Get to Know Your Local: Watertown Cultural Council

How does one local group of volunteers hand out $34,000 to arts and culture projects in Watertown? I sat down with Elektra Newman and Greg Papazian to demystify how the Watertown Cultural Council funds arts and culture across the city, and chat a bit about the history of the council, some of their favorite projects funded recently, and more.

The Watertown Cultural Council's 2026-2027 grant season is open now through October 15th, 2026. Have an idea? Apply here!

More info at:

WatertownCulturalCouncil.org

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Transcript

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Matt 0:03

Hi there. Welcome to the Little Local Conversations Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode I sit down for a conversation to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. For this episode, I sat down with a couple people to learn a little bit more about the Watertown Cultural Council. And just to be open about this, I have received a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council the past two years for this podcast. So I'm thankful for them for that. Let's get into the conversation with Elektra and Greg about the Watertown Cultural Council.

Elektra 0:31

My name is Elektra Newman. I am the chair as of May. I've been part of the Watertown Cultural Council for going on two years at this point, and a resident of Watertown for going on eight years. I currently work at American Repertory Theater as a full-time props artisan, and I've freelanced in Boston and regional areas for close to 15 years at this point. But yeah, I come from a variety of artistic backgrounds and my family was very into the arts and artists themselves. So from a young age, it's been encouraged that I pursue this career. I started off in electrical engineering my first semester of college and then quickly realized that it wasn't something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. So I graduated from Suffolk University in 2014 with a theater major and an arts administration minor and have just been going at it since then.

Matt 1:24

Cool. Thank you for your introduction. And we have another person in the room today.

Greg 1:28

Yeah, my name is Greg Papazian. I've been a lifetime Watertown person. So I'm a tailor. I have a tailoring and alterations business I've had for many years, and I'm also a fantasy artist. I kind of did things backwards. I opened up a tailoring business after high school and then ended up going to Mass Art in 2012. Graduated as an artist in 2016 in illustration, and I've been working as an artist since then. It's a lot of fun. And I also run my own full-time business. 

Matt 1:55

How did you get involved with the cultural council? How long have you been on? 

Greg 1:58

I've been on the council for about three years now. It just came on my radar and I just wanted to help. I wanted to be part of the community since I live here and the arts are very important to me. And like I said, being an artist, I know how difficult it is. And I just wanted to help.

Matt 2:13

Gotcha. Well, as someone who is a creative person, thank you for your work that you do. So let's get into it. What is the Watertown Cultural Council?

Elektra 2:22

Sure. We are one of over 300 local cultural councils in the state of Massachusetts and a subsect of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, who essentially is a re-granting organization. They're all grassroots funded through the funding from the state as a whole. And as of the last three years, we've gotten funding from Watertown as a city too. So between both funds we have roughly $34,000, and over 66 applicants every year. And we just try to give them money to do art and express themselves in ways that they propose in their grants.

Matt 2:59

And how about the history of that? Do you know when the Cultural Council started?

Greg 3:06

1982. Yeah, it's weird. It's like before ‘82, I guess there was like a lottery system. This is before Megabucks and all of them. And the money that the state used to get, they used to allocate towards projects like these. And in ‘82, sometime around ‘82, the Cultural Council was formed. And it's all volunteers. And that's the same year, apparently, Megabucks also came into play.

Elektra 3:26

Yes, there's actually a great podcast from the folks at WGBH. They did one on the big dig, but then also did one about the Mass state lottery. So what is it like proposition two and a half or something? But that came about in the ‘80s. So it's like all property taxes fund certain public goods, whereas it used to just be one or the other, like property tax or the lottery system. So very fascinating.

Greg 3:52

So in Watertown, there are a lot of cultural entities. So how do we stand out? We, like Elektra said, we focus more on the smaller, more individual. You know, we don't have a lot of funding. For example, last year's applications that we got, there were about 66 applicants for grants, which amounted to $120,000, but we only have about $30,000 to give. So we don't get a lot of funding as opposed to some other entities, but we try to focus more on individual artists, small groups, schools, for example. We love funding our schools, elementary, middle school, high school, their orchestra, drama, all of them, all the arts, anything to do with the arts, and then individual artists who want to start something. And then we also do get a lot of applicants from nonprofits. So yeah, we don't have a lot of money to play with. We wish we did, but we try to focus more on small things.

