Newsletter Header. Four horizontal rows of purple circle across a rectangle. The Mid Atlantic Arts logo sits in the top left corner in white and bright yellow. The word NEWS stretches across the circles with a circle to the left calling out JAN 2023.

Executive Director

Theresa Colvin

Announces Retirement



Last week, Mid Atlantic Arts announced the retirement of Executive Director Theresa Colvin effective April 30, 2023. Theresa has served as Executive Director since 2017.


During her time at Mid Atlantic, Theresa has been responsible for building capacity around our program priorities in international exchange, jazz, and the folk and traditional arts. She worked diligently to bring Puerto Rico into the region as the 10th partner agency strengthening the mainland arts infrastructure while providing opportunities to artists, organizations, and communities from the Commonwealth. Additionally, Theresa's work with the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations (RAO’s) has resulted in increased funding to the field and across the consortia with new programs that serve the nation. Her commitment to the Folk and Traditional Arts resulted in the development of the Central Appalachian Folk and Traditional Arts Survey and Planning Project (CAFTA), Central Appalachia Living Traditions, and the Folk and Traditional Arts Community Projects Grants program.


In the spring of 2019, Colvin launched a multi-tiered Strategic Planning process including board, staff, and the arts community. That plan centers equity, diversity, inclusion, and access and has created a lens through which Mid Atlantic Arts views all work. The new plan also created a tangible road map that prepared us the the uncertainty of the pandemic with tangible goals and supported our work while administering the ARP, CARES, and Resilience emergency funding programs.


Over the past several years, Theresa has worked to increase staff capacity, implement a stable technology infrastructure, and ensure Mid Atlantic's financial health. We thank her for her dedication and for leaving behind a sound and vibrant organization for new leadership.


The Mid Atlantic Arts board has created a search committee to oversee the selection of a recruitment firm that will conduct a national search for the next Executive Director. More information regarding the search process will be available in the spring of 2023.

Thank You For Helping Us Reach Our Goal!

Thanks to the generous support of our board and donors we exceeded our $10,000 end of year fundraising goal!

 

As a donor, you provide hundreds of arts organizations and artists much needed resources, professional development, and financial assistance through Mid Atlantic Arts programs.



Learn more about how you can support our programs here!

Upcoming Deadlines!

Central Appalachia Living Traditions Appalachian Foodways Practitioner Fellowship - Deadline, February 1, 2023


The Appalachian Foodways Practitioner Fellowships honor, celebrate, and support foodways tradition bearers and practitioners in the Appalachian region. Fellows may include, but are not limited to home cooks and bakers, seed savers, farmers, community elders, keepers of recipes and traditional foodways knowledge, hunters, and foragers, who have made significant and long-term contributions to sustaining and supporting the foodways heritage of their respective communities. The 2023 Appalachian Foodways Practitioner Fellowship program is a partnership between 

Grow Appalachia, the Appalachian Studies Association, and Mid Atlantic Arts’ Central Appalachia Living Traditions.

ArtsCONNECT - Projects in Development Deadline February, 16, 2023 | Program Deadline March 2, 2023


ArtsCONNECT supports touring projects collaboratively developed by presenters working together in the mid-Atlantic region. The tours include performances as well as complementary engagement activities designed to create greater understanding or connections between artists, audiences, and communities.

Jazz Road Tours - Deadlines March 8, 2023 and June 1, 2023


Focused on the artist, Jazz Road Tours supports small, three- to six-site tours at an

array of venue types, often in rural communities and other areas traditionally underserved by the genre. *Administered by South Arts.

Special Presenter Initiatives - Deadline March 14, 2023


The Special Presenter Initiatives provide additional opportunities for the support of small to mid-sized performing arts presenters in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and West Virginia. Fee support is available for engagements of performing artists based anywhere worldwide. Engagements include performances as well as community activities that enhance the performance experience and offer meaningful exchanges between touring artists and a presenter’s community.

Mid Atlantic Tours - Booking Deadline March 23, 2023


Mid Atlantic Tours brings the best of the performing arts to communities across the mid-Atlantic region. Presenters select from a curated roster of artists that changes annually but maintains a programmatic commitment to a diversity of performance genres, regional artist representation, and engaging with communities underserved by the arts. 

USArtists International - Deadline March 29, 2023


USArtists International supports in-person and virtual performances by American artists at engagements at international festivals and global presenting arts marketplaces outside of the United States. The program funds individuals and ensembles across all performing arts practices and disciplines with grants of up to $18,000 towards eligible travel expenses.

Iber Exchange - Agent Offer Letter Deadline April 25, 2023


Bring artists from Brazil, Mexico, and Spain to your community with the help of a grant from Iber Exchange. Grants support up to 50% of the negotiated artist fee to non-profit presenters in the mid-Atlantic that book a roster artist for a public performance and community engagement activity between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024.

Central Appalachia Living Traditions Inaugural Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences Grants!
I child in winter weather gear taps a tree for maple syrup while an adult man in a baseball cap provides guidance. I group of people can be seen in the background watching.

The first round of Central Appalachia Living Traditions (CALT) Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences Grants have been awarded to 16 organizations and individual artists/practitioners in Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia.


