In ‘major setback’ for Michigan arts, Trump terminates federal grants

• Dozens of Michigan nonprofits saw grants from the National Endowment for the Arts canceled this month 
• Among them: the Progressive Art Studio Collective, a program dedicating studio and exhibition space to artists with disabilities
• Local theaters, museums and other arts organizations in Michigan fearing financial future for the arts amid cuts

DETROIT — In a brightly lit art studio on Detroit’s east side Tuesday morning, Ray Smith was busy adding pops of vivid greens, oranges, yellows and blues to his latest project: a watercolor sketch inspired by a building he’d seen in an architectural magazine. 

Nearby, Tiffany Foster was stitching bright orange flowers into deep blue fabric. Brahem Shaw was wrapping up a watercolor of the former Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Detroit, now a cultural center. Throughout the studio, blank canvases were rapidly turning into tigers, aquariums, dancers, flowers, buildings and household objects.

“I just like coming here — it makes me focus, it makes me think, it makes me relax,” said Sherri Bryant, who was in the early stages of a piece she anticipated taking weeks to finish. “I think first in my head, the things I want to do. Then I start drawing.”

Smith, Foster, Shaw and Bryant are among the roughly 190 artists with disabilities who spend a few days per week working with the Progressive Art Studio Collective, which was started through the Wayne County organization Services to Enhance Potential in 2021 to give such artists the resources to make and sell art. 

The program had recently been awarded a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to help support its work training artists on how to curate and assemble works for exhibition. 

But earlier this month, the collective was among hundreds of arts institutions in Michigan and the US informed by President Donald Trump’s administration that their grants would be terminated. 

Collectively, Michigan museums, theaters, galleries and other arts groups had been granted at least $3 million in NEA funding for fiscal year 2024, and the first round of grants for fiscal year 2025 were announced in January before Trump took office. A majority of that funding was canceled this month, though some grants survived the cuts.

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The administration has since proposed that funding for the NEA and other federal arts and humanities agencies be fully eliminated, arguing additional cuts would be “consistent with the president’s efforts to decrease the size of the federal government to enhance accountability, reduce waste, and reduce unnecessary governmental entities.” 

Progressive Art Studio Collective staff are still pushing to get the remainder of the funding they were promised, about $7,000, and plan to move ahead with programming regardless. 

But uncertainty surrounding federal support for arts programs and for Medicaid — which cover costs for most of the collective’s participants — have advocates concerned about their artists’ future. 

“Without this program, our artists would not have access to this kind of service,” said Anthony Marcellini, PASC’s program manager. Significant funding losses “would be a huge impact to our program, of course, but even a larger impact to the individuals that we serve.”

‘A major setback’ 

The NEA grant terminations are among the latest cuts ordered by Trump, whose administration is moving to rapidly shrink the federal budget by eliminating what federal officials contend is wasteful spending. 

And it’s not the first time Trump has targeted the arts to cut costs — during his first term, his initial budget proposal recommended eliminating arts and humanities funding entirely. That plan was rejected by Congress, where arts funding saw bipartisan support and a slight increase in support. 

This time around, Trump has leaned on billionaire business owner Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency to expedite sweeping cuts to federal grant recipients and the government workforce. 

Since the pandemic, the federal deficit has doubled to nearly $1.8 trillion. 

The federal debt has grown 121% since 2015, and interest payments alone on it cost $881 billion this fiscal year — more than the government spends on veterans or children. By 2034, interest costs could consume 20% of federal revenue, according to a US House analysis.

The NEA had a budget of $207 million in 2024, less than 1% of the total federal budget. 

In addition to direct grants to organizations, the federal arts budget funnels funds to state arts agencies, which then disperse funds to local groups. 

State officials are “closely monitoring” the federal changes and the possible impacts on Michigan, said Otie McKinley, spokesperson for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Organizations whose grants were canceled will have through the end of May to cover closeout cuts and withdraw remaining funds for the month, and have the option to appeal. Still, the situation represents “a major setback for the arts and cultural field,” McKinley said.

Other Michigan impacts

Elsewhere in Detroit, federal grants supporting a theater production and art exhibition highlighting gun violence in the US were abruptly canceled, though organizers say the show will go on. 

Courtney Burkett, producing artistic director of the Detroit Public Theatre, said the theater was in rehearsals for the NEA-funded production of “Soft Target,” a play following a child dealing with the aftermath of a school shooting, when officials found out their $25,000 grant was canceled. 

“This is not our first NEA grant, but they're always a big deal — it’s a signal to other funders when you're able to secure NEA funding,” she said. “As things progressed, and we started seeing things being cut left and right, and we hadn't received the award yet, we started to be concerned that perhaps it wasn't going to come.”

Detroit Public Theatre will “ride it till the wheels fall off” and is actively seeking funding from other sources for future productions, but Burkett said they’ve already scrapped plans for a musical next year, meaning fewer jobs for working artists. 

Detroit’s Museum of Contemporary Art also lost a $35,000 grant supporting the Gun Violence Memorial Project, an exhibition honoring victims of gun violence in the US. 

In a joint statement provided to Bridge, MOCAD co-directors Jova Lynne and Marie Madison-Patton said they “stand in solidarity with the hundreds of other cultural institutions and nonprofit organizations across the country facing an impossible reality – one where we must continue to serve our communities through transformative, courageous work despite all obstacles.”

“We are steadfast in our commitment to MOCAD’s mission of presenting the best in contemporary art while connecting Detroit to the global art world,” they said. 

Looking ahead

Many longstanding Michigan arts organizations are seeking or have already secured support from private sources to make up the difference of the lost federal funding. 

Lansing’s Capital City Film Festival, an annual 10-day event that hosts screenings of dozens of domestic and foreign films in Michigan, announced this month that support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Helen Frankenthaler Foundation “have ensured that our work can move forward without further interruption” despite the loss of a $10,000 NEA grant.

The Williamston Theatre in Ingham County got its first NEA grant last year for the production of “Thirst,” a commissioned play dealing with water availability and scarcity. 

They were able to collect on that funding, said Emily Sutton-Smith, the theater’s executive director and co-founder, but they’re concerned the state-level grants the theater is eligible for could soon dry up without federal support.  

“My board has to pass a budget in July, and so we've put everything together, but I just have a big old empty cell in my spreadsheet, because I don't know if there's any grant funding,” Sutton-Smith said. 

“It's like standing on quicksand — you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow,” she continued. “If I had a crystal ball, that would be awesome, but I don't even think at this point the crystal ball would be right.” 

At Progressive Art Studio Collective, Marcellini said he’s been contacting lawmakers, supporters and other groups with similar missions to sound the alarm about what changes to arts funding or Medicaid would mean for the Detroit-area artists benefiting from the program.

A loss of studio time would in many cases mean a loss of income — artists at the studio are encouraged to showcase and sell their work — but it would also mean a loss of community and opportunity for low-income individuals with disabilities who have benefited from making art, he said. 

“We're just in a situation where we're fearing the worst, but don't really have a way to prepare for that,” he said. “These kinds of programs that integrate people with disabilities into the community show that they impact arts and culture, that their perspectives are valid.” 

“They are humans, just like everybody else.”