Matt 4:46

Yeah. And do you have some favorite projects that have been funded since you've been on or that you've heard about in the past that could explain kind of the impact that you have a little bit?

Elektra 4:54

Sure. I think for me, you know, the children are our future, and we try to focus on younger generation of students who will either have programs in the schools or work with students. We help fund the public access teen summer program. We got their video. It was really hilarious and amazing, and they put in a lot of effort. So if we can foster the next generation of artists and encourage them to pursue the arts and their craft is something that really brings me joy in the work that we do. We've also worked with the Perkins School for the Blind and helped fund their spring festival. Done a puppet show for little kids. It was at Gore Place this year. So we do a lot to again foster the younger generation because in schools the arts are usually the first to get cut and teachers have to front a lot of the money for supplies. And if we can give artists paintbrushes or help contribute to some of the overhead with their projects, you know, no small amount is small.

Greg 5:58

Yeah, I agree with Elektra. One of the reasons I came on was because of students in our school. And unfortunately, like she said, when there's a school budget, the arts, orchestra, music, drama are the first to get cut, which makes no sense to me. Those are essential in a growing mind. So one of my goals was to come on and to give some funding to the orchestra department for the middle school, high school, elementary, to the drama departments. You know, I've seen teachers go out of their way to buy costumes out of their own pocket. So one of the things we want to do, and we have been doing the past couple of years, is we've been giving grants to, let's say, music in the parks for the middle school. And what they do is the orchestra department actually goes to a couple of different towns and they perform. And then at the end, they end up going to Six Flags, all the students, and they enjoy, and then they get to find out if they're first, second, and third. For us, I think we've been first for a few years now, you know, and they've gotten gold. So we funded some of that. 

Greg 7:00

We funded community drumming, which was a few months ago. They brought in different drums from, I think it was from the African culture, and then the community got together, and we love seeing that sort of stuff, bringing the community together, and then you get to find out this person's culture or that person's culture, and they're your neighbors. You get to meet your neighbors and you do it in a fun way. 

Greg 7:21

One of the highlights of me doing this was last year when we did the logo competition. So we've had the same logo for many years, I think. And somebody suggested, let's reawaken our logo, let's do something different. And I didn't want to do that because you know we're all volunteers, we all have stuff to do. So we suggested let's take it out to the middle school and the high school. Let the kids do it. We have some money left over, and this is apart from the grant application. Usually we'll have some money left over to do other things. So we said, let the kids give a try and we'll give them a first, second, and third. And if the logo works with what we do, we'll use it. The kids did a great job. We're still with the old logo, which is fine. A lot of stuff that came out was amazing. We did give a first, second, and third. And I think that encouraged these kids to do more. And that was one of the highlights.

Matt 8:11

Nice. So we mentioned that there are lots of cultural organizations in Watertown. So I also serve on the Watertown Public Arts and Culture Committee. So I understand this struggle of how many things in Watertown can have the word culture in it. And have the words arts in it.

Elektra 8:29

And there's the  cultural district, which it's a big umbrella. Yeah.

Matt 8:29

So what I've heard someone say that helped me a little bit was, the cultural district is like the marketing arm, the public arts and culture is the programming arm, and the Watertown Cultural Council is the funding arm. How does that sound to you? How do you envision yourself in the larger ecosystem?

Elektra 8:45

Yes. That sounds spot on. I think Liz Helfer was the one who told me that exact thing. And that was a great way to look at it because initially, when I was looking for ways to become more involved in the community of Watertown, I saw an Instagram post from Watertown itself looking for people to join both the public arts committee as well as the cultural council. So I threw my hat into the ring and ended up getting the cultural council position. And I didn't know how that differentiated between the two. But like you said, we are a re-granting organization and we work with the state. I know the public arts committee and like the cultural district too as a whole also does to some extent, but we are a subsect of the Commonwealth.

Greg 9:26

Yeah. I mean, in the way we work hand in hand. For example, we did fund River of Light.

Elektra 9:31

Yeah, which was a collaborative project.

Greg 9:33

The Dragon boats. Same thing. So it's all collaborative.

