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It's National Travel & Tourism Week! This is your reminder to get out there and see something wonderful! Roughly 1 in 4 visitors participate in cultural tourism when traveling in Texas. In 2023, total travel and tourism spending surpassed $94.8 billion.

TCA contributes significantly to Texas' cultural tourism field by designating official cultural districts, and granting millions of dollars each year for programming related to cultural tourism, primarily through our Cultural District Project and Arts Respond Project grants.

Did you know that TCA has designated 57 cultural districts across Texas? This show is currently up in one of them-- bonus points if you can tell us where!

Not only is it #StarWarsDay, but TCA's May newsletter is out now! Take a look for news on our upcoming free Speaker Series webinar, Measure Your Impact & Boost Your Funding, with Danielle Demetria East and Stacy Keith, as well as upcoming application deadlines, celebrating Young Masters, Blue Star Museums, rural tours, TCA's customer service survey, and more! May the Force (of our robust arts field) always be with you! Check out our newsletter at the link in our bio!

Danielle Demetria East photo: Lee-Vi Salinas; Stacy Keith photo: Lacie Freelen

Not only is it #StarWarsDay, but TCA's May newsletter is out now! Take a look for news on our upcoming free Speaker Series webinar, Measure Your Impact & Boost Your Funding, with Danielle Demetria East and Stacy Keith, as well as upcoming application deadlines, celebrating Young Masters, Blue Star Museums, rural tours, TCA's customer service survey, and more! May the Force (of our robust arts field) always be with you! Check out our newsletter at the link in our bio!

Danielle Demetria East photo: Lee-Vi Salinas; Stacy Keith photo: Lacie Freelen

MINDPOP's Rural Texas Arts & Culture Network is offering an informal networking Zoom meeting to bring together arts and culture professionals from across rural Texas. The door is open to anyone who works in rural arts & culture, come on in!

In May, they're trying something new and focusing on a specific peer group - museum professionals!

Virtual Networking
with Museum Professionals

Thursday, 5/14 2:00-3:00pm CT

Grab a cup of coffee or tea and take a moment to slow down on the virtual "front porch."

RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rural-tx-arts-culture-network-coffee-connection-museum-professionals-tickets-1987920854790?aff=oddtdtcreator

@mindpop

Close out National Poetry Month by rooting for our 2026 Texas Poetry Out Loud champ, Almaz Clawson, as she competes in the national semi-finals today! The semi-finals will be livestreamed at https://www.arts.gov/initiatives/poetry-out-loud

Almaz will compete in the third semi-final, which starts at 4 PM Central. She is an 11th grader at the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing & Visual Arts in Dallas.

Photo: Lens of Athena Photography

TCA is assessing the quality of our customer service. Please take a few minutes from your busy day to complete our brief online survey. Your participation and feedback on this survey is of tremendous importance.

Take the survey by May 22 at the link in our bio!

A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts furthers our understanding of the links between arts participation and broader community engagement, such as attending community meetings or events, volunteering, or doing charity. The Great Connector: How Arts Participation Renews Civic and Community Engagement explores whether and how taking part in arts events and activities can build social and civic muscle.

Among the highlights:

✨Arts participants experience a nearly 4x increase in likelihood of civic and community engagement, relative to non-arts participants.
✨Adults who participate in many types of arts activities show the highest levels of civic and community engagement, compared with adults who do only some arts activities, or who do none at all.


The full report is available at https://www.arts.gov/impact/research/publications

Deadline May 7: the Tulsa Artist Fellowship

Each fellow is provided a comprehensive support package of up to $150,000 annually, inclusive of stipend, housing, and related support; fully subsidized studio space; and access to shared art-making facilities. Shared facilities accessible to residents include a ceramics studio with kilns, woodshop, media lab, an archival printer, performance rehearsal space, podcast recording studio, and meeting rooms with audiovisual equipment.

The Tulsa Artist Fellowship is a place-based, durational award supporting artists and arts workers committed to developing ambitious, community-engaged work in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Founded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the Fellowship invests in practices that are rigorous, forward-thinking, and grounded in meaningful connection to place.

Gatherings with fellow residents and shared meals are a feature of the program, along with open studios and other public programming and visits with arts professionals.

The application process is free.

