Workshops in puppetry and in fibre arts, community postcard making, new outdoor art, youth podcasting, and music workshops with young women with disability. Seven small arts projects across the NSW Central West will share $17,000 in funding from the annual Country Arts Support Program (CASP).
After a record number of 40 local applications, regional arts development organisation Arts OutWest, who locally deliver the State Government’s CASP funding, have announced the Central West recipients of this long-running small grants program.
“The volume of applications demonstrates not only the crunch on budgets and rising costs of making art happen, but the keen demand for small, accessible, seed grants for regional arts activities and ideas,” said Arts OutWest executive director Kylie Shead.
Applicants could apply for up to $3000, with groups, councils, individuals, collectives and arts businesses eligible. Funds are primarily for the payment of artists and arts workers to undertake locally-developed arts activities.
The 40 applications for the 2025 round asked for just over $105,000 in funding, a 40% increase from the previous round and around a 16% success rate.
“The activities proposed in all the applications were thoughtful, creative and worthy,” said Ms Shead. “There just isn’t the money to fund all of them.”
Funded activities in 2025 include:
- An artist-led community postcard art project in Cowra
- Music making workshops with young women with disability in Bathurst
- Puppetry and movement workshops in Lithgow, Kandos and Mudgee
- A mural in Gulgong to commemorate Henry Lawson
- Art making for a community veggie garden in Orange
- Fibre arts workshops in Parkes
- Youth podcasting training in Lithgow
“These seven activities offer exciting opportunities to communities, arts makers and audiences in the region. They provide employment opportunities to artists and arts workers. We also know from the history of this funding that it often seeds the first steps of potentially bigger arts projects or collaborations,” Ms Shead said. “Value for money was also high on the criteria.”
The funded activities will employ 20 professional arts practitioners, utilise more than 25 volunteers, contributing over 200 volunteer hours. The activities themselves represent $50,340 of regional economic activity. Most of the activities will make use of additional funding sources or income and more than $24,000 of in-kind support from the community and local businesses.
The funded activities begin from January 2025.
The CASP funding program has existed for over three decades, bringing to life more than 350 local artist projects in the NSW Central West.
“As CASP is devolved funding from the NSW Government, and 2025 sees a new funding model, things will look different from 2026 – but we hope, funding depending, to continue and increase our annual small grants offering,” Ms Shead said. “We’re also always keen to hear from donors or philanthropists looking for small arts projects to support.”
The Country Arts Support Program is a devolved funding program coordinated locally by the 15 regional arts development organisations in NSW on behalf of the NSW Government. Applications are assessed locally by an external panel (Arts OutWest staff are not on the assessment panel).
Arts OutWest is the regional arts development organisation for Central West NSW, servicing the 12 local government areas of Bathurst Region, Blayney, Cabonne, Cowra, Forbes, Lachlan, Lithgow, Mid-Western Region, Oberon, Orange, Parkes and Weddin.
list of 2025 casp funded activities in the new central west
Lawson Heritage Mural
Presenter: The Henry Lawson Society of NSW
Local Artist Sam Paine will create a public artwork, with support from Street Art Walking, on behalf of the Gulgong Henry Lawson Heritage Festival located in Gulgong NSW.
Location: Gulgong
LGA: Mid-Western Region
Funding: $2800
Indigenous Plant Sign/Mural Installation @ Cottage Community Vegie Garden
Presenter: The Cottage Community Vegie Garden (Orange City Council)
To design, paint and install a Indigenous plant sign to be placed near the Indigenous plantings in the Cottage Community Vegie Garden and make individual plant signs with attached QR codes to link the actual growing plant with Indigenous cultural information
Location: Orange
LGA: Orange
Funding: $2600
Cowra Creates
Presenter: Shani Nottingham
A community arts projection Cowra, encouraging, facilitating and supporting diverse and as inclusive as possible participants – connecting across cultures, ages and abilities, to create art on postcards, culminating in an exhibition of all art made at a local Cowra Art Gallery, anticipated March – May 2025
Location: Cowra
LGA: Cowra Shire
Funding: $2700
Puppetry and Movement Workshops
Presenter: Renata Commisso
This project brings three workshops to Lithgow, Kandos, and Mudgee, blending movement and puppetry to offer local artists and community members a unique creative experience. Led by Renata Commisso and Keila Terencio, these workshops focus on movement, play, and collaboration, fostering artistic growth and community engagement.
Locations: Lithgow, Kandos, Mudgee
LGA: Lithgow City Council, Mid-Western region
Funding: $2520
Community Fibre Arts workshops and exhibition
Presenter: Parkes Shire Council
To engage the community in a series of financially accessible fibre arts workshops and collaborative projects over the months of January, February and March 2025 and host a free Fibre Arts community exhibition where anyone from the community can enter their work.
Locations: Parkes
LGA: Parkes Shire
Funding: $1150
The Voices of Lithgow Youth Podcast
Presenter: Lithgow City Council
The Voices of Lithgow Youth Podcast is a locally driven project that assists young people in developing their own podcasts. The program is open to young people within the Lithgow LGA, aged between 15 and 18, and will take place during term 1- 2025 at the Lithgow Transformation Hub.
Locations: Lithgow
LGA: Lithgow
Funding: $2700
‘Loop Me In’: Music-making workshops for Cindy Fox and Compareos
Presenter: Cindy Fox
Training and professional development for local musician Cindy Fox to capture the sounds of the Compareo chorus as a pre-recorded loop for use in the children’s theatre show ViV! This project involves training for Cindy Fox provided by Rob Shannon, and two workshops run at the Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre.
Location: Bathurst
LGA: Bathurst Region
Funding: $2530
IMAGE: Compareo group in Bathurst. Image: L-R: Phoebe Bucknell, Khari Conroy, Leanne Tobin, Cath McNamara, Rebecca Jones.
Image credit: Melinda Nockles