Operating Support Grant - Renewal
Operating Support Grant - Renewal
Operating Support 2021
Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Tammy Mattonen: visual artist, co-founder of Crescendo Youth Orchestra; Kathy Neff: musician, Director, Fine Arts Academy at the University of Minnesota-Duluth; Ron Piercy: jeweler, gallery owner; Emily Swanson: arts administrator at Oldenburg Arts and Cultural Community; Daniel Oyinloye: musician, videographer; Kris Nelson: artist, teacher; Roxann Berglund: musician; Bill Payne: Professor of Theater at the University of Minnesota-Duluth
Tara Makinen: Executive Director of Itasca Orchestra and Strings, musician; Kathy Neff: musician, Director, Fine Arts Academy at the University of Minnesota-Duluth; Ron Piercy: jeweler, gallery owner; Daniel Oyinloye: musician, videographer; Kris Nelson: artist, teacher; Bill Payne: Professor of Theater at the University of Minnesota-Duluth
ACHF Arts Access
In our discussions for Downtown Duluth Arts Collective operations during the end of 2020 and 2021, we have decided to do fewer live events while retaining our focus on promoting the activity in arts related businesses and studios in downtown Duluth. We will organize Arts Industry Social Hours that relate to current social and economic climates, and an Arts Walk that highlights the arts taking place in our member venues during summer 2021. As the state of the world continues to evolve, it is our goal to create space for open discussion of current events and ask local artists and arts organizations to share how they are responding through their work. Another goal we have is to enhance our arts blog on our website and add more images, video footage, and sound recordings to archive local art in action. Our local arts archive is a work in progress and it is our goal to extend access to artists' work and other content beyond the physical events and shows where they are originally featured. We utilize social media statistics and engagements to measure our virtual Arts Walk participation levels. The Arts Industry Social Hours and the Arts Walk attendance come in waves.The initial attendees are those who log in to what is currently a Zoom event or series of social media posts. Following the live events, there is an ongoing audience who visits our website to view Arts Walk content and recordings of Arts Industry Social Hour highlights. One measurement for our success in promoting leadership from within the local arts scene is the willingness of artists and representatives from arts organizations to take on these roles. During 2020, we were thrilled at the diverse and skilled set of arts professionals who agreed to co-host our Arts Industry Social Hours as well as authentic interactions that resulted. We are excited to develop our local arts archive during 2021. The number of artifacts and substantive quality of blog articles and labeling will serve to measure our progress.
Our main goal is to promote activity in arts related businesses and studios in downtown Duluth. We planned to do this by continuing the Arts Industry Social Hours developed in the summer of 2020, and with a summer 2021 Arts Walk featuring our member venues. In January 2021, we surveyed our members and discovered they were exhausted and stretched to the max. DDAC leadership found a way to represent the downtown arts community in a way that requires less investment of energy by artists/organizations in producing live or virtual content. Receiving permission from Drew Digby, we worked with MPR to devise an advertising campaign to run through 2022 promoting our membership and remind folks the downtown arts community is still here! While accomplishing our main goal of promotion, we also are supporting MPR, and it's Duluth satellite. Our secondary goal - revamping our website - is well underway. We have been working with a graphic designer and anticipate the site to go live June 2022.