The Mid-America Arts Alliance has announced the recipients of its 2024 Artists 360 Awards, the seventh and final cohort of the program.

Since its launch in 2018, Artists 360 has been a catalyst for artistic growth in Northwest Arkansas, awarding 169 grants across five categories to 157 artists, all made possible through the generosity of the Walton Family Foundation.

In the final cohort, a current student in the Department of Theatre — Basil Parnell — is among the 31 Northwest Arkansas artists honored by Artists 360.

Parnell, who is currently an M.F.A. playwriting candidate at the U of A, received an Artists 360 Graduate Student Artist Grant.

The program awards $5,000 to five practicing graduate student artists each year and provides professional development support to these degree-seeking artists who are enrolled in Northwest Arkansas higher education institutions.

"Artists 360 has allowed me and countless other artists to pursue our artistic practices and projects, and to connect with the wider community of creatives in Northwest Arkansas and the surrounding areas. I am so grateful that the program has put me in contact with so many great artists, especially outside of my own discipline," Parnell said.

"Even though I exist mostly in the world of theatre, there's always so much I learn about my own process from talking to painters, musicians, dancers, ceramists, other writers and all artists, especially when we're given the space to connect and develop our work together," Parnell added. 

Parnell is a playwright, dramaturg and theatre artist from Northwest Arkansas. They often write about the Ozarks, the Southern queer and trans experience, seismic life changes and the things that make us human. They were the playwriting apprentice for the 2023 Arkansas New Play Festival, and they are a member of the Dramatists Guild. Parnell received their B.A. in theatre and writing for the stage from Marymount Manhattan College.

They said the funds from Artists 360 made it possible to "invest in equipment that makes my writing practice easier that I couldn't afford otherwise, like an E-ink word processor and a new computer."

"I am also able to put parts of the grant towards developing and producing my plays outside of an educational environment, paying for fees to apply to more opportunities and programs, paying artists for their work on my self-produced projects and giving me the ability to take on more community-based projects without worrying as much about paying for my own basic needs," Parnell said.

"Currently I am devising a play to be produced with Defying Limits, a local theatre organization that focuses on inclusion and telling disabled and neurodiverse stories, along with preparing to develop my play Side by Side this May at TheatreSquared's Arkansas New Play Festival," Parnell added.

Likewise, John Walch, assistant professor and head of the M.F.A. program in playwriting, praised Parnell's work and said he can't wait to see what Parnell accomplishes next.

"As a playwright and native to Northwest Arkansas, Basil's work springs from a deep and complicated love of place, driving them towards telling their own personal truth and making the stories of their home seen and heard," he said. "Following a lineage of other great Southern writers (Faulkner, Welty, McCullers, Walker), these qualities are deeply woven into Basil's fabric as a writer."

Walch also thanked the Artists 360 grant program for the meaningful impact it has had over the last seven years.

"It has played a significant role in uplifting the plurality of voices of area artists - those voices that describe and express the contours of life here," he said. "Basil is one of the area's emerging artistic lights who will carry forward this intention."

"The Graduate Student Artists Grant begins this journey for Basil, giving them strategic tools to better craft their future career and putting them in dialogue with the larger network of area artists who will continue to define and shape the region's artistic identity for years to come," Walch added.

Artists 360, a program of Mid-America Arts Alliance, made possible through the support of the Walton Family Foundation, provides grant funding and professional development opportunities to individual artists of all disciplines in the greater Northwest Arkansas area. Projects funded by the grant range across disciplines within the arts, including literature, film, performance, mixed media, sculpture and more.

Those recognized include undergraduate students, graduate students and post-education artists working within the community and improving their craft. Grants include learning opportunities to develop entrepreneurial skills and build sustainable careers, creating a network of leading regional artists.

To celebrate the final cohort and the overall impact of the Artists 360 program, Mid-America Arts Alliance invites the public to its annual Artists 360 Full Circle Showcase at 1 p.m. Sunday, April 27, at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

To learn more about the impact of Artists 360, watch interviews with program alumni on YouTube.

For biographies and more information about Mid-America Arts Alliance's Artists 360 past grant recipients, visit artists360.art.

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This story also appeared in the Fulbright REVIEW publication.