Juan Diego Gaucin, an oil painter, moved around his studio on Wednesday afternoon as he prepared for an exhibition at the Mexican Consulate in Kansas City. A few doors down, Erin Dodson showed off a jar of dye made from a walnut tree she’s been using to draw.

Gaucin and Dodson both hold two-year residencies at Charlotte Street Foundation, a Kansas City-based organization that supports contemporary artists across the metro. They’re one of 30 artists with residences at any given time, a distinction that affords them studio space and a built-in community of fellow artists.

President Donald Trump’s administration in early May terminated grants to Charlotte Street and a host of other groups across the country awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, or NEA. Charlotte Street lost $25,

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