Happy New Year!
It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of 2011. While we saw some Foundations and Funders
reduce the size of their grants, we saw more new funders coming on board in an
attempt to strengthen the arts while the economy is down.
Next week we’ll list a few you should keep your eye on in 2012 – even though the application process is over. It helps to know what to look forward to so that you can plan your artistic endeavors around possible funding.
A list of some of the best available arts grants and prizes with deadlines coming up soon are listed below.
I know this has been a hard year for many of you. We have two galleries and have seen the hardships some of our artists have had to endure. And that’s why we want to put a stronger effort our there to help you next year. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I try to respond to your questions as quickly as possible. I hope this year was good for you and hope that next year is even better.
An annual program of the Sundance Institute, the Sundance Creative Producing Fellowship is a year-long program designed to nurture emerging independent film producers with project-specific support through labs, grants, and long-term advisor relationships.
The fellowship program is designed for the holistic producer — that is, someone who identifies, options, develops, and pitches material; champions and challenges the writer/director creatively; raises financing; leads the casting/packaging process; hires and inspires crew; and navigates the sales, distribution, and marketing arenas. The program is designed to hone emerging producers' creative instincts and further develop their communicating and problem-solving skills at all stages of realizing a project.
Five producers will be selected for the one-year fellowship (July 2, 2012, to June 29, 2013), which will include participation in a feature film creative producing lab and creative producing summit, as well as attendance at the Sundance Film Festival (including screenings, curated meetings, and networking opportunities). Fellows also will receive a $5,000 living stipend, a $5,000 pre-production grant, year-round mentorship from two industry advisors, and year-round support from Sundance Institute staff.
To be eligible, candidates must have produced at least one short or feature-length narrative or documentary film (no more than two narrative features total); must have a completed, legally-optioned, scripted narrative project in hand with a director attached to the project; may not be the writer or director of the submitted project; and must live in the United States, though the project may be filmed internationally.
Information and application are at http://www.sundance.org/programs/creative-producing-fellowship-and-lab/
Kresge Foundation Invites Preliminary Applications for Arts and Community Building and Artists' Skills and Resources Grant Opportunities
From now through Feb.1, 2012, the Kresge Arts Fellowship application period is open. Each artist selected will receive $25,000 to use in whichever way benefits his or her practice, whether it be covering the cost of supplies, food, travel, whatever. There are no restrictions on how the money is to be used.
The fellowship alternates the genres of art it supports every year. Painters, sculptors, and photographers will have to wait until 2012 when the application opens again for visual artists.
The Kresge Foundation's Arts and Culture Program seeks to foster the power of arts and culture to recharge and rebuild communities of all sizes in the United States.
As part of this effort, the program is accepting preliminary grant applications from nonprofit organizations for its Community Building and Artists' Skills and Resources focus areas.
The Arts and Community Building focus area is intended to help develop a systematic way to support arts and culture as a tool for revitalizing communities. To achieve this goal, the program will invest in exemplary efforts and identify and share best practices within the field. At the national level, the foundation wishes to fund exemplary organizations dedicated to integrating arts and community-building activities and identifying new methods as models for the field; commission and publish research on efforts to integrate cultural organizations and artists into community-building efforts; elevate the visibility of arts and community building, and disseminate best practices through meetings, publications, and other means as appropriate. The foundation is accepting preliminary applications from grantseekers for national-level projects.
The Artists' Skills and Resources focus area is based in the belief that community transformation would be more widespread if more communities embraced artists as important contributors to the identity, vitality, and cohesion of the places where they live. The program seeks to boost artists' skills and resources by supporting leading practitioners as well as efforts to increase the number of live-and-work spaces for artists.
Preliminary applications for both funding areas will be accepted and reviewed on an ongoing basis through February 1, 2012. (After that date, the grant opportunity may be modified.) The preliminary application contains a data-entry component and several attachments, including a narrative. Applicants with promising requests will be asked to complete the second part of the application process.
Deadline: February 26, 2011
Up to $94,500 is available to support the development of emerging and
established leaders in all areas of nonprofit theater.
The new program provides support through two initiatives: One-on-One for early-career leaders and Continuing Ed for mid-career and veteran professionals.
The Continuing Ed Initiative will award grants of up to $6,000 to eight mid-career to veteran professionals at TCG member theaters for learning opportunities that will advance their leadership skills in artistic, administrative, educational, and production areas. Since these grants are for mid-career and veteran leaders who are established in the field, their activities will be self-supervised. Depending on the goals of the applicant, there may be activities that are learning situations where specific supervision will be built into activities (e.g., classes, workshops, or working directly with an established leader or specialist in the field of theater or in another sector). Grants will be awarded to the applicant's home theater on behalf of the theater practitioner. The theater professional applicant must be key personnel, hold a full-time position at a TCG member theater, and have a minimum of five years' professional experience in the not-for-profit theater field.
