Arts Council Wrapped: 2022
This has been a year of growth for the Arts Council. We expanded programming and staff, as well as increased funding to our community – especially BIPOC artists and organizations. Check out twenty-three of these highlights below as we take a look back at 2022.
January
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The “Restart the Arts” marketing campaign won the PRSA Pittsburgh Renaissance Award for best integrated marketing campaign with Oyster Creative Co. and Apple Box Studios.
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You attended three town hall meetings to help us better understand our stakeholders and shape programming for the upcoming years. Ever since these town halls, our programs have been altered to better serve this community.
February
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Pittsburgh's creative small businesses started growing! $140,000 was distributed during the first round of the Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator grant program.
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We introduced a brand-new website!
March
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The Pittsburgh Arts Research Committee convened for the first time in 2022.
April
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The Arts Council office closed its 6th floor and moved entirely to the 7th floor at 810 Penn Avenue, which allowed us to start looking for new office space.
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You wanted to spend some time with your fellow arts administrators. We held open community hours regularly to chat, eat lunch, and discuss happenings in our arts communities. Let us know if you’d like us to explore bringing this back!
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The Pittsburgh Emerging Arts Leaders Network hosted its first in-person meeting in over two years with a new Steering Committee.
May
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Dr. Graham Snyder from UPMC began hosting COVID-19 update sessions to keep us in-the-know about all things pandemic.
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The 2022 Community Survey launched, updating our information about the Pittsburgh arts community for the first time since 2018.
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You started submitting applications for the Allegheny Arts Revival Grant, which was our largest grant program to date. It provided $10,000 general operating grants to 35 organizations and $5,000 to 20 individual artists for the creation of new work. (Spoiler alert: We would later exceed our stated funding goal of 40% of funds going to BIPOC artist and/or BIPOC-led organizations.)
June
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Pittsburgh Emerging Arts Leaders met with artists and arts leaders from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and other countries with Global Pittsburgh to discuss the arts and funding landscape.
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Surveying began for the Arts and Economic Prosperity 6 research study – thank you to everyone who has responded to our surveys at arts events in town!
July
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Six artists sat down with us for mini-documentaries, highlighting their works on display as part of the Art on the Walls exhibition at Eleven Stanwix.
August
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Our CEO Mitch Swain announced his upcoming retirement in March of 2023 and the search began for the next leader of the Arts Council.
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The “N’Art” community marketing campaign launched! Neighborhood arts maps and N’Art stickers were distributed and tabling at local community arts events began.
September
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In an effort to preserve mental health and energy, the Arts Council staff took a week of rest and recharge and encouraged others to do the same.
October
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The Impact to Insight: Findings for the Arts Community Survey report was released to the public, chock full of new information that reflects the state of our arts and cultural workers and institutions.
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You helped us complete a second batch of audience surveys for Arts and Economic Prosperity 6 with over 400 surveys completed, 35% of which came from BIPOC organizations.
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We kicked off a partnership with ArtistTalk Mental Health, an organization that centers mental health and the creative work of artists in Pittsburgh.
November
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It's unusual for federal rescue funds to be available for individual, self-employed artists, but that's exactly what we advocated for with Citizens for the Arts in Pennsylvania... And we got it!
December
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On December 19th, we will host an information session for those interested in getting involved with the Disabled Artists Creative Cohort. The Disabled Artists Creative Cohort is a new leadership network of paid, disability-led artists, makers, and doers.
That’s a wrap! We hope you’ve enjoyed this year as much as we have enjoyed sharing it with you. Although 2023 will bring big changes to the Arts Council, we welcome you to this new year with a re-commitment, as always, to our mission of expanding our region’s incredible arts and culture community by providing leadership, advocacy, capacity building, and connections. We couldn’t have done it this year without you.