The Downtown Creative Wellness Foundation (DCWF), a Mobile arts nonprofit associated with organizer Zach Depolo, has been awarded a $2,000 grant from Target to help fund its 2010-2011 Visiting Artist Series.
The grant will support the foundation’s ongoing program of bringing visiting artists to downtown Mobile, part of a broader push by local arts advocates to grow the city’s gallery and exhibition scene outside of traditional museum spaces. Depolo has been a familiar name in Mobile’s arts community, including through his curatorial work turning bar and restaurant walls into informal gallery space for emerging local artists.
A Boost for Downtown Mobile’s Arts Scene
Target has for years run community grant programs that direct funding toward local arts, education and community organizations in the markets where the retailer operates, and the DCWF award is a small but tangible example of that model reaching Mobile. For a grassroots foundation like DCWF, a $2,000 grant can go a long way toward covering costs such as travel, materials and programming for out-of-town artists brought in to work with and exhibit alongside the local community.
Details on which artists will take part in the 2010-2011 Visiting Artist Series had not been announced. The award adds to a series of small grants and fundraising efforts that have helped sustain Mobile’s independent arts organizations, which often rely on a patchwork of nonprofit funding, corporate grants and community donations to keep programming alive in the city’s downtown core.