Artist Round Up tentatively rescheduled for Feb. 6

The Artist Round Up scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 24, at the Lamp Lighter Coffeehouse & Bistro in Franklin will be rescheduled after it was postponed because of the severe weather event that rolled through Acadiana that day.
City of Franklin Main Street Director Ed “Tiger” Verdin said the event has tentatively been rescheduled for Monday, Feb. 6.
“That one’s led by the Acadiana Center for the Arts,” Verdin said. “Right now the round is open for the ArtSpark Grant. Myself and Suzanne Wiltz were the two from St. Mary Parish that have received it before. They want to open it up for more artists to not only know about it, be educated about it, but to know how to submit for it, to give our rural communities more access to the arts.”
The artist round up will include a grant application work session and is intended to help them learn about the different things that they can do for professional development through the Acadiana Center for the Arts.
Verdin, a theater actor and director, was one of the ArtSpark grant recipients in 2021, and used the award for his musical “The Quarters.” Wiltz was an ArtSpark grant recipient in 2022 and used hers for a poetry performance at the Teche Theater in Franklin, centered around her real-life ancestor, Zebulon.
Verdin said he and Wiltz were invited to the ACA. Lafayette Parish had the greatest representation there, while St. Mary had two and Evangeline had two or three. The grant workshop is intended to help get more representation from less urban parishes and not just from Lafayette Parish.
“The more rural parishes didn’t have a lot of people represented, whereas that Lafayette corridor was jam-packed,” Verdin said.