The Cleveland Print Room is one of many arts organizations around the country to learn that its National Endowment for the Arts grant was being axed under President Donald Trump.
The Print Room received $100,000 from the NEA for its “Property Inventory” photography project. The money helped the Print Room hire photographers to produce an artistic companion to Cleveland’s 2023 survey of exterior housing conditions. (Signal Cleveland’s Michael Indriolo is one of those photographers.)
Kerry Davis, the Print Room’s creative director, received an email from NEA on May 2 saying that the grant would be terminated at the end of the month.
“Funding is being allocated in a new direction in furtherance of the Administration’s agenda,” the email read. “Your project, as noted below, unfortunately does not align with these priorities.”
Luckily for Davis, the Print Room had spent most of the money already. Davis said he had been able to get the rest of the funds from the federal government before it shut off the tap. The NEA grant required a dollar-for-dollar match, and the Print Room is in the process of raising the second $100,000 to finish the project.
Davis found the notice from the NEA discomforting. To him, it’s not just about the money. It’s about the message that the Trump administration can do what it wants — such as by shaking up the leadership at the Kennedy Center, he said.
Money from the NEA conveys legitimacy, too, not unlike a government agricultural label on food.
“In the arts, I think that the NEA stamp was like USDA,” he said. “That was some of the way you demonstrate to other people that the organization was viable and doing work that would pass a litmus test outside of your known ecosystem.”
What are the Trump administration’s artistic priorities? The NEA listed a number of them, including to highlight historically Black and Hispanic-serving colleges and universities, to celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary, to empower houses of worship to serve their communities and to “make America healthy again.”