Deadline for this initiative is February 26, 2011.
Arts Innovator Awards
This and the following Grant are for Washington Residents
only
Application Deadline:
June, 17, 2012
Arts Innovator Award is an unrestricted award of $25,000
given annually to two Washington
State artists of all disciplines who are
originating new work, experimenting with new ideas, taking risks and pushing
the boundaries in their respective fields. The award recognizes artists who
demonstrate innovation in their art practice. Two $2,500 Arts Innovator Special
Recognition Awards are also distributed. This award is funded by The
Dale and Leslie Chihuly Foundation.
Artist Trust Grants for Artist Projects
Deadline: March 16, 2012
Washington residents only.
Grants for Artist Projects (GAP) provide support for
artist-generated projects, which can include (but are not limited to) the
development, completion or presentation of new artwork.
Applicants must be a practicing artist, 18 years of age or
older by application deadline date, a generative artist, and a resident of Washington State at the time of application and
when the award is granted.
Fellowship
Fellowships awards of $7,500 to practicing professional
artists of exceptional talent and demonstrated ability. The Fellowship is a
merit-based, not a project-based award. Fellowship recipients must present a
Meet the Artist Event to a community that has little or no access to the artist
and their work.
Music, Media, Literature and Crafts. 2013:
Emerging Fields & Cross-Disciplinary, Performing, Visual and Traditional
& Folk.
Application Deadline: February 26, 2012
Fellowships are awarded in two-year cycles: Music, Media,
Literature and Crafts disciplines are awarded in even-numbered years (2012).
Emerging Fields & Cross-Disciplinary, Performing, Visual and Traditional
& Folk Arts Fellowships are awarded in odd-numbered years (2013).
Applicants must be a practicing artist, 18 years of age or
older by application deadline date, a generative artist, and a resident of Washington State at the time of application and
when the award is granted. See application for more information on eligibility.
1) Applicants may NOT be a graduate or undergraduate
matriculated student enrolled in any degree program at the deadline date or
when the award is granted; 2) Current Artist Trust staff, Board members,
Honorary Committee members, consultants, or their immediate family members.
Claire Short Ireland Residency
Created by the generosity of donors Emer Dooley and Rob Short, the Claire Short Ireland Residency provides a one-month stay in West Cork, Ireland plus a $5,000 award. The Claire Short Ireland Residency is awarded annually to one finalist of the Artist Trust Fellowship competition.
Knight Foundation Awards $7.5 Million to Arts Groups in Detroit, Philadelphia, and San Jose, California
Through its arts program, the foundation seeks to weave the arts into the fabric of Knight resident communities to engage and inspire the people living in them. The foundation believes that the arts are a catalyst for public dialogue, and that shared cultural experiences contribute to a sense of place and communal identity.
The foundation seeks innovative ways to reach, engage and increase audiences for the arts, including through the use of technology.
Over a three-year period, the foundation is funding 1,000 “Random Acts of Culture” to bring artists out of the performance halls and into people’s everyday lives.
As a way to solicit fresh and innovative ideas, Knight Foundation launched community-wide contests in Miami and Philadelphia to seek out and fund the best ideas for the arts. Winners range from individual artists to large institutions.
The foundation has invested more than $66 million in the arts over the last five years.
The competition has now been expanded to Detroit, Philadelphia, and San Jose, California. In four years, the Knight Foundation has awarded nearly $19 million to arts challenge projects.
Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation shared that. "Every day, Knight Arts Challenge winners add to that momentum, moving and inspiring us toward a better future."
Harpo Foundation 2012 Grants
Harpo Foundation will use a new 2-step application process to review proposals submitted by non-profit institutions and fiscal sponsors who seek support on behalf of under recognized visual artists. Unlike in 2010 and 2011, the foundation will not use a thematic focus to prioritize funding in 2012.
The foundation will consider proposals that directly support the production of new work by visual artists and/or collaborative teams who are under recognized by the field. This production may happen in the context of an installation, public intervention, residency, or exhibition.
In its grantmaking, Harpo Foundation prioritizes projects that advance and cross the boundaries of visual media and artistic disciplines. Proposals are evaluated on the basis of the quality of the artist's work, the potential to expand aesthetic inquiry, and the strength of its relationship to the foundation's priority to provide support to visual artists who are under recognized by the field.
