Both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities announced new rounds of grants in recent days, and both are worth a closer look.
The NEH is sending $20 million to 319 projects in 45 states. Lots of the awards, as usual, are small — $5,000 here, $6,000 there — made to smaller institutions.
But there were big ones, too. Among those winners:
- The Peabody Essex Museum (right), which received $750,000 to endow a curator of photography position and for “enhanced humanitites programming.”
- Brandeis University received $600,000 to support various functions at the Mandel Center for the Humanities.
- Midwest Art Conservation Center received $467,401, plus $32,599 in matching funds, for an expansion in the regional preservation field service program.
- Nebraska Educational Telecommunications won $500,000 for a digital humanities endowment fund.
- Museum of the Moving Image received $700,000 to help build and equip an education center with humanities program.
- Museum for African Art recieved $500,000 to help finish its new building at the top of Central Park.
The entire lists are posted online, organized by states: from Alabama to Kentucky here; Maine to New York here; North Carolina to Wyoming here.
The NEA, meanwhile, is spreading more than $26 million among 1,207 recipients for Access to Artistic Excellence, Creative Writing 
Fellowships in Prose, Challenge America: Reaching Every Community Fast Track and the New Play Development Project.
Arena Stage received $280,000 for the new play development program, but the rest of the grants are much smaller, as many go to individuals and commnunity groups. Literature fellowships are $25,000; Challenge Ameria grants are $10,000 each. The largest Access to Artistic Excellence Award that I noticed, eyeballing the list, was $35,000 to MacDowell Colony (above, left).* Access grants “support the creation and presentation of work in the disciplines of dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literature, media arts, museums, music, musical theater, opera, presenting, theater, and visual arts.”
No surprise here, but the NEA says applications for Access grants are up by 22%. In March 2009, the NEA received 1,697 eligible applications (requesting more than $88 million) vs. 1,394 applications in March 2008.
Read the entire NEA list here.
The two agencies have different models, of course, and deal with different but sometimes overlapping institutions. I wish the NEA had more room to invest a lot of money on one thing from time to time — the way the NEH has done with director’s grants for traveling exhibitions, which amount to about $1 million each.
Photo: Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum (top); Photo by Judith Dupre, Courtesy MacDowell (bottom).
* I consult to a foundation that supports MacDowell.