Liz Young, executive director of the Florida Keys Council of the Arts, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about art in our area.
The Anne McKee Artists Fund is working to promote arts and artists in conjunction with the Women’s Club through Art From the Attic.
Young said, “I’m very, very proud of them, because they have really kept the Ann McKee Artists Fund growing and changing and evolving. And I’ve learned over the years, doing a lot of nonprofit work that sometimes things start as a passion project for the leader, in this case, Anne McKee and when her husband was alive, and their idea of really strengthening the art community by giving these small grants and working with artists and sharing the love of art with artists. And I feel like it’s something that it’s hard to keep going and keep it fresh, as the patrons change, as the demographics change of our audiences, and I think it’s so interesting, the whole Art From the Attic and their partnering with the Women’s Club and reaching out. They’re doing great.”
The Florida Keys Council of the Arts website is changing.
Young said, “We were able to shift over to the absolutely fabulous team at OMG, and we are going to have a really fresh feel. It’s going to still have all the amazing information that we always had. It’s just going to have a fresh look. Our focus these past two years has been on getting a brand new database and bringing our QuickBooks online, and just so many things that we all learned we could do during COVID. And the website was so big that I thought, I can’t do this during season. I’m running up and down the Keys, I’m not glued to my desk. So we are going to do it tab by tab. But right now we have our grants up. So if you go below the little section where it says it’s under construction, we have our art builds community grant, you just click there. It goes right to the application. And of course, the smaller programs, the special project grant, which is very similar to the Ann McKee grant, it’s very project oriented. You have to have a beginning, middle and end. It’s not to pay the phone bill and to just pay for your studio. It’s really to have a project. And then the artisan schools grant is also there, and that, of course, is one of our signature grants, where we support teachers working with the classroom teacher to use art as the teaching method so it has to enhance the curriculum. That has been a very successful program for so many years. I did not start it, but I do love it. And we’ve got great results from many, many projects. And then we also partner with the Key West Writers Guild, which is also another group that continues to reinvent itself. We actually had a restricted donation for 20 years, which felt like a long time. But that was completed in 2024. It was from 2004 to 2024 so our board of directors chose to maintain it and keep doing it each year. So very proud of that.”
The arts build community grand deadline is June 30.
Young said, “Our grant applications are not difficult. We try to keep them like if you can buy a plane ticket online, you can fill out our application. They’re user friendly, and I do not sit on the grant panel in July. I’m the administrator. I do not score. So if you have a question, please direct those questions to me at [email protected]. I check my emails even when I’m at a conference, I would be happy to review your application before you submit it. We really want to bring the best applications to our grant panel for success and for funding. So don’t hesitate. If you’re listening and you’re got an idea that you’re welcome to run it by me and take a look at the applications and give me a shout out.”
The grants are quite substantial.
Young said, “They are substatial because we wanted it to really make a difference, to really have an impact, and you have to have a partner. So don’t wait until the last minute to get started. This is about bringing an opportunity, a project with a partnership to build the artist or arts organization’s audience. It’s a really broadening, building more diverse audience project, whatever that looks like. We don’t tell you what it has to be. This past year, the Tropic Cinema had six partners, and Carla developed a project called the Spotlight Series, and each month, different nonprofits used the cinema, and with the use of film, bringing people to their nonprofit. So now, National Organization of Women, the local chapter, had women films. During Black History month in February, there were several groups that had films, a Q and A, different conversations, food, gatherings on Sundays. The Sons and Daughters of Italy completely changed their membership group. I think they tripled it by having food in the lobby, wonderful camaraderie and showing a film that has an Italian theme. It was really, really fun, because they also did not really, even though they’re called the Lodge, I learned that they did not have a venue, and so the Tropic was very, very eager to bring new and different audiences into the theater because people are home streaming since COVID, and we’re trying to get bodies into the theater to really experience the film together. So all these different groups did that. So we’re very proud of that project. We also gave a grant to an older nonprofit organization called Reef in Key Largo that had just opened up a new $7 million Ocean Exploration Education Center, and they were already doing amazing projects with the schools. All the schools up there have a classroom and a whole education center, and they partnered with the business professional and women’s group, the BPW up there, and did after hours programming for women and children. And they used hands on art projects, and did all this art and science together.
The inaugural Key West Playwrights Festival will be on May 7.
Young said, “It’s going to be at Williams Hall. So they used Williams Hall as their partner, as a venue for actors and writers, and they will be showing, 14 new plays on the seventh and eighth, and there’ll be seven plays one night and seven different plays the second night. So you can go to one or both nights at Williams Hall. There’s rehearsal space upstairs. They’ll be using the big main hall for the readings. They said you would be very surprised who might have a play up their sleeve. Even they were surprised, so that was really fun to support.”
The songwriters festival is also coming to town on the 29th.
Young said, “Music is such a big focus. I keep saying everybody wants us, or is planning on, or we already are, maybe a little Nashville, so many attractive venues, large, small and everything in between. The weather’s been stunning. I think we’re going to have just a great songwriters festival and talk about a passion project that’s blown up and grown. It really serves the songwriters. They have this opportunity to have an audience, to hear what people love and are interested in.”
Long Live Lambada will be at the Tennessee Williams Theater on April 28, 29 and 30.
Young said, “Phenomenal international dancers, some local dancers coming here and just really expanding our vision of dance, I think, and what we’ve had on the island to date, very much appreciated. The director and founder is a phenomenal philanthropist across all genres of the creativity on this island, and she loves it here, and the dancers love coming here. I know they loved using the San Carlos, and it’s gotten so big that they’re out at Tennessee Williams, and it’s very exiting.”
The statewide public art conference is also coming up.
Young said, “I’m actually leaving on Monday for a couple days to go to the statewide public art conference. We go to different locations around the state. Last year we were in Tampa, year before, Gainesville. We’ve been to Jacksonville, Venice Beach, Fort Myers, just all over. And this year we’re going to the Palm Beaches. We’ll be going up to hear what’s new, what’s fresh, what’s happening in public art around the state. And we’re going to have a tour of new installations in Palm Beach. I’m very excited about that. We’ve got the new sculptures at the Key West seaport. We’ve got two big installations at the Douglas Community Center as part of our city project, and we’ve got one more install going in at the end of May. I don’t want to jinx it, because it was supposed to go in in January, to be there for Black History Month, and we had some fabrication issues. And so the artist says we’re going to be doing it before Memorial Day weekend. The season is not over yet. Lots of things coming up. And of course, we’ll have Pride in June. Lots of creativity there. Our student dance recitals happen in May at Tennessee Williams, and the To Dance program will be at the Marathon Community Theater in early June.”
For more information, click here: https://www.keysarts.com/