Matt 9:36

So the main thing you do, obviously, is this grant cycle and giving out the grants. You have one coming up. Do you want to tell us about it? And then also what that cycle is like for you guys on the other side, bringing those in, and you're making those decisions and all that.

Elektra 9:49

Totally. So we pretty much meet once a month, again, all volunteer based in our time. Our meetings are the second Wednesday at town hall for about two hours each meeting.

Greg 10:00

There's about 13 of us.

Elektra 10:01

And there's 13 of us currently. We all get an interview from the what is it.

Matt 10:07

The residents advisory committee. 

Elektra 10:09

Yes, thank you. So we have an interview process and we just got a new member for this cycle. But our application process opens to the public September 1st and runs through October 15th this year. And then our November meeting, that's the only time we usually meet twice a month to discuss the grants. We had 66 applicants last year. So each of us takes what is called the panel book, the collection of the grant applications, and we read each of them in detail. And then as a group, we're able to discuss which applications we feel are worthy of being funded. And I think this is the most collaborative group I've ever worked with. You know, everybody is very much in line with our goals and thoughts. Over those two days in November, we come up with our list of those we want to accept and those who are maybes. Then each of us becomes liaisons for the yeses, and we email those folks and say, Congratulations, you've received this grant. Those acceptances usually come out in January sometime. 

Elektra 11:10

And then May is our grantee gala. We try to invite as many of our grant recipients and members of the community and public figures, had a few representatives from the state, come in and hear about everybody's projects, mix and mingle. This year was at the Mosesian, also one of our grant recipients for open mic night. So after our little soiree, everybody was able to enjoy the open mic night. We take a slight hiatus in July. That's the only time we don't

Greg 11:40

But we didn’t this year, because we were planning for the.

Elektra 11:43

Arts market. 

Greg 11:44

Yeah, Watertown Arts Market. 

Elektra 11:45

Yeah, and we'll do the arts market. We'll sometimes show up at the Faire in the Square. So, you know, it's a full year, but we're all very engaged in various ways. And this is my first couple months as chair now. So I've taken the reigns from our previous chair, Lois Pond, who was on the Cultural Council for three going on four years. She's been really great in showing me the nitty-gritties of things. And we have a great treasurer and secretary too. They both really help with the funding aspect of it and the part that is a little bit more difficult for someone like me, who's very left-brained.

Greg 12:21

Yeah, our group is just amazing. Like I said, there's 13 of us. We're all volunteers and we all work well together. Everybody has good ideas, we stay together, and we work things through. Going back to the application, for example, when we first get it, we individually at our home, we go over everything. And everybody has their own favorite projects that they want to fund. But obviously, you can't fund all of them because we only have a limited amount, right? So when we get together, we go through the whole thing and then we pick all the yeses, we pick all the no's, and we pick all the maybes, and then we have to go back and go, okay, well, maybe we can't give out 2,000 for this, but maybe we can give out a thousand. Would that be enough for them? And then we work it out. It usually takes about two nights of this. It goes very smoothly, and yeah. Now it's very important for the people who apply to be very. 

Elektra 13:12

Detailed in their application process. I'd say it's fairly intuitive. They have to apply through the Mass Cultural Council website, and then they'll find their local cultural council, which in this case would be Watertown, and it's all laid out for them, and you're supposed to say what your project is, do a breakdown of your budget. That also helps us determine how much money they would need for a certain project. For example, it's like we have two violinists who want to perform in the park. They each have a fee of $250. We say, hey, this is a great proposal. We'll give you $500 to pay for the musicians, but we can't, you know, fund the pizza that comes along with it. 

Greg 13:52

Yeah. Exactly. 

Elektra 13:53

You know, also venue is really important where you want your project to be, you know, the library or again a park or Mosesian Center. So anywhere in the confines of Watertown is helpful for us. We say that's a more complete application.

Greg 14:09

Yeah. So there are certain criteria they have to meet. One of them is don't be vague. You know, don't be shy. Just tell us everything. You know, be very specific. You don't have to be a resident of Watertown to do this. You just have to give back to Watertown. So whatever you do, it has to be for the community. It can't be for like a sole individual, whatever group.

Elektra 14:29

Or like five people, you know. So we try to serve as many people as possible in these.

