Federal Dollars Flow To New Haven Arts Orgs

One organization will host online story times and painting workshops. Another plans to push its online exhibitions into the summer. A third will keep holding Zoom sessions just to make sure its choir members are emotionally okay, since they won’t be singing together in person for some time.

Five New Haven arts organizations have been awarded $3,000 each in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act emergency relief grants, distributed by the Connecticut Office of the Arts last week. They include the Architecture Resource Center, Westville-based ArtEcon Initiative, the Connecticut Gay Men's Chorus, Elm Shakespeare Company, and the Ely Center of Contemporary Art. A full list is available at the Office of the Arts’ website.

In total, $350,000 was awarded to 122 arts organizations throughout the state, in amounts from $1,500 to $3,000. The money comes from an overall $447,000 that Connecticut received from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which received $75 million in CARES Act relief.

This month, the NEA also distributed $50,000 each in CARES Act funding to Music Haven, Long Wharf Theatre, and the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. That does not include an additional chunk of funding coming to Connecticut Humanities, which is also in the process of regranting hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“The Connecticut Office of the Arts realizes the gravity of these times and would like to express its deep appreciation for the work that these organizations, and the many other organizations not on this list, do to keep the arts alive and well in Connecticut,” the office released with the list of grantees.

The recipients were selected at random, rather than based upon financial need. The majority of the organizations are white-led. That distribution comes less than a month after the Office of the Arts and Connecticut Arts Council released a statement “in Support of Racial Equity and Social Justice for Black and Brown People,” vowing a more equitable distribution of funding.

In New Haven, much of the funding will be going toward educational programming, compensation for artists, and exhibitions that have continued in digital space in lieu of physical gathering. After closing its doors in March, the Ely Center pivoted to online programming, expanding its scope with single- and multi-artist exhibitions, live streamed studio visits, and happy hours and critiques on its website, Zoom, and social media platforms.

In some ways, an online presence has allowed it to be nimble: curator Maxim Schmidt has adjusted open calls and exhibition topics to reflect the moments in which he and the center find themselves. In the past week, for instance, the gallery has taken on Black Lives Matter and social justice with the work of photographer Leigh Busby. The center will also be hosting workshops from recipients of the state’s Artists Respond Grant Program, of which artists Jeanne Criscola and Rashmi Talpade are both recipients.

For other organizations, the funding comes at a time of cancelled performances, new digital initiatives, and attempts to keep artists employed. After moving its classes online in March, Elm Shakespeare Company has worked to make its online presence sustainable, with educational collaborations that have kept several staff members and teaching artists busy. At the beginning of June, it announced that it would be bringing its summer programs entirely online.

At ArtEcon, the organization is using the funding to compensate artists for online workshops, forthcoming story hours, ecstatic dance classes, and free or subsidized programming. Elizabeth Antle O’Donnell, who serves as ArtEcon’s program coordinator, outlined a summer of virtual dance lessons and storytimes from Alisa Bowens-Mercado, drumming tutorials with Eric Rey, Zoom workshops, and virtual “SalonThrive” talks with artists that branch out into the greater Westville and New Haven community.

“We’re transitioning into this new world of no longer gathering, and trying to figure out the gap we can fill,” she said in a recent phone call. “The idea behind ArtEcon was to hold three to five programs per month. A lot of the artists that we contact to lead programs are seeing gigs and contract jobs disappearing. We want to find ways to employ people and ways to provide programs in ways that the community wants and needs.”

She added that she’s “so excited” to have received the grant, which will make a fiscally lean summer full of new online initiatives a little easier.

That’s also true for the Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus, which lost a spring performance—and the ability to gather—in the midst of COVID-19. Before the pandemic, the chorus brought in money from its monthly BingoMania nights, held in the city’s Annex neighborhood. Without those, one reliable stream of income dried up entirely. 

“We're so grateful to be awarded the CT Cares grant,” wrote General Manager Julie Kelly in an email. “Since all of our in-person revenue-generating activities have stopped, the grant funds will enable us to retain staff (part-time General Manager and Artistic Director), to pay rent for office/rehearsal space, telecommunications/office expenses and storage.”

Reached by phone, Artistic Director Greg McMahan said members have been using the time to gather weekly over Zoom, sometimes to sing together and sometimes just to talk. Initially, the group was rehearsing for a spring concert. The more scientists learned—singing is particularly dangerous, because COVID-19 spreads through respiratory droplets—the less likely a concert looked. 

When it became clear that members wouldn’t have the chance to perform together for months, the Zoom meetings became a space to discuss everything from video initiatives (the group included a video collage in West Hartford’s virtual Pride celebrations) to how Black members of the group felt when performing certain songs. McMahan called it one of the most vulnerable conversations the group has ever had—without being in a room together.

“That’s I think the saving grace of this Zoom thing,” he said. “The connection is huge. We have one guy who will go to a different person's house for each Zoom call. He’ll pop up outside someone’s window. I almost get a fatherly feeling. Julie and I both feel like this is our family, that we've been nurturing it for a while.”

He added that sometimes the conversations will last for so long that he’ll leave Zoom open for anyone who wants to stay, and leave his computer. Members have stayed on for up to five hours talking to each other; sometimes they fall asleep while still mid-conversation, at the end of the night.

The group is still holding out hope for a winter concert.