This story is part of a series about arts and culture in Washtenaw County. It is made possible by the Ann Arbor Art Center, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, Destination Ann Arbor, Larry and Lucie Nisson, and the University Musical Society.
A 2022 report from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that the arts economy in the United States "shrank at nearly twice the rate of the economy as a whole" between 2019 and 2020. According to the report, more than half a million jobs were lost in the arts sector during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic — but that number doesn’t include self-employed artists. The report also shows that artists are more likely than workers in other industries to be self-employed.
On a local level, in an attempt to counteract some of the economic havoc wrought by the pandemic, the city of Ann Arbor passed a series of resolutions allocating federal funds for artists and arts organizations. Beginning with resolution
#R-22-096 in April 2022, the city of Ann Arbor dedicated $500,000 of its $24.2 million American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding allocation to relief for artists and arts organizations.
"This is the first time of which we are aware that the city council has allocated significant impactful funding in [the arts sector]," says Deb Polich, president and CEO of the nonprofit
Creative Washtenaw, which disbursed the funds.
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Doug CoombeCreative Washtenaw President and CEO Deb Polich.
Those funds came from the federal Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) program, established under ARPA, which allocated $350 billion to state, local, and tribal governments to aid in recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city then passed a series of amendments allocating ARPA funding for trauma-based programming and services to support youth; Black, Indigenous, and people of color; and other marginalized populations. Creative Washtenaw was charged with administering and distributing the funds, and artists and arts organizations were invited to apply for grants.
"Based on [Creative Washtenaw's] history as a regranting agency, it applied trusted procedures but most importantly, it engaged a group of community citizens in the review of proposals and allocation decisions," Polich says. "This was truly a community-based initiative."
We recently chatted with a few of the individuals and organizations who benefited from the ARPA funds to discuss how the pandemic disrupted their artistic practices and how the grants allowed them to carry on.
The Youth Art Gallery: "Lots of happy, smiling faces"
T'onna Clemons, executive director of the Washtenaw County-based
Youth Art Gallery (YAG), is a muralist, but when she paints by herself, she says she winds up feeling "lonely and bored." To counteract that feeling, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Clemons would head to local parks to paint.
"Kids would come up and say, ‘Oh, that's really cool,’" she says.
Clemons started bringing large canvases and inviting kids to paint along with her. Painting outside proved to be especially effective with young people, Clemons says, "because they're just interested in seeing what you're doing."
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Doug CoombeYouth Art Gallery Executive Director T'Onna Clemons in front of the Youth Art Gallery mural at Community Auto Wash.
In 2023, Clemons started a nonprofit, YAG, to showcase and exhibit kids’ artwork. She arranged workshops where she taught watercolor painting to children, arranged exhibits and events, and designed and painted murals with kids throughout Washtenaw County.
Clemons had launched her nonprofit in the midst of a pandemic, and because of that, she says, it was "discouraging not knowing what the future held."
She says social distancing made it more difficult than usual to "make connections with the kids" in her workshops, and "opportunities [for grants] were not necessarily there."
All of that made the ARPA grant even more valuable when it came in. Clemons decided to use the money to support a skateboard workshop.
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Doug CoombeYouth Art Gallery Executive Director T'Onna Clemons in front of the Youth Art Gallery mural at Community Auto Wash.
"We learned about the history of skateboards, skateboard art, and the kids got to design their own skateboards," Clemons says. "At the end of the workshop, we built the skateboards, so [the kids] would be able to roll off into the sunset."
The grant funded supplies for the workshop, including skateboards for 200 children, along with paint, markers, wheels, and marketing materials to raise awareness about the workshop. The YAG also donated two benches made of skateboards to the
Peace Neighborhood Center and the
Hikone Community Center in Ann Arbor.
Clemons says she's always loved skateboarding herself, but she chose the sport as the basis for an art workshop because it had the added "health benefit" of getting kids to exercise outdoors. The workshop proved to be a resounding success: "lots of happy, smiling faces," Clemons says.
Clemons would love to hold more skateboard workshops in the future. In the meantime, though, the YAG has been busy. Clemons estimates that between now and January, they organization will have completed another three murals.
