Liz Young, executive director of the Florida Keys Council of the Arts, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about upcoming events.
Tonight at Williams Hall is Key West of the 70s.
Young said it will show “what it was like to be here in the 70s, and they’ve got a cast of characters speaking. We went to one of these storytelling nights a couple months ago with a different crowd of speakers, and so it was such a big hit, they’re doing it again. If you’re so inclined, you can also go to the dinner, which starts at six. You can do dinner and a show, because, of course, they have this extraordinary unity table on the second floor of Williams Hall. It is such a magical place, right there on the corner of Fleming and William. They also have wonderful classes. Their demographic is teens and seniors, pretty much, so they’re doing senior yoga. They’ve got social dance classes a couple nights a week. They’ve got, like, learn to sew and quilting classes with two different people. For teenagers, they, of course, sponsor the Key West high School Drama Club and their big fall showcase and spring musical. So high school drama club’s program runs from there and the high school. It’s a wonderful partnership, and it’s just a really great venue.
It’s also Pride Week.
Young said, “There’s a ton of events finishing up the week, really big things today and tomorrow.”
There are some deadline for grants coming up.
Young said, “June 30 is a big deadline for us. We have two smaller grant applications. One is for Artists in Schools. It’s for a teaching artist that collaborates with the classroom teacher, where art is enhancing the curriculum and you have to have that partnership. You can apply for up to $2,000. It can be the fall semester, or for the spring semester or the whole year. It’s usually for the fall semester, because we do offer this grant and a special project grant, again, for November 30, because they’re smaller, not everybody gets around to right now. The special project grant, we love to say the definition for that is it has to be for a project that has a beginning, middle and end. It is not for like, an ongoing support of materials for your studio, paying your phone bill, that kind of stuff. It’s really project geared. Not very difficult questions. What do you want to do? What do you want the money for? What do you hope your outcome is going to be? How are you going to measure that outcome? That’s there on that application. These links directly take you to the application with a little bit of an explanation. It’s an online application, and I like to say to our artists and arts organizations, if you can buy a plane ticket online, you can fill this form out.”
The bigger grant is a year-long project.
Young said, “It’s called Art Builds Community. There are three levels. You can apply for $5,000, $7,500 or $10,000 and it’s the same simple online form, but it does have more questions, because it’s a bigger grant, we really want to know more of the details of what the project is, and it does require a partnership, and you just can’t assume that your partner. You have to have a letter from the partner saying, we’re all in, yes, this is what we commit to doing in the artist or arts organizations project. June 30 is Monday, so you’ve got the whole weekend to do it, I’ll be around and working. Anybody can email me with questions, because I don’t score. I have a grant panel of board members and advisors that volunteer to read and score. Then we have, via Sunshine, our panels are via Zoom, and anybody can attend from the public and watch the process, but it is done by volunteers that read and score the grants and recommend funding to my board. So it’s my job to bring the best applications forward. So if you have questions, please email me.”
We’re still waiting to see what the governor will do with the budget.
Young said, “We are waiting for our crystal ball to tell us what’s going to happen on the governor’s desk. The arts, I don’t even want to say it out loud, I’m very superstitious, but we do feel that some of our arts organizations will receive funding, which is better than nothing. It is not what we had hoped for, but it’s something if he does sign it, and I know that it’s a tense time for a lot of people that do rely on some state funding. We here in Monroe County are pretty fortunate, because we do have a lot of philanthropists who do love the arts and support the arts, but that is not to say that it is a very tight, tense time for a lot of people relying on the state for funding, and it does feel bleak sometimes, but we talk frequently about our membership campaign. We will be starting our new membership campaign with gusto on July 1. That is our new fiscal year. We’re on the same fiscal year as the state, and we are just going to rely very heavily on our good work in the community, being supported by people in our community, and that is our grassroots effort of membership. We really rely on people wanting to have a strong, vibrant community, and so our salaries and admin are covered by our local arts agency part of being a local arts agency for the county, the only one. So we’re kind of a quasi government, but all the rest of our budget, all of our programming and our huge grant program is funded by membership. So I really, really want to say thank you. We appreciate the support we receive from Key West to Key Largo, Ocean Reef, all the way throughout the Keys.”
Membership has its benefits.
Young said, “We encourage you, please to donate and become a member. So for $60 all the way up to $10,000 you can be a member and support the work that we’re doing. We have a tiny staff doing lots of good work, so we would really encourage that. It’s fun. We’re a really fun organization. It’s a feel good. We have a wonderful time supporting our artists and that includes literary, all the performing artists, so that’s all the actors, musicians, all of our visual artists, all of our writers, all of our museums, our historians. We have a very wide net of people that we’re supporting, and making it a great, wonderful place to live. I was telling one of our TDC big board members recently, when I took over the Arts Council 16 years ago, the Studios was two years old. The Tropic was, I think, three years old. The San Carlos existed, but it did very little programming. We’ve got Williams Hall, Key West Theater, Coffee Butler Amphitheater, the Fringe Theater have all been added in the last 15 years. We also have our museums with very robust exhibits, theaters like the Waterfront and Red Barn have extended their seasons, practically year round. I mean, they’re like nine months now. The Tennessee Williams Theater, which used to just host once a year, Nutcracker and the symphony, has a full schedule of performances. The Little White House has music performances. We are busting at the seams in Key West. Wonderful events in the Lower Keys and Marathon, Celtic festival, history of diving Museum in Islamorada, Florida Keys History and Discovery Center. Tons of festivals up there. Also, certainly Islamorada and Key Largo have a lot of great events that happen in Founders Park and at Murray Nelson Center with key players. So there’s no rest for us. We keep working really hard to have a robust season of great things to do.”
What about the art at the airport?
Young said, “The art is coming. Actually the new terminal is really just phase one of three. There will be an entire new security TSA area, and there will also be an entire new baggage claim, rental car area. So we’ve got lots of art coming. It’s not done yet.”
For more information, click here: https://keysarts.com/