One of the most significant boosts one can receive as an art maker is funding for one’s creative visions. I know all too well what the impact of receiving a fellowship or special projects grant can have on the trajectory of your practice. While the financial boost was helpful, I never imagined the psychological boost of confidence it sparks within. Neither have my fellow recipients of grant support ever taken for granted the generosity of our community.
Culture Works, the Dayton region’s United Arts Fund and Arts Service Agency, has been a valuable member of the region’s arts ecosystem and has provided these services for fifty years. Corporations and individuals have contributed to Culture Works over the past five decades and that support has filtered through every aspect of our diverse arts wilderness. This support has helped nourish our arts community to its current vibrant state.
I firmly believe that our arts community is strong because of the interlocking elements and forces that hold it together. We have a vital arts education component from K-12 to our college and universities and historic legacies of artistic excellence from Paul Laurence Dunbar to Bing Davis. We impact popular culture through the music of The Breeders and The Ohio Players. Dayton as a community recognizes that, for this birthplace of creativity to continue, we must robustly embrace funding models and service agencies like Culture Works.
It is no small feat that Culture Works has lasted for fifty years. It has evolved over the decades just like the recipients of its support and funding. The talents of our BIPOC communities, LGBTQIA and women have come to the forefront as our leading practitioners of the arts. The new artistic voices and leadership coming in the next fifty years need support and nurturing.
As we end the year, I have the privilege of serving on a committee of incredibly fabulous community members and staff celebrating fifty years of Culture Works on New Year’s Eve in the grand rotunda of The Dayton Arcade. It promises to be a fun and joyous celebration of the past accomplishments of Culture Works and the tantalizing possibilities for its impact in the future. We have live music and, by god, there will be dancing.
This celebration also serves as a thank-you to a community that has proven its absolute commitment to the arts. The arts cannot exist without you and your patronage, and by us all coming together under that beautifully refurbished Dayton Arcade dome, we send a loud and clear message that Dayton is art, and art is Dayton.
It is our turn as a community to come together and celebrate the magnificent impact of fifty years of existence and what new and novel ways Culture Works will support and sustain the arts community. Please purchase tickets on their website at cultureworks.org/newyearseve and bring your friends to celebrate that culture indeed works.
Rodney Veal is the host of thinkTV/CET Connect and President of the board of OhioDance.
