2013-008 EDC-Arts - Town of Carrboro Arts Committee Rec & Park Dept Fall 2012 Art Grant Agreement $1,500

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• Improve their quality of life. • Encourage greater creative activity. • Foster stronger community identity and a sense of place. • Revitalize economic development. Since the ArtsCenter began as a one room schoolhouse for the arts in 1974, Carrboro has transformed itself from cotton mill town of 5,100 into a densely populated small city of almost 20,000 with a vibrant arts community. It has been cited as one of the top arts towns in the USA. Its creative economy ranges from The ArtsCenter and its neighbor, acclaimed rock club Cat's Cradle to DSI Comedy Theatre to WCOM community radio to Kalisher, an international producer of commercial art founded by a noted photographer. The Carrboro Music Festival has become a regional destination event benefitting businesses throughout town. The Art Therapy Institute overlooks the lawn in front of Weaver Street Market, frequent site of outdoor concerts, three blocks from the Town Commons, where thousands recently enjoyed a Tift Merritt CD release concert. Although the town supports the arts and arts-based businesses and operates two year-round galleries and several arts festivals,this thriving arts economy and community have grown organically. Now the creative community and the town have the opportunity to plan its cultural center, identify its cultural vision, and connect our creative economy to the economic development of the town. A successful plan will provide for the arts infrastructure and education and training in the arts that will afford all citizens of Carrboro the facility to explore their creative impulses. It will include a focus and site for development of arts engagement and the creative economy. More than twenty years ago, then Carrboro Mayor (now State Senator) Ellie Kinnaird articulated an arts-based vision for the rebranding of Carrboro. Now that downtown Carrboro is experiencing its greatest change since the Carr Mill Mall and Weaver Street Market projects, NEA Our Town can enable the town to conduct a community-based planning process for its creative economy to be called Arts Carrboro 2020: A Community Vision. The process will begin with separate stakeholder and public meetings in December 2012 as part of developing the Our Town application due to NEA on January 14, 2013. The initial process will be guided by Planning Committee composed of Town and ArtsCenter professionals. Arts Carrboro 2020 will draw upon a path breaking array of resources that will create a new model for community cultural development. The new model will include: • An active partnership between a venerable arts non-profit and civic government • Effective collaboration among multiple town government agencies and committees involved in the arts, economic development, and parks and recreation and with a variety of non-profit and for profit businesses and organizations involved in the creative economy of Carrboro. • A professional design firm with a strong arts practice as an integral part of the team • A cutting edge economic and workforce development consultancy with a strong creative economy practice as an integral part of the team • Involvement of artists and teaching artists in various disciplines as integral parts of the team OCAC Application Narrative for Carrboro Arts Committee 2 1 [' az t;