Canvas Arts Council · Est. 2009
Every town has a story worth painting.
We fund murals on grain elevators, place sculptors in prairie residencies, and bring exhibitions to towns where the nearest gallery is a two-hour drive.
Voices from the field
47 communities. One chorus.
These are the people who stretched a threadbare budget into something a whole town still talks about.
"I wrote my first grant narrative at a Canvas workshop. Six months later, a sculptor was living in our town — using the old grain co-op as a studio. People drove past that building every day for forty years without really seeing it."See What We've Funded →
Wheat & Water, Jamestown ND — 2024
"The exhibition came to us on a flatbed. Crated paintings, a projector, folding panels. We set it up in the high-school gymnasium and 400 people showed up on a Tuesday night."See What We've Funded →
Opening night, Crosby ND · 412 in attendance
art belongs
everywhere
— not just where the rent is high
Prairie Residency Studio · Milbank, SD
"Our water tower mural became a landmark. People started using it for directions. "Turn left at the painted tower." That's when I knew it had worked."See What We've Funded →
Scaffolding up, Grafton ND · Summer 2024
"Canvas didn't just fund the mural. They sent someone out for three days to help us write the community story that went on the wall. That process changed us before the paint dried."See What We've Funded →
18 murals
in 2024
↑ from 11 in 2023
"I am a municipal arts coordinator with a budget that wouldn't cover a single artist's supply run. Canvas turned that budget into a year-long sculpture residency, a mural on the grain elevator, and a touring show that came back the following spring. I don't know what we would have done without them."See What We've Funded →
Residency outcome, Hettinger ND · 2023