Rising Arts Leader: An individual arts contributor, manager, advocate, volunteer or patron with fewer than five years of involvement in this role.
Grace Carter
Grace Carter serves as the Associate Director of Community Impact at ArtsNow. She earned her B.A. in Art History with a minor in Pre-law from Kent State University and her M.A. in Arts Administration from The University of Akron.
Notable projects at ArtsNow include managing SEEN: Advancing Equity in Summit County, a project that highlighted the diversity and vibrancy of Summit County’s arts and culture sector, developing a guide to practices surrounding citing artists’ work on social media, and spearheading communications for River in the City, a project funded by National Endowment for the Arts that brought permanent public art installations by internationally recognized artists Peter B. Jones and Stacy Levy to downtown Cuyahoga Falls.
Grace’s art exhibition reviews and artist profiles have been published in regional magazines such as CAN Journal. She has contracted as a freelance grant writer with clients in northeast Ohio and New York City, raising nearly $100,000 on behalf of nonprofit organizations in 2023. Previously, she worked as Community Engagement Coordinator at Summit Artspace, where she grew the organization’s press, email lists, and social media following substantially.
During her time at Kent State, she worked for the Kent State University School of Art writing profiles on alumni and newsworthy events, served as Curatorial Assistant for the We The People exhibition, and volunteered as Director of Communications for the Art History Club and Secretary for the Art Club. At Worthington Yards/YARDS Projects, she worked as a curatorial assistant on exhibition planning and installation and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland she interned in the Education department.
In addition to her work in the arts, she has served in the fitness industry as a yoga instructor, specializing in making yoga accessible to those with mobility challenges. She was awarded the honor of Staff of the Year at the Kent State University Student Wellness and Recreation Center in 2021.
