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.
The Connections Project will have an Artists in Paradise Gallery at the Winn Dixie Plaza in Big Pine tonight from 5:30 to 7:30.
Young said, “We’re going to have wonderful art, wonderful food. This year we’ve included music to our wonderful visual arts, and it’s been such a wonderful success, and we kind of keep bringing the party and celebrating the wonderful arts that we have throughout the Keys.”
Canvases will be available for a donation.
Young said, “In the same way that you open a new checking account, or you do something new and you get a little perk, we’re asking is for a $100 donation, which goes directly to support artists in our community through our very robust grant program, and you get a wonderful canvas to take home that’s a gorgeous piece of art. When you get a new checking account, they say, here’s a beach bag, or here’s a new beach towel, or something like that. It’s kind of the concept. We have such a great grant program. The dates will be June 30 for three different grants will be due, and I’m actually doing some workshops on the grants. It’s all on my fabulous website. I really feel like we get a chance to do a lot of friend raising at the Connections Project events. I’ll have lots of board members and advisors there, and members of the public are invited to join us. If you’re busy tonight and can’t make it to Big Pine, we’re going to be in Key Largo partnering with the Key Largo Chamber, which will be at the Civic Club on March 27 and then we’ll be back down the Keys and in Key West on April 16, at the Royal Furniture fabulous showroom in Key West. So for those of you who are listening and are familiar with our Connections Project, we used to go north to south. We would go straight down the Keys, bumping along with the really big, big boards. Now we’re doing this the little bit of a smaller board, and it’s such a great advantage, because we can zigzag, which is what we’re doing. We’ve been up and down the Keys multiple times, and it’s really been exhausting for staff, but very worthwhile.”
The Chamber’s members in motion social event on March 27 will be a lot of fun.
Young said, “What’s fun for us is this project we’ve always been in either a hotel lobby or a government building, like the Gato, or the art galleries and this year, this season, partnering with the chambers, we’ve really had such a wonderful opportunity to talk about the arts and how it impacts all the businesses. It’s really been a big new audience. We’ve been to a couple of the after hours and then, of course, we were in Big Pine at the Nautical Market, which is sponsored by the Chamber and that was amazing. There’s so much success in the arts and cultural field right now, but there’s so many, almost too many, things to choose from. Tomorrow is the symphony. Tomorrow is something at Key West Theater. There’s a new show in Marathon, Nunsense.”
Membership for the Council of the Arts is a big help.
Young said, “We do need to build up our membership. It is so important to advocate for our government dollars, whether it’s state or county, to show the grassroots support. We do that by asking people to join the Arts Council anywhere from a $60 membership, up to $5,000. We are so grateful for the support, and it’s important for us to have that support, to leverage other funding that comes into the Keys. I spoke at the Leadership Success Academy, which was this past week for the Community Foundation. They’ve got new leadership, and they’re doing great work in town, so many nonprofits vying for those important dollars. The Arts Council is trying not to be bashful, but also being respectful to how busy everybody is and spreading out those dollars, but we do need support to support our artists and so many interesting grant projects that we want to fund, and it takes a lot to do that.”
The Tourist Development Council also is a big help.
Young said, “We’re very proud of our relationship also with the Tourist Development Council, which I always like to say my elevator speech, promote the destination for its rich arts and culture, and the cultural umbrella applications are up. They are due May 2. They are on our website. It is not a simple application, but it’s a doable application. I always like to tell the applicants, I’m there to help you do your best application. That’s my job, to bring well written, very specific, well done applications. I’m always available to help people, but you’ve got to get in there and start working on your application.”
The artists in school grants are also online.
Young said, “You can just fill them out, and they’re not intimidating. The questions are pretty simple. We’ve actually simplified the cultural umbrella application quite a bit. It’s online. It does not require a lot a lot of research like it used to. It used to require a lot of pre planning for your media and we’ve simplified it because we just realized it wasn’t realistic to ask all of our event producers at the end of a busy season to then also do these big applications. So if anybody’s tried it before and they haven’t tried it in the last two rounds, I think you’ll find it much less intimidating. There’s a lot going on. Please, please support the arts. Please go in the gallery and buy your gifts locally and find things that make you happy. The Mel Fisher Museum has a phenomenal new permanent exhibit. Up at the History of Diving Museum, they’ve got a wonderful collaboration with our school students and the art guild of the purple Isles. It’s just amazing.”
For more information, click here: https://keysarts.com/