THE ARTS

The Austin (TX) Chapter of the Links, Incorporated creates and supports opportunities that educate minority youth in the arts. Our chapter also presents and supports performances by youth and accomplished professional artists in a diversity of disciplines.

The Links, Incorporated sponsors a National Poster Art Competition for students in grade levels 1-12. The competition gives aspiring young artists an opportunity to express their creativity and ideas related to the competition’s theme, which is based on topics of relevance to the Links mission. The 2019-2020 theme is Transforming Communities by Making Health a Habit.

The National Poster Art Competition runs biennially from October through June, commencing in uneven years. Between December and March, Links chapters conduct their own contests to determine winners in each of four age categories.In April and May, a public online contest is run where Links members and supporters vote for student entries submitted to chapters. After the public voting period, a panel of seven national judges from the arts vote on the finalists. Winners from each category are announced and their work is then displayed at The Links National Assembly.

Each year, the Austin (TX) Chapter works with Austin area schools to encourage and assist student artists in submitting their work for the competition.

The Austin (TX) Chapter helps bridge resource gaps for arts programsof local schools by providing support and supplies to the schools. In 2020, we presented Odom Elementary School with twelve ukuleles in honor of retiring music teacher and Austin (TX) Chapter Links member LaMonica Lewis. Odom’s vibrant and exemplary Fine Arts program helps fulfil the school’s mission, which includes ‘Nurturing the development of the whole child’. We supported the Fine Arts program at Bertha Sadler Means Young Women’s Leadership Academy by donating musical instruments to the school. “Sadler Means invests in the whole child, nurturing scholars’ creative minds and talents through robust fine arts programs, including art, band, choir, dance, orchestra, and theatre.”

The Austin (TX) Chapter sponsored students from the Youth Brigade (a community group of school-age journalists who contribute articles to the Villager newspaper) to attend a concert of the Hip Hop Orchestra, a national touring ensemble, which performed at Bass Concert Hall on the University of Texas Campus. The Hip Hop Orchestra was started with the intentions of changing the perceptions about classical and Hip Hop music in order to make both music genres appealing to the masses.