The Kentucky Arts Council has expanded its annual Arts Day to a weeklong event, and it will all be done virtually due to the pandemic.
Traditionally, the event has brought Kentucky artists and arts leaders to the Capitol Rotunda in Frankfort for a celebratory day of performances, demonstrations, and a photo opp with the arts community and lawmakers.
But this year, Kentucky Arts Council executive director Chris Cathers said they wanted it to be about more than simply celebrating the arts.
“As we began to talk about it as a staff, we kept coming up with workshops and ideas and performances and connections that we can make,” Cathers said. “And we were like, this is more than what we can do in one day.”
Each day of Arts Week in Kentucky will have a different theme: arts education, folk and traditional art, arts advocacy, nonprofit arts organizations and individual artists.
It will feature discussions about COVID-19’s impact on the arts world, performances and presentations from Kentucky artists, and webinars. The full schedule can be found here, and all of the programming is free.
“This is a service that we can provide back, and we hope that people will attend,” Cathers said, adding that the council extended invitations to state lawmakers. He thinks a full week is a great opportunity to remind elected officials of the value of the arts in the commonwealth, especially during such a challenging time for the arts.
“It is always important to be conveying the message of what's going on with each of your organizations and for the arts in general, and... it has been a year of survival in a number of ways for arts organizations," he said.