Additionally, the Kresge Foundation is giving $100,000 to ArtsMemphis and $85,000 to Music Export Memphis to make continued Artist Emergency Fund granting possible.

ArtsMemphis began a community-wide survey on March 18, 2020 of arts organizations and individual artists across Shelby County to assess the impact of COVID-19. As of this week, 61 organizations and 200 individuals had completed the survey.

Survey data forecasts a total projected loss of income for March 2020 exceeding $1.19 million for organizations and $507K for individuals. Anticipated loss of income for April-June based on cancellations/postponements exceeds $7.4 million for organizations and $1.45 million for individuals. See full survey data here.

The application deadline for the next round of Artist Emergency Fund grants is April 22. Among applications of all artistic genres, Music Export Memphis will continue to partner with ArtsMemphis in receipt, review and reallocation of funds to local musicians.

“In our first round of applicants we saw an average reported loss for musicians of more than $4,000, just for gigs canceled in March and early April,” says Elizabeth Cawein, executive director of Music Export Memphis. “The hit to music professionals who rely on live performance to make a living is truly catastrophic, and it’s far from over.”

Artists may learn more and apply here.

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News News Blog

ArtsMemphis Funding to Help Self-Employed Artists

ArtsMemphis is allocating $50,000 to provide funding to artists most impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and its economic consequences.

The flexible funding will be used to help in recovering from lost income due to canceled events, job layoff, or furlough. Applications are being accepted from self-employed artists of all arts disciplines as well as artists employed or contracted by nonprofit arts and culture organizations in Shelby County.

Artists may request up to $500 to compensate for work that was scheduled or contracted and canceled or lost. The fund is not available to compensate for potential future loss of business or income.

The funding includes $25,000 from the Mid-South COVID-19 Regional Response Fund by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, and another $25,000 in matching funds from the Assisi Foundation.

Here are additional details provided by ArtsMemphis:

  • Funding requests should be related to gigs, contracts, or employment that have been permanently canceled since March 1, 2020 due to COVID-19, not just postponed.
  • Artists may apply for lost income due to any documented cancelation of gigs or contracts, including weddings and private events, commissions, teaching engagements, etc.
  • The fund is limited to artists residing in Shelby County.
  • At this time artists are only able to apply one time.
  • At this time this funding is not available for commercial artists. Applicants must be self-employed or employed/contracted by a nonprofit arts and culture organization in Shelby County.
  • If you have other full-time employment that has not been disrupted, you are not eligible to apply; this funding is intended to support individuals who receive a significant percentage of their income through their art.

Applications can be made here. Application deadline is April 8th.

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News News Blog

Local Artists Get Free Critiques From Peers

CREDIT: Crosstown Arts

Crosstown Arts

A recent Open Crit night.

Once a month, Memphis artists can present their work and get constructive criticism from peers.

At Crosstown Arts’ monthly Open Cric events, artists are given the chance to show off their artwork and receive “critical feedback.”

Each month, participants get to see artwork from up to four different artists, discussing each for about 25 minutes. The discussion will be guided by a facilitator with experience in critique settings.

Crosstown Arts

A recent Open Crit night.

Visual artists of any experience level are welcomed to participate with up to eight new or in progress pieces of any medium. The critiquers don’t have to have any professional art experience. Critiques will “always be done in a supportive, constructive and casual environment, could at the same time be challenging,” Crosstown Arts said.

The next Open Cric is Tuesday, June 11th from 6-8 p.m. at 430 N Cleveland — Crosstown Arts’ gallery and performance space. Participation is free and open to the public.

Crosstown Arts

A recent Open Crit night.

Artists presenting that night are Cassi Rebman, Eric Painter, Sophia Mason, and Mia Richardson. The discussion will be facilitated by Kimberly Jacobs.

Open Crit night is held every second Tuesday of the month. Interested artists can sign up here.

The events are organized in partnership with ArtsMemphis, an organization that supports visual artists in Shelby County through mentoring, advocacy, and funding.

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Art Exhibit M

Make Art Great Again

I hate Trump. We are less than a month into his presidency and I think I am going to have a heart attack at how enraged I get just listening to his voice. The press conference this week just about sent me to Regional One. My social media timelines can be summed up with three words, “What the fuck?” The art world is responding. The scene in Memphis is no exception.

