Press

Source: Crain’s Cleveland

Abstract:

What makes a neighborhood vibrant? A vibrant community is filled with jobs, creativity, art, music, theater, dance and voices that represent our diversity and experiences. In the coming months, Cleveland will have an opportunity to reinject vibrancy into communities harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a working artist in Cleveland, I’m joining hundreds of local artists to ask the Cleveland City Council and Mayor Justin Bibb to invest a portion of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds into arts and culture. Cleveland’s rebound from COVID requires an investment not only in public safety, health and human services, but also in the creative sector. Artists, creative businesses and cultural nonprofits form the backbone of Cleveland’s economic vibrancy.

Source: FreshWater

Abstract:

Before the pandemic, Ohio’s creative sector generated $9.1 billion for the economy and accounted for more than 65,000 jobs, according to Ohio Citizens for the Arts’ 2018 report, Ohio’s Creative Economy: The Economic Impact of Arts & Creative Industries.

When COVID-19 arrived in 2020, Cleveland’s creative community was the first to shut down and has been the last to return to any sense of normalcy. Even now, the region’s creative community continues to suffer, says Jeremy Johnson, president and CEO of Assembly for the Arts, the nonprofit organization focused on increasing equity in Cleveland’s arts and culture industries.

Source: The Land

Abstract:

March 2020: The world came to a juddering halt.

While many of us found ways to reorient our lives by summer, making an office out of the living room or trading in our corporate uniforms for delivery driver tags, the creative sector stood upon the precipice of loss and wept. And now, as the world is finally trying to get moving again, Cleveland artists have a chance to breathe life back into the city.

The cost? With just a thin slice of the city’s federal rescue plan, the arts community could get the jump start it needs, says one local group.

“It’s a whole array of creative workers who make up a collective $2.9 billion industry in Northeast Ohio,” said Jeremy Johnson, CEO of Assembly for the Arts. “We believe the artists deserve a piece of the Covid-related pie.”

Source: CAN Journal 

Abstract:

For decades, the City of Cleveland, has had a scarce commitment to the support of the arts and cultural sector. In particular, the creative workforce—the individual people who actually do the creating– has been exceedingly undervalued.  Those are people hit hard by the COVID crisis. Currently the arts sector, coordinated by Assembly for the Arts, is asking Cleveland City Council to approve Mayor Justin Bibb’s recommendation that $10 million dollars of American Rescue Plan Act funds be invested in the arts, including the creative workforce. That is two (2) cents out of each of the $511 million that Cleveland has to spend. Two percent.

Source: Cleveland.com

Excerpt:

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb on Monday identified 85 goals for his first 100 days in office – a wide-ranging set of priorities for how the city delivers basic services, addresses public health and safety, and lays the groundwork for some of Bibb’s more ambitious, longer-term plans.

The mayor also unveiled an online tracker, at mayor.clevelandohio.gov, to show the city’s progress toward achieving those goals and to provide a way for residents to hold him accountable to his promises.

Bibb’s priorities were developed off the work of an 80-plus person transition team, comprised of leaders in business, community organizations, non-profits and government, and tasked with identifying early recommendations for Bibb’s new administration.

Deploy $10 Million of ARPA Funding for the Arts in Cleveland Neighborhoods.

Cleveland’s arts and culture sector was critically impacted during the pandemic. The unprecedented financial damage rose to $146 million and impacted 5,000 jobs in Cleveland-area cultural nonprofits alone. Focus funds on local artists and creative neighborhood place-building to uplift and empower residents.

Source: Ideastream

Abstract:

Arts organizations across Ohio are lobbying local government officials to secure a share of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. Nearly $2 trillion in stimulus money was assigned to cities across the country last year. As the President and CEO of ArtsWave, Alecia Kintner heads an organization that helped shepherd the arts and cultural life of the Cincinnati region since the 1920s. But she said a recent performance by actor Kelsey Steele carried a vital message from the 2020s. The Cincinnati native took his act to city hall.