UPDATE: raffle winner is
@wilson.crook :)) thank you to everyone that joined the raffle, we raised $1358 for the DVAA ❤️
QUILT RAFFLE – $8 per ticket / $20 for three tickets :)
I’m raffling off my most recent quilt in an attempt to raise money for an important and beloved local arts institution that is running out of time. To join the raffle please donate directly to DVAA’s emergency fundraiser at tinyurl.com/saveDVAA (link is in their bio and my stories) and send the receipt to
[email protected] :)
Italian immigrants founded DVAA, the Da Vinci Art Alliance, in 1931. Every year this little-space-that-can hosts 12 fully funded artist residencies, 3 fully funded fellowships, 50+ exhibitions. It is an incubator for emerging artists, new curatorial voices, experimental work and collectives, new publications and free thought. It removes financial and cultural barriers to the arts and succeeds in making art accessible to the people of Philadelphia.
Our governments are actively defunding the arts. On June 5th Philadelphia City Council approved Mayor Cherelle Parker’s budget for FY2026, a budget that saw a 35% decrease in arts funding.
Nationally, Trump has crippled the arts. He removed the National Endowment for the Arts from his proposed domestic budget, a move that has forced institutions to cancel and rescind funding for thousands of small arts institutions. Trump and DOGE terminated over a thousand grants funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and got rid of 75% of its workforce. He eliminated all NEA funding for arts projects that promote inclusion. He is trying to get rid of museum and library funding, public radio funding, and public broadcast services.
It’s easy to view the arts as nonessential and they can be – until you’re experiencing extreme loss, love, grief, compassion, any sort of passion, and then it’s the only thing that can make you feel less alone. Be it a movie, a book, a painting, a dance performance, the opera, poetry, a sculpture, a monument, a woven heirloom, whatever underground arts scene you care about, etc, we have all experienced this sort of relief that holds us in humanity.