The foundation awards between 10-15 grants annually and funding decisions are made by the Board of Directors. As a general guideline, requests should not exceed $10,000 per year. Allowable use-of-funds includes direct support to the artist for honoraria, commissioning fees, production costs, and travel.
In some but few cases the foundation will fund multiyear projects up to 3 years to provide support to artists whose projects rely on the passage of time as an essential component to its concept and structure.
NEA Literature
Fellowships
Deadline: March 1, 2012The NEA Literature Fellowships program offers $25,000 grants in prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) and poetry to published creative writers that enable the recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement. Applications are reviewed through an anonymous process in which the only criteria for review are artistic excellence and artistic merit. To review the applications, the NEA assembles a different advisory panel every year, each diverse with regard to geography, race and ethnicity, and artistic points of view.
The NEA Literature Fellowships program operates on a two-year cycle with fellowships in prose and poetry available in alternating years. For FY 2013, which is covered by these guidelines, fellowships in poetry are available. Fellowships in prose will be offered in FY 2014 and guidelines will be available in the fall of 2012. Applicants should consider whether their work will be competitive at the national level.
NEA Does Not Fund
- Individuals who previously have received two or more Literature Fellowships (in fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry) or Translation Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.
- Individuals who have received any Literature Fellowship (in fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry) or Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts within the past ten years.
- News reporting.
- Scholarly writing. (Writers who are engaged in scholarly work may wish to contact the National Endowment for the Humanities.)
- Work toward academic degrees.
Deadline and Announcement Dates
You must submit your application electronically through Grants.gov, the federal government’s online application system. The Grants.gov system must receive your validated and accepted application no later than 11:59 p.m., Eastern Time, on March 1, 2012.
Smithsonian Institution - Fellowship
Opportunities in American Art 2012–13
Deadline: January 15, 2012
The museum hosts fellows supported by the Smithsonian's general fellowship fund as well as the following named fellowships:
- The Terra Foundation Fellowships in American Art seek to foster a cross-cultural dialogue about the history of art of the United States up to 1980. They support work by scholars from abroad who are researching American art or by U.S. scholars who are investigating international contexts for American art.
- The Douglass Foundation Fellowship in American Art is given for scholarly research in American art.
- The Patricia and Phillip Frost Fellowship is offered to support research in American art and visual culture.
- The James Renwick Fellowship in American Craft is available for research in American studio crafts or decorative arts from the nineteenth century to the present.
- The Sara Roby Fellowship in Twentieth-Century American Realism is awarded to a scholar whose research topic is in the area of American realism.
- The Joshua C. Taylor Fellowship is supported by alumni and friends of the fellowship program.
- The Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship is awarded for the advancement and completion of a doctoral dissertation that concerns the traditions of American art.
The official announcement and description of this opportunity may be found on the funding agency's website:
http://americanart.si.edu/research/opportunity/fellows/
Predoctoral applicants must have completed coursework and preliminary examinations for the doctoral degree, and must be engaged in dissertation research. Postdoctoral fellowships are available to support specific research projects by scholars who hold the doctoral degree or equivalent. Senior fellowships are intended for scholars with a distinguished publication record who have held the doctoral degree for more than seven years or who possess an equivalent record of professional accomplishment at the time of application.
The stipend for a one-year predoctoral fellowship is $30,000, plus research and travel allowances. The stipend for a senior or postdoctoral fellowship is $45,000, plus research and travel allowances. The standard term of residency is twelve months, but shorter terms will be considered; stipends are prorated for periods of less than twelve months.
Native American
Research Fellowships Available
Deadline: January 31, 2012
The Sequoyah National Research Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is accepting proposals for its 2012 Research Fellowship Program, which fosters research involving forms of Native American expression in a range of disciplines.
“The program encourages scholars and artists to conduct
research in the American Native Press Archives and the Dr. J. W. Wiggins
Collection of Native American Art to support
significant studies in a wide range of fields and subjects such as Indian
removal from the Southeast, Native journalism and journalists, late 20th
century and early 21st century tribal societies and economics, literary
artists, visual arts and artists, art history, entertainment, and others,”
reads a press release announcing the fellowships.
At least six fellowships of $1,500 will be offered, which
are meant to alleviate some of the cost of living and travel expenses while
fellows are conducting research at the Sequoyah National
Research Center.
Letters of inquiry can be sent to dflittlefiel@ualr.edu and will be considered
until January 31, 2012.
