News & Community

The National Endowment for the Arts recently announced that the Oklahoma Arts Institute will receive an Art Works grant in fiscal year 2020. This $40,000 grant will provide direct support for the 2020 Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute at Quartz Mountain.

Overall, the National Endowment for the Arts approved 1,187 grants totaling $27.3 million in the first round of fiscal year 2020 funding to support arts projects in every state in the nation, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. OAI is one of only four organizations in Oklahoma to receive the grant.

“We are honored to be selected for this prestigious grant,” said OAI President & CEO Julie Cohen. “Receiving this support from the NEA helps ensure that we can continue to offer programming of the highest caliber at the Summer Arts Institute. It also directly impacts the people of southwest Oklahoma, who benefit from the variety of public performances that take place at Quartz Mountain in June.”

The Art Works funding category supports projects that focus on public engagement with, and access to, various forms of excellent art across the nation; the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence; learning in the arts at all stages of life; and the integration of the arts into the fabric of community life.

“The arts are at the heart of our communities, connecting people through shared experiences and artistic expression,” said Arts Endowment chairman Mary Anne Carter. “The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support projects like the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute.”

A longtime supporter of the Summer Arts Institute, the NEA helped establish the Oklahoma Arts Institute’s endowment fund with a lead gift in 1984. That endowment now funds approximately twenty-five percent of the Arts Institute’s annual operating expenses.