Carl Lavigne: "Your art means something"
An ARPA grant helped writer, professor, and letterpress artist
Carl Lavigne, to revitalize their creative process and to continue offering free public letterpress classes.
Lavigne, who’s originally from Vermont, moved to Ann Arbor to earn their Master of Fine Art from the University of Michigan (U-M) Helen Zell Writers’ Program. They started learning the letterpress process at the same time and say it came as a welcome relief, compared to the "really long, slow, and often lonely process" of writing.
"You'd work on something for a couple hours, and you’d pull a lever, and suddenly you'd have something you could give your mom," Lavigne says.
On the other hand, they add, "I've been working on the same novel for about 10 years and a few of my friends have read it, but that's about it."
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courtesy Carl LavigneWriter, professor and letterpress artist Carl Lavigne.Lavigne learned their craft both at the (now-defunct) Wolverine Press and the Ann Arbor District Library (AADL). Their primary mentor was a man named Fritz Swanson, who Lavigne describes as wearing a "big wizard beard."
When they met, Lavigne says, "He looked at me, I looked at him, and I thought, ‘Hell, yeah—I need to know everything this man knows.’"
Lavigne says Swanson was looking for someone to take over the letterpress education program at AADL, and both Swanson and Lavigne hoped it might be Lavigne. But then the pandemic ground everything to a halt.
Lavigne doesn’t remember how they first heard about the ARPA grants — probably a U-M listserv — but they say they weren’t particularly hopeful about winning the funding.
"You get a lot of rejection in being an artist," they say.
Receiving an acceptance letter, then, was all the more gratifying. It seemed to indicate, "Oh, hey, your art means something," Lavigne says.
Even more than that, the ARPA funding meant that Lavigne could buy paper and new image blocks to print with, refurbish old image blocks and print plates that had become too beaten up to use, and otherwise subsidize production costs.
Plus, Lavigne says the grant money gave them "time and financial stability" to reach out to AADL and arrange to teach a few letterpress classes again.
Ultimately, with Lavigne's parents retiring and Lavigne's sister preparing to give birth, Lavigne decided to move back to the East Coast. They say they still miss Ann Arbor.
Chris Nordin Studios Gallery: "Keep the gears moving"
Chris Nordin, a traditionally trained master glassblower who owns the Chris Nordin Studios Gallery in downtown Ann Arbor, had planned a major exhibition of his work for March of 2020. He had already completed 25 substantial pieces of work by the time the pandemic forced him to cancel the show. He says that meant three to five months’ worth of work down the drain and a huge "hit in income." He says the show cancellation was also demoralizing.
"Why do you want to create more work if you have all this work already created?" he says "... You want to sell work so you can make more work and keep the gears moving in the whole process."
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courtesy photoMaster glassblower Chris Nordin.Nordin opened his gallery in 2019, and he exhibits other artists' work there in addition to his own. He also owns a handful of related businesses, including a memorial business that produces sculptures for those who’ve lost loved ones. He says the pandemic was an exceedingly difficult time for artists and businesses in general, but "especially when your business revolves around people coming in and socializing in your space."
All of a sudden, Nordin’s gallery, which relies on foot traffic, had emptied out: people were staying safe at home.
So when the ARPA money came in, it was easy to decide how to allocate the funds. Nordin wanted to get people back in the gallery as quickly as possible. By then, vaccinations had made in-person events possible again, and Nordin spent the money on marketing materials to advertise in the
Ann Arbor Observer and in the publications associated with the
Crazy Wisdom Bookstore. He says he saw results almost immediately. His mailing list started growing, as did foot traffic in the gallery (especially on game days, he adds).
"It was a booster, almost a supercharger, that really helped me get the word out there," Nordin says.
He was also happy to be able to put the money back into the Observer and Crazy Wisdom, which are both locally owned.
"Those folks needed help, as well," Nordin says. "... I really do think that small entrepreneurial businesses are the heartbeat of Ann Arbor. I also think that if we don't nurture and help and collaborate with each other, we're going to become a real minority."
Natalia Holtzman is a freelance writer based in Ann Arbor. Her work has appeared in publications such as the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, The Millions, and others.
Photos by Doug Coombe.