MovementLab performs “Weaving Landscapes” inside the “Daedalum” inflatable sculpture made by United Kingdom-based artists Architects of Air for the PASEO 2024 festival in Taos. The Paseo Project was one of a series of New Mexico art groups that received notice of funding cuts from the federal government late last week. (Photo Courtesy of Doug Davis.)
An interactive arts festival, the production of the Wagner opera “Die Walküre” and a month-long celebration of jazz are just a few of the creative New Mexico endeavors whose funding the National Endowment for the Arts canceled this week.
The NEA, the nation’s largest funder of arts and education, sent emails late on May 2 rescinding grants issued in January, when New Mexico received 19 grants totaling more than $625,000. While the exact amount of canceled funding remains unclear, arts organizations confirmed to Source on Tuesday more than $100,000 in cuts.
State arts agency New Mexico Arts, which receives funding through NEA for its grantmaking, did not respond to a Source request for comment on Tuesday.
J. Matthew Thomas, the executive director and founder of the Paseo Project, has run the PASEO festival in Taos for the last 12 years. The weekend-long event in September features exhibits from multiple artists, often with interactive elements of light or projection.
Thomas said without additional funding to replace the $35,000 grant, he may have to cut artists from the show. He said he would appeal the decision and is trying to seek other grant opportunities, and remained determined the festival would happen as scheduled.
“We will persevere, especially with the festival,” he said. “We may have to scale back, but art was built for this to react, respond and move forward.”
Santa Fe Opera Director of Media Emily Doyle Moore confirmed in an email to Source NM that a $55,000 grant for this summer’s premiere of “Die Walküre” was terminated, and said the opera plans to appeal the decision.
NEA recipients in New Mexico said they were unsurprised by the withdrawals, noting the cuts to the National Humanities Council and threats to public media funding, but said they were perplexed by the rationale.
Unsigned emails announcing the cuts shared with Source NM offered no specific reasons for the decision, but instead included boilerplate language noting that the NEA is “updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.”
The email also stated that prioritized projects would include “elevating Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions; celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence; foster AI competency; empower houses of worship to serve communities; assist with disaster recovery; foster skilled trade jobs; make America healthy again; support the military and veterans; support Tribal communities; make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful and support the economic development of Asian American communities.”
Source NM emails and calls to the media line at the NEA went unreturned Tuesday.
Tom Guralnick, the founder and director of Outpost Productions, which runs a performing arts space and hosts the month-long Jazz Festival, told Source he tried to ask for an advance of the $25,000 grant earlier this year, worried that it would be rescinded.
The NEA declined Guralnick’s request and then, late Friday, issued the withdrawal. Guralnick said the loss is “nothing to sneeze at,” but that the 19th annual festival will happen this fall regardless.
He also said he would appeal the decision, but worried about the future of the entire program, noting the recent White House Budget request to eliminate the NEA entirely.
“They want everything good, gone,” he said. “How many people remember who was the mayor of Rome when Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel? It’s the art that people remember; it’s the art that makes us a society.”
Guralnick, who founded The Outpost 37 years ago, said the organization has received NEA grants for the last three decades, but said he’d work to secure more support from foundations and individuals.
“We’ll all do everything we can to keep things going, but the loss of the organization and the money and the attitude behind it that stifles creative arts is huge, it affects everybody,” he said. “It shows the government can control what happens, at least with the money they do have.”
Some art groups remain in limbo, awaiting the fate of applications from last July. This includes 516 Arts, an Albuquerque nonprofit dedicated to contemporary art.
Executive Director April Chalay told Source NM currently the federal portal has no information regarding the $30,000 pending grant the gallery requested for a current exhibition featuring Native American photographers from New Mexico and around the U.S.
If the grant is rejected, it will most likely mean staff cuts at 516 Arts, Chalay said, and raises questions for the sustainability of art funding moving forward.
“It used to be that if you were able to obtain federal funds and regularly retain federal funds, that was a stable, more stable grant revenue than, say, private foundations. But now this just throws that into question as well,” she said.
AMP Concerts founder Neal Copperman said a withdrawal of a $20,000 grant means the event to host Vietnamese musician Van-Anh Vo will most likely be canceled.
“It’s not going to be crippling for us,” Copperman said. “It just helps us do projects, like free shows at the local libraries who are bringing artists to schools.”
While Copperman said the grant funding from NEA does not entirely impact his bottom line, he noted that the loss of the agency would trickle through art communities throughout the state.
He said the cuts to the arts reveal a bigger, existential threat to freedoms.
“What’s frustrating and scary about the cuts is less about the direct impact that it has on my organization or arts organizations in general, it’s the processes that are being done across our communities at large,” Copperman said.
He called the arts the “bellweather” of the current climate.
“While the arts are a target in this conversation, personal rights, immigrants’ rights, trans, bi and gay — and all other people’s rights in general — are all threatened,” he said.
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