Full information at https://www.tulsaartistfellowship.org/award

@tulsaartistfellowship @gkff

Hearty congratulations to San Antonio’s Belen Escobedo, who was just named one of the 2026 National Heritage Fellows by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)!

The National Heritage Fellowships are the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. Including the 2026 class, the Arts Endowment has awarded 502 National Heritage Fellowships since 1982, recognizing artists working in more than 200 distinct art forms. Each Heritage Fellowship includes a $25,000 award and the recipients will be honored in Washington, DC in fall 2026.

@neaarts


In the announcement, the NEA noted that “Belen Escobedo performs early Mexican and Tejano fiddle tunes once common across South Texas. Through decades on stage and in the classroom, she has helped keep this rare style alive.” We congratulate Ms. Escobedo on this recognition for her important work.

Our partners at the Mid-America Arts Alliance are taking applications for their new Heartland Craft Guilds: Capacity Support Grants.

Applications are due May 15, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. CT

The grant provides unrestricted capacity support grants of $12,000 to nonprofit craft guilds and cultural organizations rooted in traditional and heritage-based craft practices.

The program is designed to strengthen organizational leadership, operations, and long-term sustainability for groups that support craftspeople and maintain craft traditions across the region.

In addition to grant funding, selected organizations will participate in a cohort-based learning program that includes peer exchange, workshops, and technical assistance tailored to the needs of guild leaders and member-based organizations.

Heartland Craft Guilds grants are for nonprofit craft guilds, member-based organizations, and cultural collectives working in traditional, cultural, and materially driven craft practices across M-AAA’s six-state region: Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, and the Native Nations that share this geography.

Heartland Craft Guilds is a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA) developed with support from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation. The initiative reflects a shared commitment to hands-on engagement with materials, mastery of technique, and the preservation, innovation, and evolution of heritage work.

For more information about Heartland Craft Guilds, please visit: maaa.org/HeartlandCraftGuilds.

@midamericaartsalliance

We’re celebrating our 2026 class of Young Masters today in Austin! It’s a joy to welcome them to the program, with the help of past Young Masters Claire Druffner (2020), Eva Rami (2024), and Gracelyn Weber (2024)!

We’re celebrating our 2026 class of Young Masters today in Austin! It’s a joy to welcome them to the program, with the help of past Young Masters Claire Druffner (2020), Eva Rami (2024), and Gracelyn Weber (2024)!

We’re celebrating our 2026 class of Young Masters today in Austin! It’s a joy to welcome them to the program, with the help of past Young Masters Claire Druffner (2020), Eva Rami (2024), and Gracelyn Weber (2024)!

We’re celebrating our 2026 class of Young Masters today in Austin! It’s a joy to welcome them to the program, with the help of past Young Masters Claire Druffner (2020), Eva Rami (2024), and Gracelyn Weber (2024)!

We’re celebrating our 2026 class of Young Masters today in Austin! It’s a joy to welcome them to the program, with the help of past Young Masters Claire Druffner (2020), Eva Rami (2024), and Gracelyn Weber (2024)!

We’re celebrating our 2026 class of Young Masters today in Austin! It’s a joy to welcome them to the program, with the help of past Young Masters Claire Druffner (2020), Eva Rami (2024), and Gracelyn Weber (2024)!

We’re celebrating our 2026 class of Young Masters today in Austin! It’s a joy to welcome them to the program, with the help of past Young Masters Claire Druffner (2020), Eva Rami (2024), and Gracelyn Weber (2024)!

We’re celebrating our 2026 class of Young Masters today in Austin! It’s a joy to welcome them to the program, with the help of past Young Masters Claire Druffner (2020), Eva Rami (2024), and Gracelyn Weber (2024)!

TCA's April newsletter is out, with news on work we're supporting across the state, including rural tours, our May Speaker Series webinar on measuring the impact of your programs and making a case for their support, an upcoming deadline, and the April 13 celebration of the 2026 class of Young Masters! Read all about it-- and more!-- at the link in our bio!

No fooling: April is National Poetry Month, and 2026 is the 30th anniversary!

Check out the many ways to celebrate here: https://poets.org/national-poetry-month-30th-anniversary.

Keep an eye out for events in your community this month, or organize one!

Here are many good reasons to include more poetry in your life: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_poetry_changes_you_and_your_brain