CALT is a multi-year program designed to promote the understanding and recognition of folk arts and culture in Central Appalachia through a three-part program that invests in folk arts communities while seeding new folk and traditional arts experiences and honoring underrecognized practitioners of cultural traditions across the region. 


Funded projects showcase a diversity of artists/practitioners, traditions, geographies, and constituencies within the folk and traditional arts and cultural communities in Central Appalachia. Traditions highlighted in the recommended projects include Appalachian blues, folk, and old-time music, basketmaking, instrument building, woodworking, quilting, weaving and spinning, gender-free square dancing, the expressive culture of Latinx communities in Southern Ohio, and diverse gardening and foodways traditions represented in the Appalachian region.


Learn more about the grantees and their projects here. The 2023-2024 Folk and Traditional Arts Experiences grant application will be available in Summer 2023.


Photo: 2023 CALT Experiences Grantee Live Work Eat Grow Community Gardens (VA) leads a tree tapping demo. Credit: Jennifer Wilsie.

Congratulations, Robyn and Andrew!

Congratulations to Mid Atlantic Arts program staffers Robyn Busch and Andrew Alness Olson!


Robyn has been promoted from Senior Program Director, International into the new position of Director of Programs. In this role she will oversee the development and implementation of Mid Atlantic’s expanding programs portfolio. She is committed to innovation and equitable grantmaking and looks forward to deepening grantee engagement as Director. Robyn can be reached at robyn@midatlanticarts.org.


Andrew, who joined Mid Atlantic in 2021 as the Program Associate, International, has been promoted to Program Director, International and will oversee Iber Exchange, Performing Arts Global Exchange, and USArtists International programs. Andrew can be reached at andrew@midatlanticarts.org.
A large group pf people in casual clothes dance and play instruments in a high roofed room. To the far left and right, two people wear gigantic paper mache puppet heads while dancing.

Opportunity Quick Links
  • 2023 Advancing Indigenous Performance (AIP) Native Launchpad Informational Webinar: AIP Program Manager, Ed Bourgeois, shares application guidance and tips, and 2019 Native Launchpad artist Delbert Anderson— jazz trumpeter and D'DAT front man — shares his perspective on the program and how it has generated some incredible opportunities and helped raise his profile. AIP Native Launchpad Deadline: Wednesday, February 1, 2023.
  • First Nations Development Institute is accepting applications for their Justice Through the Lens of Native Artists grant. First Nations invites Native artists who are American Indian, Alaska Native, and/or Native Hawaiian—and who are United States residents—to submit artwork or artistic production that depicts or reflects Native justice in their communities through the artist’s eyes. They are seeking Native artists engaged in traditional and/or contemporary artistic mediums. Ten artists will be selected and will each receive a $4,000 stipend. Deadline: February 1, 2023.
  • Western Arts Alliance is accepting applications for the 2023 cycle of their Native Launchpad program - a three-year direct funding and career development opportunity for U.S.-based Indigenous performing artists, valued at $40,000. Deadline: 5pm PT on February 1, 2023.
  • The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage invites applications for project grants in its Exhibitions & Public Interpretation and Performance programs. Projects must deliver distinctive, high-quality, and meaningful cultural experiences to communities in the Philadelphia region and reflect an organizational commitment to multiple perspectives and inclusive practices in program design, development, and impact. Deadline: February 9, 2023 (Contact Center Staff).
  • The Anderson Ranch Arts Center invites applications for its artists-in-residence program, which seeks to foster creative, intellectual, and professional growth for emerging and established visual artists. Residencies are offered in ceramics, new media, photography, furniture design, woodworking, painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Deadline: February 19, 2023.
  • The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts invites applications from organizations for production and presentation grants of up to $30,000, which can be applied to the production-related expenses necessary to take a project from conceptualization to realization and public presentation. Applicants must be tax-exempt as defined by section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Stage one/inquiry forms are due February 25, 2023, at 5:00 p.m. CT and selected applicants will be invited to submit a full application.
  • Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants Cycle 17 is open February 14 through March 17, 2023. These grants of up to $5,000 support direct treatment expenses for medical, dental or mental health emergencies that occurred July 1, 2022 or later. Choreographers are eligible, as well as those creating in the visual arts and film/video/electronic/digital arts. Guidelines, an informational video and the online application are here: https://www.nyfa.org/rmeg. Deadline: March 17, 2023.

Image: Sandy Spring Museum (MD), a recipient of a 2022-2023 Folk and Traditional Arts Community Projects grant, worked with program partner Cultura Plena on an annual festival featuring the instrumental, singing, and dancing traditions of Puerto Rico - Bomba y Plena en el Museo. Cabezudos of Angel and Albita Rivera (founders of Cultura Plenera) were made by two teaching artists, Josarie Molina and Garwin Zamora. Puerto Rican cabezudos can trace their origins to processional, costumed giants, popular in European folklore, particularly in Belgian, French, Portuguese and Spanish folkloric processions, dating back to the 15th century. The main feature of these figures is their oversized, papier maché heads. Credit: Courtesy of Sandy Spring Museum.
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