The Year of the Rural Arts is a biennial program of events, conversations, and online features celebrating the diverse, vital ways in which rural arts and culture contribute to American life. The 2014 inaugural effort will connect citizens, artists, scholars, designers, and entrepreneurs, and meet with audiences on the grounds of universities, museums and galleries, cultural organizations, and across rural and urban communities.
The Year is coordinated by national rural arts organization Art of the Rural and organized by a collective of individuals, organizations, and communities from rural and urban locales across the nation. Art of the Rural fosters an open source philosophy of sharing resources and ideas, and it values exchange across regions, cultures and disciplines.
The Year of the Rural Arts national calendar of events is created in collaboration with pre-existing activities across the landscape of the American rural arts field, and visualized as a project within the Atlas of Rural Arts and Culture. While the calendar aims to provide a comprehensive listing of major rural arts events across the nation, twelve to twenty of these events will be selected as featured Year of the Rural Arts events on the Art of the Rural website. Keep an eye towards Art of the Rural for more information as the Year of the Rural Arts progresses: www.artoftherural.org.