Forty-five artists and cultural organizations in Pittsfield, Massachusetts have been awarded funding from the local cultural council.
More than $19,000 will support concerts, art exhibits, theatre and more in the coming year. Kimberly Rawson is a volunteer member of the Pittsfield Cultural Council.
“I think it’s very important to support individual, grassroots artists who are contributing so much to our communities and have so much to offer,” Rawson said. “So we of course really enjoy supporting individual artists as well as larger organizations and schools.”
This year’s round of grants builds upon last year’s, when the Pittsfield council awarded more than $17,000 to 29 artists and organizations. WAM Theater, which stands for Women’s Action Movement, received two grants totaling more than $1,200. The theater is celebrating its fifth year. Kristen van Ginhoven is artistic director.
“For an emerging company like WAM, receiving grants from any of the cultural councils, Pittsfield is one of the larger ones, the grant monies that come from the Pittsfield Cultural Council are really transformative to the impact that we are able to make in our community,” said van Ginhoven.
WAM Theater offers productions and events throughout Berkshire County and Albany. Van Ginhoven says one of the grants will support an educational program that was launched with the help of the council last year.
“The education grant is going to allow us to continue the work with Girls Inc. in Pittsfield that we started last year,” she said. “This year we are partnering with two other arts organizations to offer a unique year-long collaborative theater program at Girls Inc. The girls will create original pieces of theater every semester around issues of importance in their lives.”
Megan Whilden is the director of cultural development for the city of Pittsfield. Her office was granted $200 to support community art making programs at the city’s Third Thursday street festival that runs from May through October.
“We [Pittsfield] are living proof that these small targeted investments can have big benefits,” Whilden said. “We’ve seen a huge change in the perception of Pittsfield. We now have over half a million people coming to our downtown every year for art, entertainment, festivals and so forth.”
Pittsfield’s council is one in a network of 329 local groups aimed at serving the arts world in the commonwealth’s 351 cities and towns. The state’s program is the nation’s largest cultural funding network, dispensing annual funding granted to the Massachusetts Cultural Council from the legislature. Seen by many in the arts community as a long-time supporter of the cultural economy, Governor Deval Patrick in his 2015 budget proposal sets funding for the Massachusetts Cultural Council at $9.6 million. It marks a decrease of $1.5 million from the previous year.