Final group of local artists receive grants through Artists 360 program

Photos by Kat Wilson / Artists 360

Twenty more artists from Northwest Arkansas received grant funding in the final round of awards from the Artists 360 program.

The Mid-America Arts Alliance program is made possible from support by the Walton Family Foundation. Its aim is to identify and elevate the Northwest Arkansas area’s leading artists.

The three-year pilot program began in 2018, and has now awarded a total of $342,000 to 60 artists.

Fourteen people received project grants in the amount of $7,500 this year, including Kaveh Bassiri, Joy Clark, Vicente Yépez, Pablo Guerra-Monje, Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster, Jeremiah Pickett, Kholoud Sawaf, Caroline Sharkey, Heidi Carlsen-Rogers, Helen Kwiatkowski, Asha Lester, Eloa Jane Pereira, Suzannah Schreckhise and Aaron Turner.

Project grants range in discipline from literary, performing, and visual arts, and include poetry, recording, photography and more.

Six student artists received $1,500 grants including Hiba Tahir, Emma Van Dyke, Kayln Fay Barnoski, Audrey Samantha Romero, Leah Grant and Minah Kim.

Vicente Yépez received a grant in the literary arts category. He is a writer and educator whose hybrid-genre writing centers on intersectional identity and issues that affect marginalized communities in the U.S. and Latin America. His project Fútbol For The People is a bilingual podcast/media channel that uses narrative and conversation to generate discussion about the ethics and politics of soccer.

“The Artists 360 grant will allow me to purchase the gear I need so that I can not only generate high-quality content more consistently but also make my creative process more efficient,” said Yépez. “This funding will make a huge difference in allowing me to develop a sustainable workflow that can help ensure the long-term success of my project.”

» See 2018 winners
» See 2019 winners

For more information about the program, visit artists360.art.