October is Arts and Humanities Month nationally and in Little Rock. Americans for the Arts has identified a different arts topic to be posted for each day in the month.  Next up is Advocacy.

Arkansans for the Arts was founded in 2014 to be a statewide advocacy organization with the purpose to advance the arts, arts education, and the creative economy in Arkansas.

ARftA’s purpose is to serve the people of Arkansas as an independent statewide organization providing leadership focused on the promotion and advancement of the creative economy, on transforming policy in arts education, and uniting the state into one voice with a call to action by policy makers to increase investment in the arts.

After some initial funding from the Arkansas Arts Council, in 2015 Arkansas was selected by Americans for the Arts as one of 10 states to participate in a 3-year pilot project to promote and increase the availability of quality arts education ARftA manages this project with funding from Americans for the Arts and the Windgate Charitable Foundation, as well as from donors.

Garbo Hearne, one of the co-founders of Arkansans for the Arts, serves as the current Chair of the ARftA board.

In 2018, Arkansans for the Arts working with the Arkansas General Assembly launched Arkansas’ first ever Legislative Arts Caucus.  It is comprised of Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate.  Each of the State’s eight arts districts (as defined by the Arkansas Arts Council) have legislators who are members of the Legislative Arts Caucus.