Art Encounter announced that their organization has been approved by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to receive a Grants for Arts Projects award of $28,000.
This grant will support the expansion of ARTiculations, their in-school art and writing residency program for students in Chicago Public Schools. They are one of the 1,127 Grants for Arts Projects awardees, totaling nearly $31.8 million in funding announced by the NEA as part of their first round of fiscal year 2025 grants. This will be Art Encounter’s second time receiving grant funding from the NEA.
“The NEA is proud to continue our nearly 60 years of supporting the efforts of organizations and artists that help to shape our country’s vibrant arts sector and communities of all types across our nation,” said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson. “It is inspiring to see the wide range of creative projects taking place — those that address our past and help us consider our future, integrate arts and culture in new ways into our lives and communities, and provide powerful opportunities for people throughout our nation to come together through a shared arts experience.”
ARTiculations is Art Encounter’s signature, long-running arts education residency for third to fifth graders in Chicago Public Schools. Co-led by a pair of specially-trained teaching artists, this program fosters appreciation for the visual arts, builds art vocabulary and art-making skills and supports classroom writing goals. Over the course of 10 weeks, students discuss original artworks from Art Encounter’s traveling collection of work by professional local artists, create hands-on art projects based on the pieces they have discussed and write journal entries describing their art pieces. The residency culminates with a field trip to visit one of Chicago’s world-class museums, where students participate in guided discussions using terms and concepts developed over the course of the program.
ARTiculations currently provides important art enrichment to almost 1,000 students annually in underserved Chicago Public Schools. This program is also supported through grants from Ingenuity Inc., the L & L Copeland Foundation, the Modestus Bauer Foundation, the Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation and many individual donors. Art supplies are partially supported by in-kind donations from Blick Art Materials. Organizational programming is also supported by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. For more information, contact [email protected].