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2 years agoNEA ROCCO: No USA Individual Artists Grants
ROCCO: In many ways, this is the question for any Chairman of the NEA. My answer is relatively straight forward and short: we are the National Endowment for the Arts, and one of the best ways to support the arts is to support artists. I know this in a personal way through my friend Michael Eastman, a photographer who received a grant from the NEA early in his career, and he still points to the importance of that support to his career.
And there are endless other stories from artists who received individual grants. But at the moment, the NEA is prevented from providing direct funding to artists in most circumstances. We do give literature fellowships to writers and poets, and we have annual honors through which we give support directly to folk and heritage, opera, and jazz artists. But that’s it.
Taking up this issue isn’t at the top of my list for the next year, and it is not anything that I can change unilaterally, but it is certainly something I hope to take up before I am done with this job.
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