The California Arts Council has awarded The Ink People and three DreamMaker Projects with Operational and Project-based grants during their 2026 grant cycle. Veterans’ Clay Group, DIY Art + Ecology, and Field Guide to a Crisis are community-led projects selected to receive substantial funding to continue their positive local impact through creative practices that respond to social circumstances.
The Ink People Center for Arts and Culture is awarded an Operational Grant. This funding arrives as Ink People is on the precipice of opening their new permanent location at 535 5th St. in Eureka. The award will support their transition into the new space and continued expansion of Ink People core programming. Ink People provides professional development infrastructure for approximately 90 active DreamMaker projects. As well as encouraging creativity and pathways to leadership for youth through their year-round Media Arts Resource Zone (MARZ). The new location will act as a third-space and will host a plethora of community events and exhibitions. With this hub of arts and culture as a foundation, Ink People will continue to evolve to meet the needs of our creative community.
Humboldt Veterans’ Clay Group receives an Operational Grant to support their work at the intersection of ceramic arts, social connection, and wellness. Since beginning operations in March 2022, Humboldt Veterans Clay Group has provided veterans with free access to fully outfitted ceramics studios. Humboldt Veterans Clay Group helps participants experience the healing possibilities of arts practices and develop deeper interpersonal relationships. “Participation in community-based arts helps develop a sense of belonging and increases wellbeing for those otherwise disconnected from social networks, [it] decreases the risk of mental health problems, social isolation, and depression,” says project leader, Joe Fox. “Over the years many veterans have gathered in our studios to create art and share space with one another, ultimately creating an extended community of veterans, artists, local business, and institutions,” comments project leader Jacqueline Vasquez.
Field Guide to a Crisis is awarded a Project Grant to expand their efforts developing relational recovery and empowered education. This project “functions as an alternative school where participants in recovery from a substance abuse disorder become teachers of crisis resilience,” explains project founder Justin Maxon. Field Guide to a Crisis “has worked with over 150 participants; many are still sober, have entered the job market, and are attending school.” Through creative practices, Maxon continues, “participants have been supported in identifying knowledge that comes from their own lived experience and transforming that knowledge into work that can be shared with others.”
Over six years, Field Guide to a crisis has created two publications, organized multiple exhibitions, performances, and community activations. Maxon says this grant will “support a new initiative working with people experiencing houselessness and housing insecurity in Humboldt County. The project will bring participants together with artists, care practitioners, and local partners through a series of workshops and a multi-day community gathering focused on sharing survival knowledge, building relationships, and creating public-facing work. The goal is to create a structure that recognizes people experiencing houselessness as teachers, artists, and knowledge-holders.”
D.I.Y. ART + Ecology is awarded a Project Grant to encourage hands-on learning through curriculum-aligned classroom activity kits. D.I.Y. Art + Ecology is a DreamMaker project that provides meaningful, inclusive, hands-on, accessible events for community members to engage creatively with mixed media and one another, enjoy refreshments, and take home personal artistic creations. Dr. Jeanine Pfeiffer comments, “Our recent California Arts Council grant augments a California Coastal Commission Whale Tail grant to create S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) K-12 classroom activity kits to accompany open access Native American Studies Model Curriculum units.” California’s first Native American Studies Model Curriculum debuted last year and is now free to access online, providing classrooms across California with inclusive lessons on history, language arts, science, social studies, and the arts. D.I.Y. Art + Ecology is building upon local implementation of the curriculum, “Over the next year we’ll be designing, piloting, and distributing dozens of hands-on, plug-and-play collections of materials to teachers to help incorporate Indigenous lessons into science and arts classes in Humboldt and Del Norte counties,” says Dr. Pfeiffer.
About The Ink People
The Ink People Center for Arts and Culture is a community-based arts and culture organization that supports creative expression and cultural equity through its DreamMaker Program, the Media Arts Resource Zone (MARZ) youth program, community arts education, creative activation of public spaces, and artist-led initiatives. The Ink People has been changing lives since 1979 by connecting the community with resources for cultural development and by actively weaving the arts into the fabric of our community. Dedicated to empowering artists and culture keepers and advancing community wellbeing through creative practice, The Ink People collaborates across the region to shape a vibrant, inclusive cultural ecosystem. Learn more at inkpeople.org.