Fiscal Year: 2025

FAME Multicultural Arts Programs encourage students to learn about diverse cultures and create original culturally inspired art. FAME's Visiting Artist Program contracts professional artists to visit area schools to share their talents and culture with students in the classroom and perform for the public at our annual FAME Festival. For 2024-2025, FAME will explore the culture of the Caribbean.

An artist in residence will work directly with library staff to provide classes for people of all ages and abilities. Additionally, the artist will have studio hours at the library where the public can see the artist working and ask questions.

We will be hosting a visit of the traditional Afro-Indigenous Son Jarocho music group, Colectivo Altepee from Veracruz, Mexico for a one week visit. We will have music workshops, a photo exhibit with panel discussion, and a performance for the community.

The Aberdeen Arts Council will feature The Queen's Cartoonist for two concerts in one day. The day concert will be an outreach, educational show free to local schools, nursing home residents, special needs agency clients, and disadvantaged youth from local programs. The evening performance will be a ticketed event open to the public and outreach attendees for the evening.

An Arts Midwest GIG Fund grant will support Accent Pontiac in hosting Sean Dobbins, renowned jazz drummer and educator, to work with and perform for students in Pontiac, Michigan. Dobbins will spend multiple days in Pontiac, leading workshops with students in 2nd-12th grade followed by an interactive performance at a school in the Pontiac School District.

APG Audio Visual Mentoring and The Buzz Cafe and Marketplace partner together to create a monthly platform for local, regional and national artists to perform.

ACT will contract with an artist to paint a floor mural with Special Education students using wheelchairs and other adaptive tools and equipment. Separately, at the ACT studio, the artist will teach the public how to create smaller art pieces from the original mural such as cards, boxes, and windsocks. The artist will be present at both events to provide creative education and support.

Awards Celebration on May 17, 2025. The CREATIVE POWER Awards Celebration will highlight Wisconsin artists with disabilities through performances in violin, dance, and song, amplifying and affirming the creative voices of diverse artists from around the state.

ARTSiE's literacy through the arts project focuses on Evanston's Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center where we will work with local artists to create its first community mural and provide year-round enrichment programming to under-represented students in Evanston’s 5th ward. This public mural will celebrate cultural diversity, environmental stewardship and intergenerational collaboration.

Courtney Owens is a celebrated poet whose work has been featured in numerous literary journals and anthologies. Known for her ability to capture complex emotions and experiences in her writing, Owens will use her words to inspire young voices at Unity Elementary School, nurturing the next generation of poets.