Opa-locka, FL—The National Endowment for the Arts Acting Chairman Mary Anne Carter has approved more than $27 million in grants as part of the Arts Endowment’s first major funding announcement for fiscal year 2019. Included in this announcement is an Art Works grant of $30,000 to the Opa-locka Community Development Corporation to assist artists through an artist residency program. Art Works is the Arts Endowment’s principal grantmaking program. The agency received 1,605 Art Works applications for this round of grantmaking and will award 972 grants in this category.“The arts enhance our communities and our lives, and we look forward to seeing these projects take place throughout the country, giving Americans opportunities to learn, to create, to heal, and to celebrate,” said Mary Anne Carter, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.The Opa-locka artist residency program will allow local artists to choose from either a coworking space or a private studio space to focus on the completion of their project. Each art project will engage the Opa-locka and surrounding communities with unique opportunities in film and/or new media storytelling. As part of the residency, the artists will have access to other components of OLCDC’s services such as monthly one-on-one business development coaching with OLCDC’s CDFI professional business consultants, art gallery space, dance/movement studio, an innovation lab with music production, co-working space and computer lab. “We have found that art classes are among the first to be cut from the budgets and student schedules. To help mitigate the problem, part of the residency will include a youth art education component,” says CEO, Dr. Willie Logan. “The residency program will ensure that chosen artists create new work, bring existing work to completion, or for professional experimentation with new methods or techniques to refine their practice.”For more information on this grant announcement, visit olcdc.org.
