L.M. Bogad Selected as a People’s WPA Artist for U.S. Department of Arts and Culture

Design Credit: Josh Yoder

I was so honored to be selected by the United States Department of Arts and Culture to be one of their WPA Artists for 2020-2021.  From a pool of over 330 applicants, they chose 25 of us, and having gotten to know the work of my colleagues this year I have been amazed at the vital work they are doing in communities across the USA (https://usdac.us/peopleswpa to see the list). Being one of the WPA artists has involved group meetings about prison abolition and restorative justice, and learning about each others’ work, and some skill sharing.  The USDAC also commissioned an artist to create a poster about each of our work: the great Josh Yoder created mine (shown here!) after a couple of conversations about my work, art, politics, and some brainstorming. I think it’s great.

The People’s WPA is a project designed to address the creative needs of culture workers and change-makers with more immediacy than any official government program could provide. Since 2013, the USDAC has specialized in creating toolkits and policy papers for community-based creatives to apply to their own projects. By assuming the trappings of an official government entity (which it emphatically is not), the USDAC makes a compelling case for the importance of the arts as community and capacity-building hubs.