Congratulations to our neighbor Rock Hill, SC for being awarded not one but TWO Our Town Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts!
The City of Rock Hill, along with Primary Partner, the Arts Council of York County were awarded $50,000 to support Rock Hill Designs for Rock Hill Places: Phase I. Project activities include design and installation of the Woolworth Walkway and the creation of a Public Art Roadmap to be used in future public improvement projects. The project’s larger goal is to incorporate locally-inspired art in public infrastructure projects throughout the city, particularly reflecting the city’s dramatic civil rights history as home to the Woolworth and the McCrory’s lunch counter sit-ins in the 1960s.
The Catawba Cultural Preservation Project and the Catawba Indian Nation also received $50,000 to support the Project’s Yap Ye Iswa Festival and Artisan Development. The project will strengthen both the artistic and business capacity of Catawba tribal artisans by providing business training – including financial literacy, ongoing technical assistance, and coaching – and opportunities for new and expanded markets through a series of cultural events and festivals. A key component of the project is an overarching marketing and communications strategy that can be used by individual artisans and by the tribe as a whole. The project will utilize First People’s Fund Native Artist training and Pratt Institute’s Arts Management program, who will work to pass on Catawba cultural traditions from elders to tribal youth, and to share those cultural traditions with a wider metropolitan audience. Catawba tribal lands, located outside Charlotte, North Carolina, serve approximately 2,600 tribal members, 24.4% of whom live below the poverty line and 20% of whom are unemployed.
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