Thank you to the Hudson County Cultural Affairs office and the NJ State Council on the Arts for the inspiring Public Board Meeting and luncheon today! Congrats to our fellow Hudson County Local Arts Program Grant winners (shown in this pic) as well as all the Hudson County NJCA individual grant winners!

Board member and friend Austin Thomas and I spent the afternoon with NJ's top creative thinkers setting a plan for 2017 to ensure the National Endowment for the Arts voice is heard. Folks from the NJ Council, Art Pride NJ and Hudson County spoke passionately about how we need to be the voices of the future now more than ever! If you are an artist, you are a truth seeker!

Did you know that the return in investing $146 million into the NEA annually is $700 billion?! $700 billion dollars generated through economic and social growth annually because of the arts. Get out there, visit the galleries, exhibitions and theaters in 2017 and show congress how important the arts are to your life! Meanwhile here are some helpful links that can get you more involved:

NJ Council on the Arts

http://nj.gov/state/njsca/index.html

Hudson County Cultural Affairs

http://visithudson.org/

NJ Art Pride

http://www.artpridenj.com/

National Endowment for the Arts

https://www.arts.gov/