2025 Arts Summit Registration Now Open! | | |
Agents of Change
Advancing New Ideas and Practices
Monday, October 27, 2025
Hotel Du Pont
42 W 11th St, Wilmington, DE 19801
Registration: $65 with FREE parking
Do you work in arts administration or arts programming? Are you an artist, arts patron, or arts educator? Do you volunteer at an arts organization? If you’re interested in the arts, then you belong at the Delaware Arts Summit!
As Agents of Change we can enable change to happen within our work, our organizations, and our communities. The 2025 Delaware Arts Summit will explore ways to identify the need for change and how to achieve it with new ideas and practices that address challenges, recognize opportunities, and promote future sustainability in the arts.
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Keynote Speaker: Deborah F. Rutter
Deborah F. Rutter is an internationally respected arts executive with over four decades of leadership at premier cultural institutions. From 2014 to 2025, she served as the first female president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — the nation’s preeminent cultural center — where she led a period of transformative growth while centering artists in all aspects of the institution’s work.
A fierce advocate of artistic voices, Rutter believes artists hold a mirror to society, and her role is to uplift their work. She has collaborated with and established strong artistic collaborations with renowned artists throughout her career, including Renée Fleming, Jason Moran, Q-Tip, Mason Bates, Gianandrea Noseda, Carlos Simon, Riccardo Muti, and Yo-Yo Ma. During her tenure at the Kennedy Center, Deborah expanded the institution’s artistic and educational programming across genres and audiences including the introduction of Social Impact programming in 2019. She also developed an innovative exploration of arts and well-being in collaboration with National Institutes of Health and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as establishing the Hip Hop Culture Council to create new pathways and deepen public knowledge of Hip Hop, while strengthening the burgeoning Hip Hop Culture.
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2025 Delaware Arts Summit Workshop Sessions:
- Strategic Budgeting and Scenario Planning
- Strategies for Impact and Evaluation
- Culture as Capital: The Multigenerational Investment That Pays Dividends
- Building a Digital Marketing Strategy: Essentials for Growth, Structure and Authenticity
- Cross-Sector Strategies at the Intersection of Arts and Health
| | | Grant Re-evaluation Survey Now Live | | |
The Delaware Division of the Arts (DDOA) is re-evaluating our organizational support programs, so they better reflect the needs of Delaware’s creative community. We’re inviting nonprofit arts organizations and community-based groups working in the arts to complete an online survey.
Survey links have been distributed to current and past grantees. Even if you already shared thoughts during our recent virtual forums, please take the survey as well. It asks only for your opinions and observations - no financial information - so it’s quick to finish. While not a grant requirement, your participation is strongly encouraged; robust feedback will help us calibrate future grant lines to the real needs of Delaware’s artistic community.
We ask that you complete the survey by August 29. Only one survey per organization, please.
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Over the next two years, the Delaware Division of the Arts (DDOA) will undertake a comprehensive evaluation of every grant program to ensure our funding process mirrors the evolving realities of Delaware’s creative sector.
A process map for this project can be found below (we are currently on step one).
| | Award Winners XXV Upcoming Schedule | | |
Biggs Museum of American Art
Dover
Now through
September 14
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Historic Odessa Foundation
Odessa
September 19 – October 26
Reception: Thurs., September 25 from 6-8pm
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Rehoboth Art League
Rehoboth Beach
November 7-30
Reception: Fri., November 7 from 5-7pm
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Hosted by the Biggs Museum of American Art
Dover, DE
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You're Invited! 25th Anniversary Celebration & Reunion for Delaware Division of the Arts Fellowship Winners
Thursday, August 21 | 5:30 – 7:30 PM
Let’s raise a glass to 25 years of creativity, community, and impact! Whether you're a past or current Individual Artist Fellow, you’ve helped shape Delaware’s artistic landscape - and now it’s time to celebrate that legacy.
Join the Biggs Museum of American Art for a lively happy hour gathering, where Fellows can reconnect with fellow creatives, reflect on our journeys, and honor the shared spirit that fuels the arts in the First State.
| | | Poetry Out Loud Registration Opens Soon | | |
Poetry Out Loud (POL) is a national program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high schools across the country. POL uses a pyramid structure that begins at the classroom level. Winners advance to a school-wide competition, then to a regional and/or state competition, and ultimately to the National Finals in Washington, DC. More than 100,000 students are expected to take part in POL nationwide each year.
Registration for Delaware high schools begins August 18, 2025.
