Arts & the Military
The Arts & The Military Initiative is deeply rooted in New Mexico Arts’ mission to ensure the arts are central to the lives of New Mexicans. Meaningful engagements with the arts improve the health, well-being and quality of life for military connected participants. New Mexico Arts seeks to empower, equip and energize partnerships with organizations that are responsive to the unique experiences and needs of military veterans, active-duty service members, reservists, National Guard members, their families and caregivers, and others.
New Mexico Arts and The Military Program Goals
- Create more opportunities for military and veteran audiences – including active-duty service members, reservists, National Guard members, veterans, their families and caregivers, and others – to meaningfully engage with the arts.
- Build capacity among New Mexico organizations to offer arts programs for military- connected participants.
Core Initiatives
- Arts & The Military Mini Grant program
- Blue Star Museums Program
- Technical Assistance and Capacity Building
Mini Grants Opportunities
The $2,500 Mini Grants program assists organizations creating and expanding arts programming for military connected participants via a streamlined granting process. Mini Grants can also be used to build organizational capacity towards the goal of creating and expanding opportunities for veterans and active-duty service members to engage with the arts. Non-Arts organizations and organizations receiving New Mexico Arts funding in other grant programs can also apply for this New Mexico Arts and the Military Grant opportunity. Look for the Mini Grants opportunity starting in August 2025.
Blue Star Museums Free Admissions Program
The Arts and the Military program of New Mexico Arts coordinates and promotes New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs’ (NMDCA) participation in the national Blue Star Museums program offering free admission to the nation’s active-duty military personnel and their families, including National Guard and Reserve. The Blue Star Museums program is a way for the Department of Cultural Affairs to thank our military families for their service and share with them New Mexico’s cultural treasures.
Free admission to any of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs’ eight museums and seven historic sites will be available this summer to active-duty military personnel and their families, beginning on Armed Forces Day, Saturday, May 17, 2025, through Labor Day, Monday, September 1, 2025.
The eight NMDCA museums offering free admission include:
Museum of International Folk Art (Santa Fe),
Museum of Indian Arts & Culture (Santa Fe),
National Hispanic Cultural Center (Albuquerque),
New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science (Albuquerque),
New Mexico History Museum (Santa Fe),
New Mexico Museum of Space History (Alamogordo),
New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum (Las Cruces),
New Mexico Museum of Art – Plaza Building and Vladem Contemporary (Santa Fe).
The seven NMDCA historic sites offering free admission include:
Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner Historic Site (Fort Sumner)
Coronado Historic Site (Bernalillo)
Jemez Historic Site (Jemez Springs)
Fort Stanton Historic Site (Capitan/Fort Stanton)
Lincoln Historic Site (Lincoln)
Los Luceros Historic Site (Alcalde)
Taylor-Mesilla Historic Site (Mesilla)
Technical Assistance and Capacity Building
The Arts & The Military Program provides consultations to empower organizations looking to provide meaningful arts programming that is responsive to the unique needs and experiences of service men and women, veterans and their families.
Capacity building activities are focused on equipping organizations with the tools and resources needed to develop programming and outreach along with collaborative approaches that benefit veterans and military connected audiences.
For questions or technical assistance, contact Arts & The Military Coordinator, Kevin Lenkner at 505-412-5791 or via email kevin.lenkner@dca.nm.gov.
About Military and Veterans Living in New Mexico
- New Mexico has 141,558 veterans residing in the state with military retirees in all 33 counties. In 21 New Mexico Counties, 50% of the veterans who reside there are over the age of 65. Additionally, there are 1,458 veterans who are between the ages of 18 and 34 years old, and 31,371 aged 35 to 54.
- Active-Duty service members including National Guard numbers 22,106, stationed at one of 5 military bases in New Mexico. There are 7,921 spouses and 13,132 children of active-duty service members living in New Mexico bringing the total count of active-duty connected individuals to 43,159.
- The University of New Mexico measured the economic impact of military bases in New Mexico providing 52,268 jobs, $2.8 billion in labor income and more than $14 billion in industrial output.
History of New Mexico Arts and the Military
In 2015, New Mexico Arts began to explore the relationships between veterans, military families, government agencies, and non-profit arts organizations that believe in the healing power of art and creativity. With guidance from the National Endowment for the Arts and Americans for the Arts, a series of facilitated roundtables across the state were held with representatives of the arts community and the military community. Along with the round tables, a survey was distributed, and other Veteran related information resources were collected and compiled. The Arts & The Military program also supported community building arts activities such as the Love Armor Project, a collaboration with Keshet Dance and EXIT12 dance company and a Veteran’s Songwriting Project among others.
The covid pandemic paused all public programming in 2020-2022 but staff initiated a collaboration with the Art in Public Places program to produce two series of posters featuring art works from veteran artists dedicated to the state’s first responders and front-line pandemic personnel. In 2022, a collaboration with the State Library system produced a resource library that included both electronic and hard copy texts focused on Arts and Healing topics for veterans. These books continue to be available via online library access as well as hard copy books in over 100 libraries located across the state of New Mexico.
The Next Phase of Arts and the Military
The next phase of the New Mexico Arts & The Military program will shift from information gathering to a multi-pronged approached aligned with new strategic goals.
Empower
Offer financial support via mini grants to initiatives that use the arts to meaningfully engage veteran and military connected audiences.
Equip
Provide tools and resources for organizations through the State Library system to educate providers about the needs of veteran and military audiences.
Energize
Build capacity in nonprofits, government agencies and arts organizations to explore collaborative approaches that benefit veterans and military connected audiences.
Webpage Header Images: Left – 2024 Mini Grant Awardee: The National Ghost Ranch Foundation, Veterans Gathering Weekend – Abiquiu, NM
Center – 2024 Mini Grant Awardee: CENTER, Visual Storytelling Lab – Santa Fe, NM Image: Ron Keller – John (not his real name) Army
Right – 2024 Mini Grant Awardee: KSJE Public Radio – Native Art Veteran Voices of the Four Corners + Native Veteran Art Demonstration/Performance – Farmington, NM
Pictured: U.S. Veteran A.J. Begay Photo: Scott Duran
