President Barack Obama has proclaimed October 2009 as National Arts and Humanities Month. To recognize and celebrate the important role arts and culture play in our lives, the National Endowment for the Arts encourages citizens around the country to visit their local arts organizations. To facilitate this, the NEA's website will provide daily highlights of arts projects happening throughout the country during the month of October by past and current NEA grantee organizations.

As an example, today’s highlighted organizations are Patrick Dougherty’s site-specific outdoor sculptures, made from saplings, at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Alabama, and Intermountain Opera Association’s production of The Ballad of Baby Doe in Bozeman, Montana. A full list of recent NEA grantees can be found on the NEA's web site.

Currently coordinated by Americans for the Arts, National Arts and Humanities Month is a month-long celebration that grew out of National Arts Week, which was begun in 1985 by the National Endowment for the Arts and Americans for the Arts.

http://www.arts.endow.gov/news/news09/arts-humanities-month.html