Artist Aineki Traverso, photographed by Will Crooks.

🏆 Congrats are in order! Visual artist and painter Aineki Traverso has been announced as the winner of the prestigious 2024 Edge Award. Traverso’s works use the rhetoric of painting to explore the way identities and memories are constructed and transformed. As the winner of the Edge Award, Traverso will receive $10,000, a two-week residency at the Hambidge Center, and a solo exhibition at the Swan Coach House Gallery in April of 2024. This award is presented by the Forward Arts Foundation (FAF), a nonprofit devoted to supporting visual arts in Atlanta that founded the Swan Coach House Gallery in 1984. The other finalists – Andre Lyman, Natrice Miller, Yoon Nam, and Ellex Swavoni – all receive a $2,000 cash reward and will exhibit a piece during the Edge Award Exhibition.


District V at their troop home, 145 ½ Auburn Avenue, the Atlanta Daily World Building.

🎨 The Loss Prevention, Gene Kansas, and Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta are collaborating to create a custom 55’ x 30’ mural celebrating the District V Girl Scouts on the historic Atlanta Daily World Building. District V Girl Scouts was Atlanta’s first all-Black Girl Scout troop known for their contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. The troop shared their home base with one of the country’s oldest daily Black Newspapers in a building that bears its name: the Atlanta Daily World. “The creation of this mural is not just about celebrating the past, but also about empowering the future, especially for girls,” explains Maggie White, The Loss Prevention project manager. “By highlighting the significant contributions of the Girl Scouts in our city’s Civil Rights story, we hope to inspire and encourage girls to become active participants in their communities.” Help make this mural a reality by visiting theirGoFundMe


💵 The Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs and Invest Atlanta request Creative Project Proposals for ELEVATE American Rescue Plan (ARP) Grant 2023. They are seeking proposals that are inclusive with creative programming and projects that promote healthy outdoor gatherings while embracing the arts and culture of our communities. All projects must take place in the City of Atlanta before Aug. 14, 2023 and with a scope of between $2,500 through $20,000. All individuals, non-profits, and businesses must have verifiable Atlanta addresses to be eligible and must attend a 1-hour workshop online on Apr. 25 and Apr. 27. Applications due by May 5.


Mural by Milagros Collective on the MARTA overpass in Downtown Decatur.

🗣 The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) has announced that 27 arts, culture, and civic leaders have been selected to participate in the 2023 Culture and Community Design (C&CD) program. The leaders will meet between May and December and work to support the African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA) and Full Radius Dance. The Culture and Community Design program is a new venture of the ARC designed to provide immersive, hands-on experience that advances arts as part of inclusive and equitable planning. For the full list of 2023 C&CD program participants and more information check out the ARC website.

Isadora Pennington is a freelance writer and photographer based in Atlanta. She is the editor of Sketchbook by Rough Draft, a weekly Arts newsletter.