Liz Young, executive director for the Florida Keys Council of the Arts, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s happening in the organization.
A number of grant proposals came in and the grant committee will have a look on January 8.
Young said, “We’ll decide who’s going to get funding of those applications. And then we always have a big holiday membership party, sort of to celebrate the season, we’re always behind the scenes, pushing all the other arts organization and artists out in front. That’s our job as a council, but we do have another big event coming up on January 29. We will be having our annual membership meeting, and our tradition is to have the holiday party in Key West in the early evening, and then our January annual membership meeting, which all those same people are invited to, and people can become a member and join us, will be in Marathon sort of lunchtime, so we don’t challenge all the people trying to get on the highway in the dark. And this year, we’re going to be having it at the really amazing, historic, magnificently restored Crane House, which is at Crane Point.They spent about $350,000 restoring the Crane’s home, which is right at the water there bayside. And there’s a lot of history about the way people used to live in the Keys and how they saved the hammock. I think it’s 64 acres at Crane Point. It’s the way people used to be here and not a lot of people lived in the Middle and Upper Keys. And the nature when you get off the highway is, I want to say, startling. It’s so quiet, it’s so special. You’re really in nature. There’s a lot to remember and to learn. So we bring our members there, and the wonderful, supportive Commissioner Holly Merrill Raschein will be our guest speaker. She’s going to speak on the state of the arts in Florida. Of course, she sits on the State Board, the State Council, the Florida Arts and Council board, so we hope to get some intel from her about what’s going on. And so we’ll be there, and we invite our members to join us, and then, of course, we talk about all the other things that are going on north and south of us.”
The Florida Keys sculpture trail was expanded in December.
Young said, “We received four more sculptures from New York City, and one of those is going at the Marathon City Hall, and one is going at the new Key Colony Beach City Hall, which we’re super excited about. And they’ve just broken ground a key colony beach. One of the other sculptures went to Grimal Grove. So that’s really exciting in Big Pine. One of them also went to Islamorada to the South Winds Park as part of the Villages expansion. The new gallery guide for 2026 has just arrived in my office. We’ll be mailing that out and distributing that, our volunteers help us, along with the new Keys Arts, which is the January, February, March quarterly, and the new culture magazine, all three of those publications are done in partnership with the Tourist Development Council. So this is a big time of year when we really promote our cultural tourism, our job is really to connect those audiences to the arts. So if you’re near a chamber, all five chambers of commerce, have those brochures and magazine and then we’ll also be bringing them to the galleries and bringing them to the theaters with our volunteer team.”
The Connections project for 2026 will begin soon, too.
Young said, “We will be opening with a pop up at the beautiful Kona Kai Gallery and Resort. The general manager there is very involved as an Arts Council advisor. So she will host it. We’ve got the art guild of the purple aisles. I’ve had a lot of artists make canvases. Of course, we’ve got people in Key West and Marathon and Big Pine and for those of you who don’t know, we display just shy of 150 unique canvases made every year with a little artist statement tucked in, and so it’s our way of connecting you with our visual artists. And we’re going to have 10 pop ups, two in each of our five regions. So it’s a big deal. We’re running up and down the Keys. We take a donation of $100 and you get to pick the canvas you want for your $100 donation, and then that small fundraising is part of our artists in schools and special project grant giving, so it stays in the community. I always say it’s like when you’ve opened up a free checking account and you got a beach towel, or you got a bag or coffee mug for opening your checking account, your donation to the Arts Council, you get to walk away with a beautiful canvas created by one of our Key’s artists. We love showing off our artists. We appreciate them creating a piece for us, and it’s a win, win. It is a wonderful opportunity for us to have a two hour reception, and people get to talk, and all of our board members and advisors show up, and artists and members of the community, everybody’s welcome. It’s a nice little reception and a great gathering. There’s a special tab on our homepage, the Connections Project button, it has a little musical note, because at each of our receptions, not the all day nautical market or Art Under the Oaks, but when we are at a venue, we will have music also. Right now, we have four of the five chambers lined up. I don’t have a date with Key West, but the other four chambers, we will be taking our little party to their members’ after hours event. So this is the way we can bring arts to the business. We got a grant from the Community Foundation to support the music at those events. So we’re ticking all the boxes and we thank the community foundation for our grant. We will be supporting the visual and the music. And we are calling it Connecting the Keys with Culture. We’re very proud of the work and the support we’re receiving because the arts need a lot of funding this year, we’re like so many of our other nonprofits, really working hard to support the good work in the community, but it takes money, and we’re doing it.”
Membership is one way to help.
Young said, “We do have a membership tab on that special keys arts page. Not everybody can join at the $5,000 or $1,000 level, but we have a 750 level, 600 if you’re a business. We have a special business partner level of $450. You can be a supporter at $300, $120 for a couple or $60 for a person. So 60 to 5000, any level works. Everything stays in the Keys. You are supporting our grant giving, which is the heartbeat of our Arts Council. We have a tiny staff doing a lot of work, and I’m proud of my staff who keep everything going and make me look good, and I’m appreciative of my team and my board of directors, and we’ll have our annual report ready, for the Crane Point annual meeting. We don’t distribute that at the party, that is a January handout. Of course, we do a 990 and we’re audited every year. So we’re, I like to say, a big little business.”
Now is a great time to take kids to local museums.
Young said, “I’m pretty certain that every museum in town, throughout the Keys only closed Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. I mean, I know the Custom House, the Lighthouse, which is a great spot for kids and families visiting, the fort out by the airport, the History of Diving Museum, Florida Keys Discovery Center, Pigeon Key, that is fabulous, take a little trolley on the Seven Mile Bridge. Grimal Grove, he’s been doing three tours a day of the grove. He’s just a magician of how he has brought that grove back after Irma in 2017. It is beyond stunning. There was a lot of gift giving and a lot of people going. We really encourage people to shop local at the galleries, at the artisan markets, supporting our vibrant community, keep doing it. Shop local for those birthdays and anniversaries, and you can never have enough art and jewelry and pottery and candles and bags and just so many things to experience in our cultural communities.”
For more information, click here: https://keysarts.com