NORTHAMPTON — In support of art projects and programming in the city Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra and the Northampton Arts Council announced the award of 31 grants totaling in $24,451 for fiscal year 2025.
The Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Local Cultural Council program allocated funds to the city.
“I am pleased to continue Northampton’s long tradition of support for the arts community,” said Sciarra. “I look forward to enjoying, along with our residents, the outcome of these exciting projects.”
The Arts Council received 131 applications totaling $218,510 in requested funding. Grants were awarded in dance, literature, media arts, multidisciplinary arts, music, theater and visual arts.
“I wish we could have funded them all,” said Brian Foote, Executive Director of the Northampton Arts Council. “The caliber of applicants this round was extraordinary, which made the process extremely competitive among many worthy projects.
Northampton Arts Council Chair Kaye Carroll explained the council selects top contenders for grants after review of projects in the areas of artistic merit, accessibility and inclusion, Community Impact and Project Feasibility. Carroll said any project to get funding must score high in those categories but added the “make or break category” is often Community Impact.
“Projects don’t necessarily need to serve a large number of people to be considered for funding, but a strong case that participants will come away having learned something, accessed a resource they didn’t previously have, or feeling empowered to create art of their own goes a long way, especially during the phase where us council members present our assigned grant proposals to each other,” Carroll explained. “It’s during this presentation stage that a lot of scores get re-evaluated, and I find focusing on community impact is often where I have the strongest chance of convincing my fellow council members that a project should be funded.”
Some of the projects funded this year include returning applicants like the Power of Truths Arts & Education festival at Bombyx ($1,130 in funding received), The Valley Arts Mentors Mentorship & Webinar Series ($355), and the Back Porch Festival in Downtown Northampton ($1,100). First time awardees of funds included the Queer Slam Story ($1,110) and the NoHo Art Club ($800).
“I think it’s great that we see a blend of big, very public projects as well as smaller, more intimate ones, because people engage with art in different ways and I feel it’s important that there’s a wide variety of paths into the arts in our town,” Carroll said. “Some of these projects started small and with the help of the Northampton Arts Council and other supporters, have grown to be major events, and I think it’s important that the council show support for these organizations that have taken our early support and really grown something amazing out of it.”
The full list of grant recipients can be viewed on the city’s website.
Carroll said funding like this becomes crucial when funding for the arts already is consistently lacking.
“The American capitalist system is not set up in a way that helps artists thrive and explore in their artistic practice, nor does it support art that is challenging or freely accessible. That is where government institutions, from small-town libraries and arts councils like ours, to major institutions like the NEA [National Endowment for the Arts] are supposed to come in,” Carroll explained. “As the federal government becomes more aggressively capitalistic, it will fall more and more on small-town organizations like ours to make room for art to exist in our neighborhoods.”
Carroll hopes the allocation of funding continues to serve as a reminder to artists that Northampton is a community that welcomes artists and their visions and the council attempts to support various projects and programming with funding when possible.
“In my perfect world, we’d have the means to fund every project proposed to us. I know a lot of applicants did not receive funding, and my biggest hope is that they do not come away disillusioned with the process,” Carroll added. “Take it as a positive that there are so many projects, by talented, motivated people happening in this community. Art begets art, and even if your project does not receive funding, you are still a vital part of the art ecosystem here and one of the reasons I am so proud to serve on this council.”
