National Endowment for the Arts Acting Chairman Mary Anne Carter announced 57 awards totaling $4.1 million supporting projects across the nation through the Arts Endowment’s Our Town program. The City of Germantown is one of the recommended organizations for a grant amount of $50,000 to support community design workshops and the creation of a public art master plan. The project is titled ArtsLaunch Germantown and will be led by Germantown Performing Arts Center Executive Director Paul Chandler and the City’s Public Arts Commission.
“These awards made to organizations across the United States are a testament to the artistic richness and diversity in our country,” said Mary Anne Carter, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. “Organizations such as the City of Germantown are giving people in their community the opportunity to learn, create, and be inspired.”
“Our stakeholders are expressing an overwhelming interest in public art in our city,” said Germantown Mayor Mike Palazzolo. “While the City has a plan for every other facet of governance from small district business plans to a parks master plan, the missing piece is a public art master plan.”
ArtsLaunch Germantown will not simply borrow or copy what has been done elsewhere, but will instead look to the community’s assets and needs in order to develop a process for creating place-based strategies to transform spaces into unique places. The plan will be led by an experienced consultant and employ local artists to create and facilitate a variety of community engagement/visioning tools to generate comprehensive and inclusive conversations about how public art will live in Germantown. Partners include the City, the Public Arts Commission and the Germantown Performing Arts Center.
