Arts News
Springboard’s Rural Regenerator Fellowship Application is Open
Announcing the 2024–26 Rural Regenerator Fellowship
Calling rural artists in the Upper Midwest: Applications are now open for Springboard's 2024–26 Rural Regenerator Fellowship!
We are excited to announce that this year’s Fellowship will focus on supporting artists whose work is connected to land, environment, and/or food systems. Rural artists who are using their creative practice to explore environmental justice, land and food sovereignty, agriculture, foodways, climate solutions, and/or sustainability are welcome to apply. They will select 12 fellows total.
What the two-year Fellowship offers:
Unrestricted $10,000 stipend to continue or expand rural artist's existing work.
Opportunities for exchange and learning with other Rural Regenerator Fellows across the Upper Midwest.
A supportive platform to build solidarity across rural geographies.
This year’s new effort to amplify and support the urgent work of environmental stewardship aims to bring a new level of focus to the Fellowship in order to collectively contribute to long term change and support existing movements.
Applications are open now through June 24, 2024. Interested in applying? Join the virtual info session on Friday, May 31 to learn more about the application and the fellowship.
Learn more and apply here or https://springboardforthearts.org/rural-regenerator-fellowship/
Rural-Urban Solidarity Call for Creatives Apply by May 20
Rural and urban communities need each other. We share the same resources, land, and future. Artists are skilled at building solidarity, compassion, and understanding across geographies.
Over the years, the perceived “urban-rural” divide has become a political strategy to provoke division and fear, instead of fostering connection and common ground. Springboard for the Arts invites artists and creatives across Minnesota to develop projects that explore and shed light on the concept of rural-urban solidarity.
This call is open to culture bearers, makers, artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians, performers, and other creatives interested in developing projects that help build understanding, interaction, compassion, joy, and solidarity between rural and urban communities.Projects can include as many artists as needed, but will require a Lead Artist(s) who is responsible for submitting a proposal, attending meetings with Springboard, managing funds, and ensuring the project’s overall success.As part of the program, Springboard will provide:
- Project support and a $2500 stipend for one Lead Artist who can demonstrate a strong connection to and experience in both urban/rural contexts.
- Project support and a $5000 stipend for two Lead Artists, one in an urban and one in a rural place, who are teaming up on a project together. Types of projects may include (but are not limited to) zines/writing collections, video/motion art, visual displays (murals, billboards, lawn signs) and activations of public space (line dancing classes in parking lots, story circles in a library, shared meals, etc). Questions about the program or your project proposal? Email or visit www.springboardforthearts.org/rural-urban-solidarity.
Applications will close at midnight CST on Monday, May 20, 2024.
Showcase Specialist Trey Everett Receives Rural Arts Award
NWMAC Showcase Specialist Trey Everett Receives the
National Association for Rural Mental Health’s
Peter G. Beeson Rural Arts Award
The Northwest Minnesota Arts Council (NWMAC) is proud to announce that our staff person Trey Everett of Crookston recently received the Peter G. Beeson Rural Arts Award from the National Association for Rural Mental Health.
The 2023 award was presented to Trey Everett during their National Convention in Pittsburgh on September 20, 2023. Trey is a visual artist, pastor, teacher, and spiritual guide. He mostly works with pen and ink, which includes calligrams (images made with words), lectionary art, editorial cartoons, and commissions. He also creates murals, including an outdoor mural on a building wall in downtown Crookston titled "Unity and Diversity", and art related to cinema inside the Crookston Grand Theater. At the awards ceremony, Trey was recognized for his healing workshop with the residents of the Northwestern Apartments (NWA) transitional living facility in Crookston. Residents at NWA have mental health and often substance health challenges. Trey presented ideas of how art can be another therapeutic tool on the path of recovery. The workshop provided residents a way to touch on vulnerabilities and feelings sometimes not available in more traditional therapies. After an initial session residents spent a week with their art. Many created several art pieces. His work with people and the art he provokes are hopeful and healing, with a sense of wonder and humor, reflecting the best spirit of who we are and who we can be.
The National Association for Rural Mental Health established the Rural Arts Award in 2007 to honor the life-long contributions of Peter G. (Pete) Beeson to both rural mental health and the rural arts.
Congratulations, Trey and thank you for your positive impact on rural arts and mental health in our region!
Springboard for the Arts Rural Regenerator Fellowship Applications Open Until June 20
Springboard for the Arts is excited to announce that applications are now open for the 2023-25 Rural Regenerator Fellowship.
Rural places need leaders who know the importance of creativity and culture in cultivating human-centered systems for rural community health, economic vitality, and civic engagement. Expanding on over a decade of rural programming, Springboard's Rural Regenerator Fellowship supports these creative leaders in the Upper Midwest through unrestricted funding, and ongoing learning and exchange.
The Fellowship is open to individual artists, makers, and culture bearers, grassroots organizers, community development workers, public sector workers and other rural change makers who are committed to advancing the role of art, culture and creativity in rural development and community building.
About the Fellowship:
Fellows participate in two years of peer learning and exchange, and receive an unrestricted $10,000 stipend.
Eligible applicants must live and work in a rural place in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, or Nebraska and/or the Native Nations that share those geographies.
Applicants who are Black, Indigenous, Native, People of Color, LGBTQIA+, and/or People with disabilities will be prioritized in the selection process.
Apply by Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at:
https://springboardforthearts.org/rural-regenerator-fellowship/
Have questions before you apply? Attend the Fellowship info session on Friday, May 5 from 12:00-1:00pm Central Time via Zoom!
Request for Applications for the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design
National Endowment for the Arts
Citizens' Institute on Rural Design
The National Endowment for the Arts has opened a Request for Applications for the Citizens' Institute on Rural Design.
The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design (CIRD) is a program of the NEA in partnership with the Housing Assistance Council and design partner, To Be Done Studio. Communities selected to participate will receive at least four Local Design Workshops that address the community's specific rural design challenge, and a Design Learning Cohort program that will invite approximately twenty rural communities to engage in peer learning and expert led sessions online.
All rural communities with populations of 50,000 or less are eligible to apply for the CIRD opportunities. The NEA welcomes applications from nonprofits, tribal or municipal governments, regional planning organizations, arts organizations, and other community partners. The NEA will hold open office hours on April 11 from 12:00 - 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time (Zoom link here) to assist applicants.
The city of Spring Grove, MN (population 1,200) recently participated in CIRD's 2021-2022 cycle. Read more about Spring Grove's Local Design Workshop with CIRD (link here) and the resulting plan to create a one-room schoolhouse for the 21st century (link here).
Will yours be the next Minnesota community to participate?
The Request for Applications contains further details about the program goals, eligibility, benefits, expectations, and a preview of all the application questions.
The deadline to apply is April 21, 2023. Apply now!
Click here to learn how to apply