Tour de Force Foundation

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Tour de Force Foundation

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Tour de Force provides financial support to artists and educators who are working to enrich and inspire the DMV community.

We award monthly grants to DMV-based artists and educators with ideas for civic engagement.

10/16/2026

Meet Fionnuala Smyth, Tour de Force Foundation’s October 2026 grantee and the visual arts teacher behind Boone Family Clay Studio at Lawrence E. Boone Elementary School in Washington, DC.

Through a series of free workshops, Boone students and their families will shape clay, return to glaze their pieces, then gather to celebrate what they’ve made.

As Fionnuala puts it:

“Keeping it messy and creative.” ✨

10/13/2026

To kick off National Bullying Prevention Month, the Don't Be a Bull...

10/09/2026

Sometimes all it takes is someone saying, “Here, have a go!”

At DC Day of Archaeology, visitors were invited to explore local history through hands-on activities. Our May 2026 grantee, Archaeology in the Community, worked with artist Justine Swindell to bring art into that experience through illustrated educational materials supported by TDF.

What have you discovered by trying something for yourself? ✨

📷 Archival image courtesy of Archaeology in the Community.

10/02/2026

We were saddened to learn of the passing of Washington, DC artist Allen Uzikee Nelson.

This photograph of Uzikee with Tour de Force Foundation’s Meg Clerc was taken on April 25, 2025, at a celebration of Uzikee and Paul Robeson at Paul Robeson Triangle Park in Petworth, Washington, DC, beside Uzikee’s sculpture Here I Stand: In the Spirit of Paul Robeson.

The sculpture is among the works explored in Tour de Force Foundation’s Re-envisioning Blackness learning guide, developed with Partners for Historical Justice.

We’ll return to Uzikee’s life and work in the next edition of The Spark.

09/25/2026

What could you make possible?

A workshop. A field trip. Classroom supplies. A short-term project that gives people a real way into the work.
Tour de Force Foundation supports DMV-based artists and educators creating projects with a clear educational or community-engagement component.

Applications are rolling, and funded projects must be completed within four months.

What’s your Tour de Force?

Tell us what drives your project, why it matters to your community, and what support would make possible.

Apply at tourdeforcedc.com (http://tourdeforcedc.com/)

Grants to Inspire.

09/20/2026

Free admission is only part of the story.

A museum can cost nothing and still be hard to reach if the doors close before work, class or caregiving ends.

In September’s edition of The Spark, we follow the cultural clock across DC, from Art All Night and National Gallery Nights to the question of what can remain accessible after an exhibition’s final day.

And we introduce TDF’s September 2026 grantee, whose work takes that question of access somewhere rather interesting.

Who are they, and what did TDF support?

Read Cultural Access After Hours, the new edition of The Spark: https://www.tourdeforcedc.com/post/cultural-access-after-hours.

09/10/2026

The exhibition has closed. The looking continues.
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We’re delighted to announce Partners for Historical Justice, LLC / Mark Auslander as Tour de Force Foundation’s September 2026 grantee for Q***r African Art: A Close Looking Guide.
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Created through a collaboration between TDF, Partners for Historical Justice and students in Mark Auslander’s Gender, Sexuality and Culture course at American University—and edited by Mark Auslander, Russell Smith and Paul Emmanuel—the guide invites students, educators and curious viewers to spend longer with q***r African art through close-looking prompts, accessible writing and deeper context.
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For Partners for Historical Justice, access isn’t only about entering a cultural space. It’s also about having ways to encounter, interpret and understand what’s there.
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With Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art now closed at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, that idea feels especially resonant.
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The exhibition may be over. The looking doesn’t have to be.
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Explore Q***r African Art: A Close Looking Guide on the TDF website:
https://www.tourdeforcedc.com/post/close-looking-guide-q***r-african-art.
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Gallery photographs: Russell Smith
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***rafricanart

09/05/2026

Look again. Come closer.

Sometimes access begins with attention.

A detail becomes a surface. A surface becomes a world. And something we thought we understood can change when we stay with it a little longer.

With Here: Pride and Belonging in African Art at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art having recently closed, we’re returning to two works from the exhibition: Marc Standing’s My Own Peculiar (2024) and Athi-Patra Ruga’s Versatile Queen: A Transhuman Proposal (2016).

This September, we’re thinking about what becomes visible when we look a little longer.

What changed when you looked again?

Photographs: Russell Smith
***rafricanart

08/28/2026

What happens when a skateboard becomes a map of where you want to go? ✨

For Get on Deck with Purpose, young people in Baltimore turned blank decks into personal vision boards using spray paint, collage, images, words and stories about who they are and who they hope to become.

This July 31 workshop was led by August 2026 TDF grantee Sanah Brown-Bowers, with Reginal Bowers, Calvin Croxton and Akewi Barnes, in collaboration with Northwest Wellness Project.

TDF support helped cover art materials, collage resources, meals, transportation and teaching-artist honoraria. By the end of the day, every deck looked completely different. Each one carried its own mix of ambitions, influences, memories and possibility.

The question this project asks is:

What would you put on yours? 💙

📷 Sanah Brown-Bowers

Address

3421 1/2 M Street NW
Washington D.C., DC
20007

Website

http://tourdeforcedc.com/

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Contact The Organization

Send a message to Tour de Force Foundation:

Thelma D. Jones Breast Cancer Fund
400 I Street, SW

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