Toni Roberts

Melissa Farris

At the beginning of February, Marshall Arts was host to an exhibition that I organized of protest signs that were used in Women’s Marches around the country. Through the weekend, the exhibition “Nasty Women,” is on view. Nasty Women is an exhibition curated locally by Chelle Ellis and Danielle Sumler as a response to the Trump presidency, “because sitting around and bitching was never an option for us,” according to Ellis. Some of the proceeds from sales of this politically charged exhibition are going to Planned Parenthood, over $1,700 thus far, another $600 coming just from a donation/tip jar collected at the opening reception. The work can be seen at the gallery Friday and Saturday, 6-9 pm and Sunday, 9 am-1 pm, and by visiting nastywomenmemphis.com. There will be a Q&A with the curators and artists during opening hours Saturday.

On view at the Orange Mound Gallery is “The Black Experience, a Rebirth of Black History Month.” The exhibition examines the notion that “although we’ve had a black president for 8 years…we still don’t celebrate Black History Month beyond the use of predictable image and icons.” The exhibition is to celebrate African American history old and new. The show includes the work of well-known Memphis artists Jamond Bullock, Lurlynn Franklin, Lawrence Matthews, Lester Merriweather, Carl Moore, et al. Started by Linda Steele, OMG is located in the Lamar Airways shopping strip, and has been the host of several important community events recently. They are currently only open by appointment, so be sure to follow their schedule of events.

Black Experience

Black Experience

Since I returned from Baltimore seven months ago, there has been no exhibition potentially more important than the Fidencio Fifield-Perez installation at the Memphis College of Art. An undocumented immigrant, his work is strong and impactful. He is an alum of MCA and returns for a lecture March 2nd at the very exact time of 12:15pm. The opening is scheduled for March 3rd, 6-8pm. He was profiled recently in the NY Times as part of the American Dreamers series, stories from young immigrants who were spared from deportations and permitted to work during the Obama administration. Do not miss this exhibition. It is currently on view now until April 18th.

One of the many disastrous things Trumps plans to do as our illegitimate president is to defund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH). On Monday, February 20, 4-6 p.m., ArtsMemphis is combatting these threats with hosting a postcard writing event at Memphis Made Brewery, that includes beer!! The Art Center has donated supplies to create the postcards and ArtsMemphis will provide all necessary information needed to write the cards.

Image Credits:

Black Experience courtesy of Carl Moore.

Toni Roberts and Melissa Farris courtesy of Dwayne Butcher

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News News Blog

iPads for the Arts

Story by Andrew Caldwell

Last month, ArtsMemphis donated Apple iPads to a few local arts organizations with one catch — use the tablet in a creative way.

windows-7-apple-ipad-theme.JPG

Seven nonprofit arts groups were chosen to receive the iPads as part of a pilot program to encourage creativity in their production processes. The program, funded by the Jeniam Technology Fund and ArtsMemphis, will be following the participating organizations’ use of the intuitive accessory in order to determine whether to donate iPads to other arts groups in the future. The trial period will last several months, and to make things interesting, a cash prize is up for grabs to the arts group that can employ the device in the most original and productive way.

ArtsMemphis president Susan Schadt said she hopes “the portable, relatively inexpensive tool will encourage innovation and creativity.”

Applicants to the program were asked to propose how they planned to make use of their iPad. Based on those answers, seven of the 26 organizations that applied received the computers. Those groups included Ballet Memphis, Beale Street Caravan, the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, and Theatre Memphis, among others.

Nearly a month into their pilot program, Schadt, said that everything is going really well, but that it is still too early to make a decision about the program’s future.

Nonetheless, ArtsMemphis has seen promising results over the past few weeks. According to Debbie Litch, executive producer of Theatre Memphis, they have been using their iPad “as a wireless remote for [the] light board … [eliminating] the need to move a heavy console as well as cables during tech rehearsals.” Theatre Memphis also has incorporated the tablet computer into their music education program.

Each of the iPads came equipped with the ArtsMemphis App, created by Resolute Interactive, giving users access to updates from the ArtsMemphis events calendar. The application was one of the first of its kind created for a nonprofit arts organization and is available for free for iPhone and iTouch users.