The ADK Quad-County Decentralization (DEC) Grant Program of the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts (ALCA/Arts Center) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2021 DEC Grant awards. With funds made available by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), ALCA’s DEC program is regranting a total of $91,720 for 30 projects throughout the four counties the Arts Center, as the region’s DEC site, serves: Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and Hamilton counties.

The statewide DEC Grant Program was developed to ensure that New York State’s cultural funding reaches every part of the state. The program forms the cornerstone of the partnership between NYSCA and local arts agencies throughout the state, providing a link between NYSCA and portions of the community that might not otherwise be able to access funding from NYSCA.

Decentralization funds are regranted locally by regional and local arts agencies at the invitation of NYSCA. These DEC sites are charged to serve as advocates and catalysts for arts and cultural development at the local level and provide a wide range of multi-arts programming and services, including technical assistance, for local communities, artists, and smaller arts and other nonprofit organizations. Through DEC regrant funding, DEC sites provide project support to a wide range of professional, vocational, and educational arts and culture in their respective regions and the communities contained within them.

As in previous years, grants of up to $5,000 were available to eligible organizations and artists based in one of the region’s four counties. Funding decisions were made by a panel of artists and arts advocates who volunteered hours of their time to review applications and deliberate on the awards. For each year’s grant cycle, governmental and quasi-governmental entities, tribal organizations, and New York State-designated nonprofits are eligible to be direct applicants, as well as serve as fiscal sponsors. Arts groups that are not official nonprofits and individual artists/artist collectives can apply in collaboration with a fiscal sponsor. Applicants can apply to do up to three projects in the categories of Arts Education and/or Community Arts.

The ADK Quad-County Region’s DEC program thanks all applicants who submitted funding proposals, with special thanks to this year’s panel reviewers and fiscal sponsors for their respective roles in the grant-application process.

Decentralization Grants are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

A Wide Range of Artistic Disciplines Funded

The 2021 DEC grants are being awarded to two Arts Education projects and 28 Community Arts projects in a wide range of artistic disciplines, including music, visual arts, theater, dance, film, creative writing, and arts instruction for youths as well as adults, as follows:

Arts Education

• Adirondack Regional Theatre (fiscal sponsor)/Tracy Rosenquest and Mason Barber (sponsored teaching artists): Young Artists Play Festival (Clinton)
• Lake Pleasant Public Library: Quilting 101 (Hamilton)

Community Arts

• Adirondack Regional Theatre: The Guys (Clinton)
• Adirondack Regional Theatre (fiscal sponsor)/Jason Greer and Vanessa Cicarelli (sponsored artists): She: Completion and Opening Screenings (Clinton)
• Adirondack Wind Ensemble: William Walton’s Façade – AWE 2021 (Clinton)
• Appleby Foundation Inc.: Tahawus Center’s 2021 Season: Strengthening Community through Fine Arts and Dance (Essex)
• Au Sable Forks Free Library Association: All That Jazz Music and Story Time (Essex)
• Burpee Brook Creative Learning Inc.: Boquet Valley Trail Art Fest (Essex)
• Clinton-Essex-Franklin Library System: Making Music with RiverJack Z (Clinton)
• East Branch Friends of the Arts: Grisha Goryachev Flamenco Guitar Virtuoso (Project A) and Putting It Together Like the Pros: Youth Musical Theater in a Week (Project B) (Essex)
• Foothills ARTSociety: The Thrive Project (Franklin)
• Hill and Hollow Music, Inc.: Hill and Hollow Music Performance Series (Clinton)
• Jay Entertainment & Music Society: JEMS Summer Concert Series 2021 (Essex)
• John Brown Lives, Inc.: Blues at Timbuctoo (Essex)
• Keene Valley Library: Art for Youth (Essex)
• Lake Placid-North Elba Historical Society: Lake Placid Steamboats, Fancy Hotels & the Gilded Age: Exhibition Preparation & Installation (Essex)
• Piano by Nature Inc.: Piano By Nature 2021 Season (Essex)
• Plattsburgh Blues & Jazz Foundation Inc.: Plattsburgh Blues & Jazz Summer Series 2021 (Clinton)
• Saranac Lake ArtWorks: ArtWorks ArtMarkets (Franklin)
• Schroon Lake Public Library: Making Music with RiverJack Z (Essex)
• St. William’s on Long Point: Thursday Evenings on Raquette Lake (Hamilton)
• Ticonderoga Heritage Museum: Scribble Art (Essex)
• Town of Elizabethtown (fiscal sponsor)/Randi Renate (sponsored artist): blue is the atmospheric refraction I see you through (Essex)
• Town of Inlet: Sunsets by the Lake Summer Concert Series (Hamilton)
• Town of Keene: Music from the Back Porch (Essex)
• Town of Long Lake: Bangbrolly in Concert (Hamilton)
• Tupper Arts: Teens Test Drive Art! (Franklin)
• Village of Malone-Malone Recreation Park: Art in the Park Summer 2021 (Franklin)
• Wead Library: Making Music with RiverJack Z (Franklin)

For more information, go to https://www.adirondackarts.org/grantopportunities/dec

Pictured here: The poster from last year’s Blues at Timbuctoo series from John Brown Lives.