More than one-third of the State Art Collection is now online and available to view through My Public Art Portal on the ArtsWA website. With IT funding from the State Legislature in 2015, an Art in Public Places team has been working to increase and improve content on the Portal. For each artwork published on the Portal, the work includes condition assessments, digital editing of photos, researching artwork information, writing interpretive descriptions, and identifying locations, including GPS coordinates. Forty percent of the Collection will be online by July 2017, and with additional operating funds, the project will be complete by July 2019.

Students from 70 high schools across Washington State are engaged this school year in exploring the amazing power and diversity of poetry, recited out loud. After working at the classroom level, classroom competitions are held to send students to school-wide competitions. The winners from each of these school-wide competitions will advance to the next level of competition at the regional level, where they will recite with other school winners from their area of the state. 

Top students from these regional competitions will compete in the Washington State Final to be held in Tacoma on March 4, 2017. The State Champion  receives $200 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to compete in the national championship and a chance to win a $50,000 scholarship. The State Final competition is open to the public. 

 

Poetry Out Loud is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.  Schools in Washington State serving students grades 9-12 are eligible to participate. Over 20,000 students participate in the program each year.