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ArtsWA news

January 2024

Contact: info@arts.wa.gov

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In this issue:

Now open: multiple funding opportunities

Grants now open for early learning, emerging organizations, and Tribes

The Creative Start Project Grant supports projects that expand opportunities for preschool to third-grade students to engage in arts-integrated learning. Public schools, Head Start/ECEAP, nonprofits, and tribal communities are eligible to apply.

💸 $5,000-$15,000

📆 Apply by February 23, 2024

The Emerging Organizations Grant is presented in partnership with Shunpike to support day-to-day operating costs. Groups wishing to start new organizations, strengthen organizations created within the last four years (2019 – 2023), and whose programming is open to the public are eligible to apply.

💸 $2,000-$5,000

📆 Apply by February 27, 2024

💡 Need help? Sign up for office hours with Grants to Organizations Program Manager Miguel Guillén, held Friday mornings at 10:00 a.m.

The Tribal Arts Grant is a non-competitive process meant to support the expansion of Tribal/Indigenous arts, culture, the creative economy, and the passing of ancestral knowledge. Washington State Federally Recognized Tribes are eligible for this funding.

💸 $18,000

📆 Apply by February 28, 2024

Learn more about ArtsWA grants

Coming up

ArtsWA Sip & Chat

ArtsWA staff & Board invite members of the community to gather at Uptown Grill to talk arts, culture, and bold visions for the future. No host bar, open to the public.

📆 Tuesday, February 6, 2024

⏰ 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.

🌎 Uptown Grill | 514 Capitol Way S, Olympia, WA 98501


Creative Districts: Tri-State Webinars

Join Creative District program managers from Washington, Idaho, and Nebraska for a free two-Webinar series:

Webinar 1: Community Engagement | Topics include: how to develop a successful community engagement process, how to build relationships and ensure all voices in your community are heard, and more.

📆 Thursday, February 15, 2024

⏰ 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. PST

Webinar 2: Organizational Structure | Topics include: how to set up your organizational structure for success, how to plan for long-term sustainability, and more.

📆 Thursday, March 28, 2024

⏰ 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. PST

Free upcoming events with the Washington State Poet Laureate Arianne True!

Q&A with Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo will be speaking at Town Hall Seattle on February 27! Washington State Poet Laurate Arianne True will host the Q&A with Joy Harjo at the end of the event. Joy Harjo is an internationally renowned performer and writer of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She served three terms as the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019-2022, the first Native American to receive the honor.

📆 Tuesday, February 27, 2024

⏰ 7:30 p.m.

🌎 Town Hall Seattle | 1119 Eighth Avenue, Seattle


Reading: Neurodivergance and Poetry

Neurodivergent folks (and their support people) are invited to a workshop with Arianne True to explore how our neurodivergence can make for very cool poems.

📆 Saturday, April 20, 2024

⏰ 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

🌎 Grandview Library | 500 W Main St, Grandview, WA

Learn more about the Washington State Poet Laureate

News & Updates

Billy Frank Jr. statue maquette unveiled

From left to right: Representative Chris Stearns (D-Auburn 47th), Nisqually Vice Chair Antonette Squally, Puyallup Tribal member and treaty rights activist Nancy Shippentower, and Nisqually Chairman Willie Frank III stand next to the maquette of Billy Frank Jr. Photo by Jack George, Nisqually Communications & Media Services.

The design for a statue of late Nisqually treaty rights activist Billy Frank Jr. was unveiled on January 10 at the State Capitol Building. Speaking to a packed room of enthusiastic friends, family, and admirers of Billy Frank Jr., Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck opened the event by acknowledging the gravity of the moment, saying, “I’m going to ask you from the bottom of my heart for your strongest forbearance today as I attempt to get through this without crying.”


The roughly half-scale model—or “maquette”—on display Wednesday night was created by renowned Chinese-American sculptor Haiying Wu, who will next make a full-scale clay model standing approximately nine feet tall. Mr. Wu’s design depicts Billy Frank Jr. smiling and seated comfortably at the river’s edge with leaping salmon and a traditional fishing net laid at his feet. The final statue will be cast in bronze and set atop a pedestal, reaching a full height of 11 feet.

Read the full maquette reveal announcement
Explore the Billy Frank Jr. statue project
Sign up for project updates

Poetry Out Loud Regional Finals

At the five Poetry Out Loud (POL) Regional Finals, high school students who were top scorers at their School Final and POL Virtual will gather to determine which students advance to the State Final Competition. 

📆 Saturday, January 27, 2024 - Southwest Washington & POL Virtual

📆 Thursday, February 1, 2024 - Eastern Washington

📆 Saturday, February 3, 2024 - Central Washington & Northwest Washington


Washington School Champions and students participating in POL Virtual also have the option to participate in Poetry Ourselves, an original poetry contest that began in 2023. The winning poems will be announced and recognized at the 2024 Washington State Poetry Out Loud Final Competition on March 9 at 1:00 p.m. in Tacoma.


You can listen to recordings of the 2023 Poetry Ourselves finalists online.

Learn more about Poetry Out Loud

Wellness, Arts, and the Military renews funding partnership with Dept. of Veterans Affairs

ArtsWA's Wellness, Arts, and the Military (WAM) program renewed its 2023 funding partnership with the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA). The partnership started in 2023 to distribute $250,000 in grants for arts-based programming at the four State Veterans Homes and the Transitional Housing Program. WAM and DVA will continue the partnership at $150,000 for FY24.


“I consider it an honor and a privilege for the Wellness, Arts, and the Military Program at ArtsWA to partner with the Washington Department of Veterans Affairs,” said WAM Program Manager Bryan Bales in 2023. “We’re passionate about improving quality of life through the arts, and I cannot wait to see the impact that this funding will have on the residents.”

Read the original 2023 partnership announcement

Explore: Kessler Center Curated Collection

The Kessler Center is a multi-purpose student service center in Puyallup, Washington, that is home to a suite of special services for youth.


Curator Lucile Chich selected artworks that met the Local Art Selection Committee's vision of a "collection [to] celebrate artists who are experiencing disability and use the transformative powers of artmaking to transcend, to heal, to rejoice."


"As an eclectic body of work, the Kessler Center Curated Collection aims at reflecting the range of the individual experiences walking in and out of the center every day," Lucile Chich wrote in a statement about the collection. "And, if anything, it teaches us that beauty is and should always be accessible to all."

Explore the exhibition
Flow No. 009, Coral, 2023 by Camilla Jerome. In 'Flow No. 009, Coral,' Camilla Jerome visualizes disability as a fluid state. She has combined light-sensitive cyanotype paper with water from the Atlantic Ocean, salt, soap, and found coral fans in a form of cameraless photography. She notes, "We have good days and bad days that come and go like the ocean tide."  A cyanotype is a simple photo printing process in blue tones. It captures some information like basic shapes, while removing color, depth, and most details.

Flow No. 009, Coral (2023) by Camilla Jerome. Located at the Kessler Center in Puyallup, Southwest Washington.

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