-
Art Museum of Southeast Texas
The Texas Commission on the Arts announced the approval of more than $11.6 million in grants for 120 cities for the 2023 year, including Beaumont. The TCA’s approval is for 943 grants in the first funding round of Fiscal Year 2023.
Beaumont arts organizations will receive $78,902, according to Arts.Texas.gov.
The grants include the Arts Create program, which provides operational support to established arts organizations; the Cultural District Project program; the first of two funding rounds for the Arts Respond Project program; the quarterly Arts Respond Performance Support program; and the quarterly Commission Initiatives and Designated Funding program.
Arts Create grants provide year-round operational support to arts organizations with budgets over $50,000. For FY 2023, 467 Arts Create grants totaling over $3.6 million are allocated to 467 organizations in 84 cities.
Arts Respond Cultural District Project grants provide support to projects that use the arts to diversify local economies, generate revenue, and attract visitors and investment. These grants are available to arts organizations and government entities verified as based in TCA-designated cultural districts. For the fiscal year 2023, 84 applicants from 30 different cultural districts in 22 cities will receive more than $4.9 million.
Arts Respond Performance Support grants provide partial support to help applicants host an artist from the Texas Touring Roster in their community. The 116 grants for this quarter total $204,047 for 81 organizations in 54 Texas cities.
The local arts organizations receiving funding are:
• Art Museum of Southeast Texas, $7,500 for Arts Create-Year 4; $5,000 for Arts Respond Project to support the Art After School program, which brings fourth-grade students from Title I schools in Beaumont to the museum for art-making experiences; and $16,500 for Cultural District Projects to support Margaret Smithers-Crump: Kinship, a solo exhibition in the Downtown Beaumont Cultural Arts District.
• Beaumont Civic Ballet was awarded a $19,202 Cultural District Project grant to support the production of The Nutcracker.
• Beaumont Community Players was awarded a $4,500 Arts Create-Year 4 grant.
• Downtown Beaumont Cultural Arts, $7,200 for Cultural District Project to support the second annual Beaumont Mural Festival in the Downtown Beaumont Cultural Arts District.
• Southeast Texas Arts Council, $7,500 Cultural District Project grant to support the 16th annual Boomtown Film & Music Festival in the Downtown Beaumont Cultural Arts District and $4,500 Arts Create-Year 4 grant.
• Symphony of Southeast Texas, $5,500 Arts Create-Year 4 grant
• The Art Studio Inc., $1,500 Arts Respond Project grant to support providing arts-based jobs for at-risk youth completing community service hours in the Jefferson County Juvenile Probation program.
The TCA Initiatives and Designated Funding program for this quarter distributed $55,000 received from the National Endowment for the Arts via one $20,000 grant to conduct the Poetry Out Loud high school competition in Texas and another $35,000 grant to conduct folk arts apprenticeships and related programs and documentation.
Dannie Oliveaux, a veteran and award-winning journalist, has more than 40 years experience in the newspaper industry. He can be reached at (409) 832-1400, Ext. 227 or dannieoliveaux@
theexaminer.com.