New Five Points art center lands prestigious national grant
The former Tapps Arts Center — now located in Five Points and renamed Tapp’s Outpost — has received a big national boost.
The group landed a $40,000 grant from the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts. It is the largest of the eight grants the endowment awarded to South Carolina groups this year. The others, which range from $10,000 to $25,000, went to organizations such as Charleston’s Spoleto Festival and the Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra.
Tapp’s Outpost executive director Caitlin Bright said she applied for the grant just to get the organization’s name in the hat for possible future funding.
“It’s an apex grant for an arts organization,” she said while painting the walls of the new art space at 713 Saluda Ave. “I didn’t even put it in our budget.”
It has been a turbulent few months for Bright and her team.
They were informed in September that they would have to move out of the former Tapp’s department store building on Main Street that they had occupied for five years. They were asked by the building’s new owners to vacate the property by Nov. 30.
But also in September, Bright was informed that Tapp’s had received the NEA grant. (The announcement had been embargoed until his month.)
“It was an emotional roller coaster,” she said
The group’s new home is on loan from Five Points developer and Five Points Association board member Richard Burts.
And Outpost is partnering with RockBlock Consulting, founded by promoter and White Mule owner Trae Judy, to foster fledgling musicians and bands in the Midlands.
The White Mule is a music club located next door to the art space, and Bright said she would program events there.
The NEA grant is intended to foster Tapp’s Outpost’s Cultural Entrepreneurial Incubator Program, which helps artists turn their talents into a business.
Bright said landing one of the nation’s leading federal grants will help her solicit funding from other private endowments, foundations and family trusts.
“It’s a leverage tool to get more funding from around the Southeast,” she said.
Here are the eight other NEA grants for South Carolina:
City of Abbeville
$10,000 to support the performance series at the Abbeville Opera House.
Aiken Music Festival
$10,000 to support the Joye in Aiken Performing Arts Festival, featuring public concert performances and related educational activities provided by artists representing the Juilliard School in New York City.
Spoleto Festival USA
$25,000 to support the presentation of new and existing works at the Spoleto Festival.
Columbia Film Society
$20,000 to support the Indie Grits Film Festival and associated programming.
Friends of the Tapp’s Arts Center
$40,000 to support the Cultural Entrepreneurship Incubator Program.
Charleston Jazz
$15,000 to support a performance and residency with jazz trumpeter and educator Jon Faddis on Daniel Island,.
Hub City Writers Project
$15,000 to support the publication and promotion of a novel and an anthology in Spartanburg.
The Spartanburg Philharmonic Orchestra
$20,000 to support a performance project with the Spartanburg Philharmonic featuring Bela Fleck and Abigail Washington.
This story was originally published January 31, 2020 at 12:22 PM.