Matt 14:34

Yeah. So someone who's listening who has an idea or knows someone who has an idea, obviously you have to go through this Mass Cultural Council website and this application. But in terms of thinking about their projects, obviously it has to give back to Watertown. But what other things should they think about in terms of what kind of things might be higher priority on your list of things that are serving Watertown? 

Elektra 14:55

Sure. So every year we try to do a survey to the public. We've gone with the flash vote route in the last couple of years. Last year we had 500 responses, but this year is down a little bit to about 400. And we also surveyed the folks at the arts market this year. We're asking the question of what would you like to see done in Watertown? And we get a variety of answers from local history to a lot of people want to see public performances. So we try to tally the votes from our constituents and focus our goals and priorities when reviewing the grant applications. But we all bring our own passions and perspectives into things. And I feel like, again, they're very much in line with what the community wants to see.

Greg 15:37

Going back to the applicants, whoever's applying, just bring the passion. Just be honest, bring the passion. What are you passionate about? What do you want to show off? Are you an artist? You want to do an art show? Then yes, get a venue. You can come to the library, you can go anywhere in Watertown, do an art show or whatever. Just be passionate, convey that in your application, break everything down. And even if you don't get picked this time, you might be picked the next time. So you don't give up.

Elektra 16:03

Yeah. And it encourages people to reach out to other members of the community too. I’d like to do a small movie screening at the library. So I need to go to the library and I need to talk to them and I need to engage in other people to put this on. And I think that's also at the heart of it too.

Greg 16:19

Yeah, connecting with your community and your neighbors.

Elektra 16:22

Right. Yeah. And we, like I said, are funded by the state and the city. Our funding from the state is based on demographics and how many people live in the area and our tax bracket, pretty much. So it's gone down slightly from last year, actually. It's a small amount comparatively, but even $200 off the previous amount is a difference for us. So though the city’s remained engaged and committed to our mission, as I feel like it has with the public arts committee and the cultural district too, the state can fluctuate.

Greg 16:55

And you can go off on this too, Elektra, if you like, but once we get all the applications and the grants and all that, sometimes grants don't go through. Let's say the person who's doing it can't do it. You know, they need more money. And then that money goes back into our system. When it does, we have some left over that we use for our gala and all that. But if we have some little extra, we try to get that out too. For example, one of them was, like I mentioned before, the logo contest. We had some money left over. We wanted to give it back to the community, and that logo contest was one reason. We don't really sit there with the money. We try to spend it, we try to put it back into Watertown. Another example is we might be able to give more grant money to somebody that we had cut before, now that we got this money back.

Elektra 17:38

Yeah, and there's a variety of reasons why the project might not be completed. Sometimes, again, because we're only able to give a small grant amount, the project can't happen. It's like, oh, my total cost of my project will be $5,000 or something. There was one grant application with a price tag of $20,000. And we're like, okay, so we can't do that. We can maybe give you $200. So some projects can happen with the amount that we give them, and they get really scrappy and creative with it or receive funding from a separate organization or individuals. But that's when we will reallocate the money and maybe add a little bit more to certain projects who had initially asked for a larger amount. Or someone who was a maybe, a really strong maybe. And then we were just like, we've reached our $34,000 cap and give those the funding. But it's a really difficult process on that front where I want to just throw money at all of these projects.They all deserve funding.

Greg 18:38

But we don't have $130,000, unfortunately. And every year it feels like it gets more and more because more people find out. And I'm sure after this episode, more people are gonna find out. Yeah, which is fine. But some of the things that we also cover is we try to balance everything out. We do give grants to the schools, like I said, for the arts and all that. We also give grants to the senior center. We try to do something for our elderly as well as the younger generation. So we try to balance everything out. Nonprofits also get something, and then an individual artist gets something. So on a council that's 13 of us, we're gonna get a variety of what we want to see, and that's what we try to do.

Matt 19:14

Yeah. Do you have a number of how much money has been given over the years or how many projects have been funded together? Any of those fun numbers?

