The Trump administration’s 2026 budget proposal calls for the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, which provides funding to art institutions nationwide. The Bunnell Street Arts Center, in Homer, was notified earlier this month that its already approved $25,000 grant from the endowment was canceled.
The arts center hosts a number of programs and art exhibits, including those featuring Indigenous and international artists. The center was one of many around the country to receive a funding termination email after President Trump proposed eliminating the endowment.
The notice laid out the new administration’s endowment priorities, which include supporting Tribal communities and making America healthy again, among other initiatives.
“What we do with these funds actually meets those priorities in a very deep way,” said Asia Freeman, the Bunnell Street Arts Center artistic director. She says the grant was going to be used for the center’s 2026 artist in residency program.
“Not only are we focused on reflecting the nation's rich artistic heritage through our residency programs, and showing what a rich diversity of heritages that is, through a wide variety of media; we also do this in partnership with tribal organizations, and in so doing, we are working hard to make America healthy again," Freeman said.
While federal dollars make up only about 5% of the art center’s overall funding, Freeman says the cut is still a hit to the artist in residency program, which hosts artists from around the world. She says the money not only provides visiting artists a stipend, it helps leverage additional art center funding from private foundations and individuals.
Freeman says once an endowment grant is received, the art center opens applications for the following year’s artist in residency program. The center was already in correspondence with several artists in planning its 2026 calendar.
Now that the grant has been canceled, Freeman says the time she put into planning and grant writing feels like a wasted effort.
“It's a lot of labor down the drain," Freeman said. "And I don't want to say it's lost, but it feels a little bit like a house fire, where what you have is the foundation, right? It's how you do things, it's the values that you bring to it.”
And this isn’t the only National Endowment for the Arts’ funding cut the center’s had to deal with. It recently received an early termination notice for another $25,000 grant, used to fund this year’s artist in residency program. They now have less time than planned to use that money.
Other Alaska institutions, like the Sitka Fine Arts Camp and the Sheldon Jackson Museum, in Sitka, have also been hit by the endowment’s funding cuts. But despite cuts, Freeman says the Bunnell Street Arts Center plans to continue its artist in residency program. She says they’ll now rely more on their network of donors and fundraising.
‘We're just going to be putting our heads down and continuing to do the work that we do," Freeman said. "But it's exhausting, it's demoralizing. It's just a waste of resources, in my view.”
Freeman says the Bunnell Street Arts Center works to build community by giving people a safe space to create and engage with others. She says that’ll continue despite funding cuts.