Deadline to register is October 31, 2025.
| | Upcoming DDOA Grant Opportunities | | The Delaware Division of the Arts offers a variety of grant programs for individual artists; nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations chartered and based in Delaware; and schools and government entities that support arts activities. | | |
Arts Access - Supports small budget projects that include the presentation of performing, visual, literary, media, or folk arts in communities throughout the state. Organizations that receive General Operating Support are generally not eligible to apply. Rolling deadline – submit at least 6 weeks prior to the project start date.
Artist Opportunity - Grants provide up to $1,000 to support individual artists with unique professional and artistic development or presentation opportunities. Next deadline: October 1.
Artist Residency - Grants for residencies with visual, literary, performing or media artists working with students in the classroom or in professional development workshops with teachers. Rolling deadline – submit at least 6 weeks prior to start of the scheduled residency.
TranspARTation - Grants that support transportation costs (up to $500) for schools to bring students to Delaware arts and cultural institutions and venues in order to attend arts performances, events, and exhibits. Rolling deadline – submit at least 6 weeks prior to the field trip date.
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Coming Soon: National Arts in Education Week!
September 15-19, 2025
National Arts in Education Week is a nationwide celebration of the transformative power of the arts in education. Passed by Congress in 2010, this week is designated to highlight the benefits of and need for the arts in education so that elected officials and educational decision-makers nationwide can find ways to support equitable arts access for students of all backgrounds.
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Delaware Art Education Association presents their 2025 State Arts Conference
The Delaware Art Education Association (DAEA) is a non-profit organization that promotes visual arts education in the State of Delaware.
Teachers, artists, and advocates of visual arts are encouraged to attend.
When: Friday, October 10 from
7:30am-3:30pm
Where: Dover Middle School 1 Patrick Lynn Dr, Dover, DE 19904
Cost: $60 for members, $90 for non-members
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Visitor Experience Group 2025 Conference
The theme for the 2025 Visitor Experience Conference is People First. This year, we’ll explore how prioritizing people—visitors, staff, & communities—can transform cultural institutions, foster inclusion, and create meaningful connections. VEX25 will take place September 28 - October 1 in Chicago, IL. Conference sessions will be held on Monday, September 29 at the Field Museum.
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Submit your upcoming events to DelawareScene.com
DelawareScene is a comprehensive, up-to-date website calendar featuring Delaware’s arts and cultural events and attractions in and around Delaware. Acquaint yourself with one of Delaware’s many artists, get carried away by the magic of a theater performance, frequent one of Delaware’s world-renowned museums, experience one of Delaware’s many unique festivals.
REMINDER: All grantees MUST list all events on DelawareScene.com as soon as they are announced.
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On the Mezzanine -
Shilpi
The Delaware Division of the Arts’ Mezzanine Gallery is pleased to present Divine Nature, a solo exhibition of works by Delaware artist Shilpi. The show will be on view from August 1-29, 2025.
Shilpi works across multiple mediums - including acrylics, oils, dry media, and graphite pencil shading - bringing both versatility and depth to her art. Her work is often inspired by nature, with flowers, trees, and birds playing a central role in her compositions. She focuses on capturing not just how something looks, but how it feels - using color, light, and texture to create pieces that are expressive and full of life. Shilpi’s richly detailed paintings draw on four classical Indian art forms - Pichwai, Kalamkari, Madhubani, and Gond - to explore what she calls “the sacred connection between the divine and the natural world.”
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Meet the Fellows
The prestigious Individual Artist Fellowships from the Delaware Division of the Arts recognize a variety of disciplines and outstanding quality of work. From writers to visual artists to musicians, these award-winning creatives have unique stories and talents.
To see the full listing of 2025's Individual Artist Fellows, visit https://arts.delaware.gov/iafrecipients/
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Rob Sample
Visual Arts: Painting
“My work features . . . worlds of wonder, weirdness, and sometimes terror, to remind us all of our universal human roots.”
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Adam Vidiksis
Music: Composition
“Music is my way of thinking about the world and processing its complexities.”
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New Light Theatre
Once: The Musical
Wilmington
General Operating Support
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Milton Arts Guild
8x8 Silent Auction
Milton
General Operating Support
| | | | The Delaware Division of the Arts is an agency of the State of Delaware. Together with its advisory body, the Delaware State Arts Council, the Division administers grants and programs that support arts programming, educate the public, increase awareness of the arts, and integrate the arts into all facets of Delaware life. Funding for Division programs is provided by annual appropriations from the Delaware General Assembly and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. For more information about the Delaware Division of the Arts, visit arts.delaware.gov or call 302-577-8278. | | | | |
