With “Our Town,” NEA funds livability

Fifty-one communities across the US have won National Endowment for the Arts “Our Town” grants for a wide range of projects — from construction of the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park in downtown Wilson, North Carolina, to the exhibition of art works in a three-square-mile area of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Altogether, $6.575 million in grants were announced in the inaugural round of Our Town. NEA says the funds are intended “to strengthen the arts while shaping the social, physical, and economic characters of their neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions.” The grants — $25,000 to $250,000 — are given to local partnerships. Each partnership must involve at least two organizations: one a nonprofit design or cultural organization and the other a government entity.

“Each project should represent the distinct character and quality of its community,” says NEA, noting that the program is meant to increase communities’ livability.

One of the more unusual artists celebrated in the program is 92-year-old Vollis Simpson, who years ago started turning scrap metal into colorful objects that move and creak in the breezes: “a team of horses pulling a wagon, a metal man strumming a guitar and an airplane cum rocket ship that might have escaped from an old

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