06/28/2024
So this is a long one but if you could hang in there with on it. I don't really post much these days.
I would like to thank everyone who has reached out in the last week to inquire if/how the recent state art budget limitation will affect Tempus Projects. I truly appreciate your questions and your concerns. I would also like to express my gratitude to those of you who have supported us for the last 15 years and watched us grow from a converted garage behind a commercial building through some great successes, growing pains, and some real struggles in recent years.
Yes, the eradication of state funds for the arts will leave Tempus Projects with a (approx) twenty to twenty-five thousand dollar hole in our hearts and budgets. It’s public record, and I also believe in complete transparency so, I have no issue with sharing that at Tempus we write a state grant, and a county grant every year to cover our PEOPLE. To simplify it, that is my part-time paycheck and the part-time paycheck of my one colleague. We both work as independent contractors. Those funds also cover any stipends that we provide for the artists, curators, writers, musicians, art historians, and preparators we work with throughout the year.
This will greatly impact the way we work, and the number of art professionals we will collaborate with, in the coming year.
Please know this: We are scrappy.
What we do is not easy and not for the fainthearted, but we are determined. We will persevere. However, we do not do these things alone. (I say this a lot. It is somehow not always heard…) We are a community. If you would like to make a difference, please do what you can to contribute, not just to Tempus Projects, but to other small nonprofits paying rent, and paying people, in your art community, that this will impact. The smaller the organization, the more difficult it will be for these organizations to pull through. We will be looking to private philanthropy and ART SALES to get us through. For the literary and performing arts, that translates to ticket sales for events too.
If you already contribute: THANK YOU! If you are a Tempus Projects Member we hope to see you at our Summer Members Cocktail Hour on July 18th at 5pm. We have a quarterly thank-you gift, and a VERY special opportunity for you in conjunction with the opening of 'Theo Wujcik, Too Big for Tempus'. While it is a ‘Members Only Cocktail Hour’, we would like to encourage you to bring a friend this time, who might be new to Tempus Projects or ANY of the other stellar nonprofits working in our building. Share with them what we are doing at Kress Contemporary. Visit the artists in the building. Show your support. Show us off!
If you support the ‘BIG Art’ organizations, we appreciate that too. They are anchors in the community that have a greater reach with higher visibility. We know that, and we encourage you to continue to do so, but please consider stretching that dollar and extending your philanthropy to smaller organizations as well. By doing so, you will make twice the impact and those smaller organizations will benefit greatly, and only further enrich your vibrant growing city.
The cuts were part of nearly $1 billion Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed from next year’s state budget.
