2026 Recipients of The Arts Commission’s Project Grant Program Announced

Daily Dose | 06/19/2026 4:00 pm

The Arts Commission is pleased to announce the recipients for the 2026 Project Grant. The Arts Commission deeply values the vibrant and diverse creative community that defines Toledo. We recognize the important role artists play in shaping the city's identity and are dedicated to supporting their growth and sustainability.

Through our granting programs, The Arts Commission offers direct support to artists at different stages of their careers, helping them pursue new projects, develop their creative practice, and contribute to the region’s cultural landscape.

The Project Grant, launched in 2025, is a competitive program offering financial support to mid-career and established artists of all mediums to create or complete original works of art that show artistic growth and creative experimentation.

This year, the grant program received 28 eligible applications, which were reviewed by a grant panel of local artists, arts professionals, and board members who then made funding recommendations.

The grant panelists wrote a letter commending the artists and the hard work it takes to submit an application, stating that, “We were impressed by the variety and quality of projects that are being imagined by our city’s artists. We were also impressed by the commitment to creative practice, and level of professionalism in the applicant pool. This made our job selecting this year’s awards both highly rewarding and incredibly challenging… We see the hard work you are putting into your creative practice, and into pursuing funding through this program, and we applaud your efforts.”

Over $23,000 was awarded to nine artists. The recipients are:

Catherine Clements, Multidisciplinary

“Having a supportive creative infrastructure like The Arts Commission has allowed me to grow my practice in so many meaningful and sustainable ways. I feel incredibly privileged to receive the resources provided by the project grant, and to have my work recognized amongst so many talented creators.”
“The Air is Sweet” is a suite of illuminated digital prints on handmade watermarked paper that layer the imagery, techniques, and symbols she's developed in smaller works.

Leslie Dietsch, Painting

“Voices of the Basin: First Sounds” is the auditory phase of a long-range project connecting communities to the western Lake Erie watershed through large-scale oil painting and immersive sound.
Leslie Dietsch is a painter, naturalist, and nurse based in the Toledo area on the western Lake Erie shoreline. She learned to sail these waters decades ago and has never stopped learning from them.

Heavy Color, Music

Heavy Color's surreal and cinematic compositions explore spiritual jazz, traditional music, electronic and avant-psychedelia, spawning the description Post-World Music.
Maisha Tree is a collaborative album between Heavy Color (Sam Woldenberg and Ben Cohen) and Congolese multi-instrumentalist and producer, Jeremie Kambale (Skillsawasawa).

Johnnah Johnson, Filmmaking

“Daughter'd” is a short-form vertical series told from the perspective of the oldest Black daughter navigating a single-mother household, an incarcerated father, intergenerational trauma, and her own identity all at once.
“I have let too many ideas die because I didn't have the resources to bring them to life. Receiving this grant means this one doesn't. It means I stop doubting myself long enough to actually finish what I started.”

Aaron Peters, Glass

Aaron Peters has exhibited widely including Vessel City and the Morgan Conservatory, the Weston Art Gallery, Urban Glass, Wexner Center for the Arts, and Pilchuck Glass School.
Aaron is creating a full-scale stained-glass sculpture of the bottom half of the body, consisting of blue jeans and boots created from found shards of broken bottle and window glass.

Krysta Sá, Interdisciplinary

“Midwest Image Authority” is a conceptual interdisciplinary project examining Toledo's historical and contemporary labor practices, environmental issues, landscape, and architecture through wearable objects, images, and performances.
Krysta Sá is an interdisciplinary artist working across photography, video, installation, performance, and material-based practices.

Sarah Thomas, Interdisciplinary

Sarah Thomas is an interdisciplinary artist and photographer based in Toledo, Ohio. She earned her BFA from Bowling Green State University in 2013 and her MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2020.
“Impressions of Impact” is an interdisciplinary art project that merges photography, hydrographic printing, and 3D sculpture to visualize the environmental consequences of plastic pollution in Lake Erie.

Ann Trondson, Multidisciplinary

Ann Trondson is a multidisciplinary artist working across performance, film, video, photography, sculpture, and other media to explore themes of identity, seriality, repetition, time, and space.
“Lamson Open” is a performance art piece where Ann will challenge a tennis match against a minimalist sculptural backboard in the Lamson's Department Store in downtown Toledo.

Vis-á-Vis - Vol. II, Photography Collective

Vis-à-Vis is a collaborative artist collective founded by photographers and creatives from Northwest Ohio with a shared passion for visual storytelling, portraiture and human connection.
Through a photography exhibition, Vis-à-Vis Vol. II focuses on individuality, vulnerability, connection, and the shared experiences that define us.
Collaborators: Nick Amrhein, Josh Ball, Grant Beachy, Ambershaun Byrd, Enrique Garcia, Rick Luettke, Selia Mozelle, Robert Wagner, Logan Yarbro.

Visit theartscommission.org/artists/project-grants for more information about The Arts Commission’s Project Grant program.

About The Arts Commission
The Arts Commission is the longest-standing arts commission in the state of Ohio, founded in 1959, administering the City of Toledo’s One Percent for Art Program since 1977. The Arts Commission is supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council and by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.