Spokane Arts Grant Awards (SAGA) funds multiple programs and projects three times every year through a competitive application process. Grant winners carry out arts related activities in the Spokane area during the twelve months following their award date. Awards can be for any amount up to $10,000.
SAGA defines the term “arts” by observing our community’s creative activity. We live in a region populated by many cultures, talented in varied crafts and trades, and curious about learning and engaging in technique, expression, and artistic community. SAGA has funded blacksmithing and glassblowing, cultural art forms such as canoe making, performance, exhibition, education, therapy, and individual artistic development. We have also funded arts-based businesses and new collaborations.
SAGA stands on the principle that creatives should be paid for the work they do and we educate both the broader community and the artistic sector that creative work has value.
Due to Covid, the City of Spokane faced a 60% drop in its admissions tax income in 2020. The City’s 2020 tax revenue was the basis for SAGA grants in 2022, leaving us with less than half of the funds we required to sustain meaningful grantmaking to arts and culture that year. We were prepared for relatively normal tax base downturns, so we were able to offset some of the Covid shortfall, but even exhausting our emergency fund, the tax base losses outstripped our resources by well over $50,000.
To maintain our grantmaking in 2022, SAGA was grateful to receive $50,000 in support from the NEA Grants for Arts Projects (GAP) program. This support meant we were able to fund an additional seven projects in 2022 during a time when organizations were feeling a second pinch: that audiences and customers were not yet returning to pre-Covid levels. We are grateful to the NEA for supporting Spokane’s arts and culture at that critical time.
At the end of 2023, SAGA had funded 171 proposals providing a total of more than $800,000 dollars to local artists, organizations, and businesses.
2024 is SAGA’s eighth year serving the Spokane region. Below we provide a complete list of each of our awardees since our first year of funding in 2017. View just the most recent year’s winners here.
The second half of the company’s season two will include the show Romeo & Juliet in July, with eight performances,
followed by Goodnight Desdemona, (Good Morning Juliet) in September with eight performances.
Surapaneni will install a canvas print of her painting in a handful of
public schools across Liberty Lake and Spokane, working closely with each school to
determine size and placement.
Battista and Soranaka will execute a large mosaic sculpture for
the public, to be installed at the base of the Monroe hill. The sculpture will incorporate
tiles made by community members at free workshops, which the two will host
throughout their studio residency at The Hive.
Alexander and Slater will hold youth songwriting workshops, kicked
off by a performance by The Smokes. After a performance, the band provides an
explanation of their songwriting process and a workshop focused on improvisation and
incorporating personal experiences into art.
With SAGA support, Hudson will publish her coloring book, including 30 pages of hand drawn images of locations in Spokane.
SAGA will support Zhang as she establishes a permanent space to choreograph Chinese dances and train dancers to continue offering performances.
CCBA will be able to make book-arts related workshops accessible for Spokane families of limited means by providing season-long scholarships.
Sironka will bring a series of half-day batik art workshops and Maasai lectures to Spokane Schools in 2022.
SAGA joins the effort to complete the Spokane Symphony’s fundraising to cover the cost of repairing the Fox stage floor.
Spokane Ensemble Theatre will perform a contemporary, high-energy reimagining of William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” in June 2022.
With SAGA funding, the MAC will be able to subsidize field trips for Title 1 and underserved primary and secondary school students to attend the Dreamworks Animation exhibition.
For Kids