Last week the National Endowment for the Arts created a new funding category for artists’ communities – those organizations whose primary purpose is providing artists’ residencies! As the national association for artists’ communities, I was thrilled to be able to announce this at the Alliance’s annual conference last week. This change is in part a result of the Alliance’s advocacy work to the NEA, and we are so grateful to NEA Chairman Dana Gioia for his tremendous vision to provide greater recognition and resources to artists’ communities.

One of our field’s greatest cheerleaders is Mario Garcia Durham, Director of Presenting at the NEA. Mario worked with the Alliance on developing the parameters for the new funding category, and he will oversee Artists’ Communities at the NEA. Mario’s leadership and our partnership with the NEA previously led to the creation of a separate selection panel for multidisciplinary residency programs in 2005, which resulted in a 48% increase in NEA funding to artists’ residencies that year.

The Chairman’s letter to the Alliance announcing the new funding category is below (download a PDF of the letter). Please share this with your colleagues, boards, and supporters.

I can’t overstate the importance of this recognition of our field by the NEA – not as an end-point, but as a beginning. Earning our own category at the NEA is an incredible symbol of the relevance and immediacy of our field’s work: to support living artists in the creation of new work and the exploration of new ideas. The Alliance was founded on the belief that supporting today’s artists in the creation of new work is essential to human progress – not as a luxury, not as a leisure activity, but as a vital and necessary force in society.

I hope you will join me in thanking Chairman Gioia and Maria Garcia Durham for their leadership and vision. Please email letters of thanks to durhamm@arts.endow.gov or fax to 202-682-5002.

–Caitlin Strokosch, Executive Director

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Dear Colleagues,

As many of you know, I will be stepping down from the Chairmanship of the National Endowment for the Arts in January. I will be returning to my writing as well as directing arts programming for the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC.

Perhaps what I am proudest of achieving in Washington has been the creation of a new public consensus about the necessity to fund arts and arts education. When I arrived in Washington the matter of arts funding and arts education had become a divisive, partisan, and controversial issue. I did not believe then nor do I believe now that this is a matter of left verses right or Republican verses Democrat.

I am very pleased to say that we now have bipartisan support in both houses. Last year the NEA budget was raised by the largest amount in 28 years. This year we have another large increase recommended by the House of Representatives, which should go through when Congress passes its 2009 budget.

For the past six years one of my major objectives was to bring greater recognition to living artists. This has taken many forms, including creating new national honors and national programs like the Big Read, NEA Jazz Masters, Opera Honors, and a renewed focus on Artist Communities. All of these programs bring the impact of living artists to millions of Americans.

I have always understood the critical role that Artist Communities play in American Culture. You are a unique field whose main focus is on the individual artist. You play an irreplaceable role in this nation’s artistic creativity and vision.

It is for these reasons that on October 31st the NEA’s National Council on the Arts approved the creation of a new field designation for Artist Communities. This is the first NEA new field designation in over a decade.

Beginning this January, standing proudly along the fields of Music, Dance, Theater, Opera, Visual Arts, and Literature will be the new, and distinct, designation of Artist Communities.

I look forward to working with you in the future-both in my new capacity at the Aspen Institute and, more importantly, as one of your supporters.

All the best,

Chairman Dana Gioia