January 23, 2025 (Cape Cod, MA) – For the second straight year, the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant. The $40,000 award will be used to directly support individual artist projects on Cape Cod and the Islands.
“We are extremely grateful to the NEA for its commitment to supporting and strengthening the arts in our region. This investment in federal dollars will have a tangible impact on Cape Cod creatives who are seeking to make a difference through their art,” said Arts Foundation Executive Director Julie Wake. “We are honored to be faithful stewards of this public funding to ensure it is used as a tangible resource for artists to pursue their vision through projects that allow them to grow professionally while addressing important issues in our community and beyond.”
“The NEA is proud to continue our nearly 60 years of supporting the efforts of organizations and artists that help to shape our country’s vibrant arts sector and communities of all types across our nation,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. “It is inspiring to see the wide range of creative projects taking place, including the Arts Foundation’s efforts to support a competitive grant program for individual artists on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket.”
The Arts Foundation’s award is one of 1,127 Grants for Arts Projects, totaling more than $31.8 million to support the arts throughout the country, the NEA announced last week. The NEA received 2,195 eligible applications for this round of funding.
This is now the third NEA grant in four years the Arts Foundation has received, bringing $220,000 in federal dollars to bolster the Cape’s creative economy. In 2021, it received its first-ever NEA grant, distributing $139,000 in federal funds to 14 Cape-based organizations to assist in their pandemic recovery.
Last year, the NEA awarded the Arts Foundation $30,000 which it matched, investing $60,000 to support 8 individual artist projects, ranging in size from $2,000 to $10,000. The projects, which were announced last June, include a collaborative portrait series, “Invisible Threads,” which photographer Julia Cumes of Brewster, is undertaking to share the stories of foreign workers on Cape Cod; weekly therapeutic drumming classes that Samuel Holmstock of Cotuit is bringing to children and adults with developmental delays and disabilities at the Kennedy-Donovan Center of Cape Cod; and Hyannis filmmaker Manx Taiki Magyar’s short documentary, “Unerased: A Film About Asian Voices on Cape Cod,” which explores what it means to be Asian on Cape Cod.
The Arts Foundation will similarly match this year’s NEA grant to provide funding to support artists in moving their projects forward. Applications will open in February with the Arts Foundation holding an info session on details about applying for funding.
It received this NEA grant as a Local Arts Agency (LAA), a designation that was voted on by the Barnstable County Board of Regional Commissioners last March. As an LAA, the Arts Foundation is able to subaward federal funding in support of arts programming in the community.
A total of $2.3 million was distributed to 64 LAAs throughout the country. The Arts Foundation was one of only 2 LAAs in Massachusetts to receive funding; the other was the New Bedford Economic Development Council, which received $70,000 to support a competitive grant program for artists and nonprofit organizations.
A total of $1.33 million was invested in 54 arts grants in Massachusetts. The Arts Foundation was one of only 4 to receive an NEA award on Cape Cod and the Islands. The others are the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, which received $35,000 for a fellowship program; Thierry Kehou of Provincetown, who received $15,000 to support the translation of the novel “Memory of a Skin” by the Guinean author Williams Sassine; and the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, which received $15,000 to support the Osborne Fellowship Artist Residency at Edgewood Farm.
The Arts Foundation’s match for the NEA award is being made possible through support from William Raveis Real Estate, Trish Kennedy, the Donald C. McGraw Foundation, Wequassett Resort and Golf Club, South Shore Playhouse Associates, Cape Cod Foundation, Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod, John K. & Thirza F. Davenport Foundation, the Arts Foundation’s generous Arts Gala gift-a-grant donors, and the Arts Foundation’s Patron Program.
Click here to learn more about last year’s grants funded by the NEA and the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod which supported 8 artist projects. To support more projects like these, click this link.