Elektra 19:21

Um, a little bit. So we have our online portal that every council member is able to see through the Mass Cultural Council itself. The records pretty much go back until 2008. I think the original amount that the state gave us was like $6,000. It was between six and eight thousand, which, you know, back then almost 20 years ago wasn't a small amount, but that was also not matched by the city at that point. It was only really until three years ago that the city said, hey, we've got a small amount that we want to give you and you can run with it. We want to match as closely as we can to the state funding. So we've gone from $6,000 and petered up slowly through the years up until like $14,000. And now that's been matched by the city. But again, it's trying to compete with, you know, inflation and the cost of living in general and housing. So we deal with the best we can with the amount that we have.

Greg 20:17

Yeah. And if the people of the city show more interest and they want these things, you know, the town has to comply.

Elektra 20:24

And yeah, the last two chairs, Lois and the chair before her, had both worked in nonprofit sectors themselves. And they really were the ones who advocated for the city to match the funds. I'm really happy that they were able to do that.

Matt 20:39

Yeah, doubling of funds. It’s no small thing. 

Elektra 20:42

Yeah, but you know, you have to ask.

Matt 20:45

So why don't we wrap up with how people can get in touch with you and just give the information again about your cycle? 

Greg 20:52

Yeah. So the applications open on September 1st. 

Elektra 20:55

They run through October 15th with our acceptance letters going out on the early part of 2027. We have a Gmail. It's Watertown Cultural Council 1 at gmail.com. But I would say the first point of questioning should go to the Mass Cultural Council website. It's pretty intuitive again. So just go to the Mass Cultural Council website, fill out your grant application there. And if there's questions that you have specifically, they will absolutely answer them. We also have an Instagram account and a Facebook page. So that could also be a way to reach out to us if you have any questions.

Greg 21:34

I mean, it's pretty straightforward. Once you get on, and once you get on the application process, it's just straightforward. Just answer the questions. As far as reaching out to us, asking, hey, how do I do this? How do I do that? It's right there. Pretty simple. Just get on, fill the application, and good luck. And like Elektra said, we are on Instagram and Facebook, so please follow those. We give out a lot of information there. Not just only on the Watertown Cultural Council, we also give out a lot of information of what's going on in town. So make sure to follow those. We did start our own Watertown Cultural Council podcast. The first episode should be up. It could be the first ever Cultural Council podcast. Not going to claim that, but it could be. I take real pride in saying that. So that's up there. And the reason we wanted to do that was again just to let people know what we do. And the kind of content we're going to start putting out, just interviewing our grantees, what their projects are, when their projects are coming out. It's not going to be a long podcast. So please make sure to join that. That's on Spotify and various other platforms. Watertown Cultural Council. We are also on the Cultural District website.

Elektra 22:44

Yes, the Cultural District website has our information. The city of Watertown has us on there too. So throw Watertown Cultural Council into Google.

Greg 22:53

Yeah, just Google Watertown Cultural Council and you’ll find us. So good luck on your applications if you're applying. Please bring something different and new and fresh. We would love to see it.

Elektra 23:03

Yeah, thank you.

Matt 23:04

Yeah, this has been nice to talk about. Like I said, it's always nice to get information out. And yeah, thank you. Thank you, listeners. Goodbye. 

Greg 23:12

Thank you. 

Elektra 23:13

Thank you.

Matt 23:14

That's it for my conversation with Elektra and Greg. If you want to find out more about the Cultural Council, you can go to watertownculturalcouncil.org or massculturalcouncil.org or any of the other places they mentioned. And I will put some stuff in the show notes for you to click through. If you want to hear more episodes of the podcast, you can head on over to LittleLocalConversations.com. There I have all the episodes. You can see upcoming events, a couple coming up in September. Go check those out for all the details. You can also sign up for my weekly newsletter. And if you'd like to help support the podcast, you can click on the support local conversation button and become a little local friend to help support the podcast and whatever amount is comfortable for you.

Matt 23:54

All right, and I want to give a few shout outs here to wrap things up. I want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council, who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast. So I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. You can find out more about them at WatertownCulturalCouncil.org and MassCulturalCouncil.org. And a couple more shout outs to promotional partners. First, the Watertown Business Coalition. Their motto is Community Is Our Business. Find out more about them and their events at WatertownBusinessCoalition.com. And lastly, Watertown News, which is a Watertown focused online newspaper. It's a great place to keep up to date with everything going on in the city. Check that out at WatertownMANews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.