UK Alum Secures National Art Grant for Louisville's Smoketown Neighborhood
LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 16, 2014) — University of Kentucky alumnus Theo Edmonds has helped secure a $250,000 national arts grant for the city of Louisville, Kentucky, and its ongoing project to develop a Creative Innovation Zone (CIZ) to fuel citizen engagement in the Smoketown neighborhood.
The CIZ will place artists and innovators in advisory and supporting roles in revitalization efforts in order to find new ways for themselves and the community to work together to create new opportunities in education, environmental design and entrepreneurial activity leading to more jobs. The initiative is a partnership between I.D.E.A.S. 40203, YouthBuild Louisville and other community partners.
The Louisville CIZ was one of only 55 applicants out of a pool of nearly 1,300 who were selected by ArtPlace America to receive one of its creative placemaking grants in 2014. ArtPlace America is an organization aimed at helping communities by advancing the field of creative placemaking, in which art and culture play an explicit role in shaping the communities’ social, physical and economic futures. To date, they have awarded $56.8 million through 189 grants to projects in 122 communities across the country, including this year’s $14.7 million.
The money from ArtPlace America will go to help rebuild the Smoketown community, an area of Louisville's 40203 zip code that has seen homes and buildings be torn down as a $100 million development project was established to create new energy-efficient, mixed income housing for the area. The CIZ was formed to aid in this effort and help fuel citizen engagement in the neighborhood as well as create new job opportunities and revitalize the area.
Theo Edmonds is a 2013 graduate of the UK School of Arts and Visual Studies with a Masters in Fine Arts. He also holds a bachelor's degree from Transylvania University, a law degree from Tulane University School of Law, and a master's degree from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. After working in administrative roles in hospitals and medical centers across the country, Edmonds decided to leave the medical professional world and focus on his artistic endeavors in New York City. It was there that he came up with the idea for his nonprofit organization, IDEAS 40203, bringing him back to Kentucky.
I.D.E.A.S. 40203 is America's first 501(c)(6) contemporary art chamber of commerce. The organization describes itself as being a community made up of progressive-minded individuals and businesses sharing new ideas, asking different questions and working together to accelerate sustainable, quantifiable economic and social change in Louisville and beyond.
The UK School of Art and Visual Studies, at the UK College of Fine Arts, is an accredited member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in the fields of art studio, art history and visual studies, and art education.
MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu