Skip to main content

National Endowment for the Arts

Search
Follow us on twitter Follow us on facebook Apple store Follow us on instagram Follow us on youtube
Menu
  • Grants
    Grants
    • Grants for Arts Projects
    • Challenge America
    • Our Town
    • Research Awards
    • Partnership Agreements
    • American Rescue Plan Grants
    • Creative Writing
    • Translation Projects
    • Volunteer to be an NEA Panelist
    • Manage Your Award
    • Recent Grants
  • Initiatives
    Initiatives
    • Arts & Human Development Task Force
    • Arts Education Partnership
    • Blue Star Museums
    • Citizens' Institute on Rural Design
    • Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network
    • GSA's Art in Architecture
    • Independent Film & Media Arts Field-Building Initiative
    • International
    • Mayors' Institute on City Design
    • Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge
    • NEA Big Read
    • NEA Research Labs
    • Poetry Out Loud
    • Save America's Treasures
    • Shakespeare in American Communities
    • Sound Health Network
  • Stories
    Stories
    • American Artscape Magazine
    • NEA Art Works Podcast
    • National Endowment for the Arts Blog
  • Impact
    Impact
    • States and Regions
    • Research
    • Accessibility
    • Arts & Artifacts Indemnity Program
    • Arts and Health
    • Arts Education
    • Convenings
    • Creative Placemaking
    • Equity Action Plan
    • Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
    • Literary Arts
    • Media Arts
    • Native Arts and Culture
  • Honors
    Honors
    • NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships
    • National Heritage Fellowships
    • National Medal of Arts
  • News
    News
    • Press Releases
    • Upcoming Events
    • NEA Chair's Page
  • About
    About
    • NEA Chair's Page
    • Leadership and Staff
    • What Is the NEA
    • Publications
    • National Endowment for the Arts on COVID-19
    • Open Government
    • Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
    • Office of the Inspector General
    • Civil Rights Office
    • Appropriations History
    • Make a Donation

Breadcrumb

  1. Home
  2. Stories
  3. American Artscape Magazine

Fostering and Supporting Access to the Arts

American Artscape | 2017 No. 3
NEA Arts No 3 2017 cover
First Peoples Fund’s Rolling Rez Arts bus brings workshops and training in the arts, business, and finance to remote areas of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Photo courtesy of First Peoples Fund
Download Issue All Issues

About this Issue

For many of us, we take it for granted that we can visit a museum on the weekends, purchase tickets to a performance, or register ourselves or our children for an art class. But for many communities in the United States, options for participating in the arts are limited at best, whether because of scarce economic resources, geographic isolation, or, as is the case for people living in institutions or homeless shelters, general marginalization from society.

But the National Endowment for the Arts is committed to ensuring all Americans have access to the arts, no matter who they are or where they live. For example, nearly 14 percent of our annual grants are awarded to rural, non-metropolitan areas. Forty-three percent of NEA grants serve high-poverty neighborhoods. Over the past ten years, we’ve also awarded nearly $5 million to organizations that provide healing arts services to military service members, older adults, and youth with physical or mental challenges. Programs such as Creative Forces and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design allow us to reach additional Americans, in these cases military service members and residents of rural areas, respectively.

In this issue of NEA Arts, we’ll look at how the NEA provides arts access to various audiences that other funders might not reach, from homeless women and teens with mental health issues, to rural communities and Native Americans living on reservations.

“Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens,” decreed the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965, which created the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. “It must therefore foster and support a form of education, and access to the arts and humanities...” These are opportunities that no American should be denied, and the NEA will continue working to ensure the arts are indeed available to all.

Included in this Issue

Dancers sit on floor leading a group of young children in movements

Opening Eyes, Opening Hearts

Georgia College Brings the Arts
A colorful quilt that says Sew Much Love

Stitching Lives Together

Blues City Cultural Center's Sew Much Love Project
A man in bandana does a watercolor painting in front of a colorful bus

Weaving the Sweetgrass Braid

Rolling Rez Arts at Pine Ridge
A laughing man stands in a circle of seated high school students

An Invitation to Create

Washington Center for the Performing Arts/Avanti High School Partnership
People reading papers sitting on the deck of a ferry in Alaska

Toward a More Creative Future

Southeast Alaska's Tidelines Journey Artist Residency
a chorus stands and sings

Out of Many, One Mixed Voice

Audio Available
Instruments in glass cases inside a museum gallery.

The Delta Blues Museum

Bringing the Blues to the Next Generation
Audio Available

Stay Connected to the National Endowment for the Arts

Sign up for our newsletters and magazine
Newsletter Signup Magazine Signup
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • Equity
  • Civil Rights
  • FOIA
  • No Fear Act
  • Inspector General
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimers
  • Open Government
  • USA.gov
400 7th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20506
202.682.5400
Follow us on twitter Follow us on facebook Apple store Follow us on instagram Follow us on youtube