The TED Prize for 2011 Goes to a Street Artist

Street Artist JR Wins The TED Prize For 2011

October 20, 2010

Usually this post announces the newest and best grants to apply for as an artist.  But I couldn't help but share this article by PSFK.com.  The artist was recognized by TED for inspiring all people in any situation.   Something each of you as artists do on a daily basis. 

TED has announced the winner of its prize for 2011. In a somewhat unusual but refreshing choice, street artist JR has won a grant of $100,000 and the chance to work with the TED community to develop “an audacious wish that will involve the world in a brand new piece of art.” From the TED press release:

JR represents a new chapter in the TED Prize. While a seemingly unconventional recipient, his work matches the creativity and innovative spirit of TED’s community, and his art inspires people to view the world differently –- and want to change it for the better.
JR is creates what might be called “pervasive art.” Working with a team of volunteers in various urban environments, he mounts enormous black-and-white photo canvases that spread on the buildings of the slums around Paris, on the walls in the Middle East, on broken bridges in Africa, and across the favelas of Brazil. These images become part of the local landscape and capture people’s attention and imagination around the world.
In Rio, he turned hillsides into dramatic visual landscape by applying images to the facades of favela homes. In Kenya, for his project “Women Are Heroes,” he turned Kibera into a stunning gallery of local faces. (See the trailer for “Women Are Heroes” above.) And in Israel and Palestine, he mounted photos of a rabbi, imam and priest on walls across the region –- including the wall separating Israel from the West Bank.
JR remains anonymous -– never showing his full face, revealing his name, or explaining his huge portraits –- to allow for an encounter between the subject and passers-by.
“JR’s mind-blowing creations have inspired people to see art where they wouldn’t expect it and create it when they didn’t know they could,” said TED Prize Director Amy Novogratz.

You can see a gallery of recent work from Shanghai at  http://jr-art.net/.


We have gathered up some grants and fellowships that may be useful to you and will publish them early in the week.   Giovanna

New International Opportunities for Artist Grants and Free Funding

See new International Opportunities of Art Fellowships and Art Grants that are listed in this post.   These are worth applying to, so apply for more than one.  Be sure to read through the earlier posts as we have over 220 art, music, writing, photography, screenwriting grants and fellowships listed. 

 

We found new information on existing art grants and art funding, and found a few new ones which we have listed below.Remember changes occur daily, so be sure to read the guidelines.  Some foundations that provide artist and art grants ask that we not include their links but they can be found online and in some of our earlier articles, we have listed phone numbers and more contact information.  Special thanks to the Cranbrook Academy of Art Library for providing the international links.

 

 Almost all the artist grant applications are free.  Be a little weary if any of them ask for any amount, as this is not what we look for in funding programs to post.  Also, in the earlier posts and listed under Resources on the right of this column are step by step directions for applying for a grant. 

Foundations and art funders have an obligation to distribute their funds, so apply for more than one as the competition is sometimes tight.

I hope you will sign up as a follower, and also if you want alerts of the newest grants and funding possibilities, be sure to sign up for email alerts at the top on the right.  I will try to answer any questions you leave in comments on this page.  I know many of you have written to me and I don't always get to answer everything in my email, but I do my best to respond to comments here.

Good luck to you.  You deserve some help from funders.  

We started this column because as an art gallery owner, we are asked every day -- and sometimes every hour of the day-- where artists, musicians, photographers, writers, screenwriters, videographers and more can apply for free funding and other support.  There are Art Grants out there, so apply to any you qualify for and that you are interested in.  We will keep putting out new posts as we get information.

The Aaron Siskind Individual Photographers Fellowship Grants

The Aaron Siskind Foundation is offering a limited number of fellowship grants of up to $5,000 each for individuals working in still photography and photography-based media. Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States.

The Alexia Foundation for World Peace

The Alexia Foundation for World Peace Annual Photography Contest offers grants to students and professionals for the production of a proposed project. The Alexia Foundation seeks to provide the financial ability for a photographer to produce a substantial picture story that furthers the foundation's goals of promoting world peace and cultural understanding.

The Gordon Parks International Photo Competition

Fort Scott Community College began the Gordon Parks Photography Competition to honor Fort Scott's most famous photographer, Gordon Parks. Each year the Committee awards prizes of $1,000, $500, and $250 to photographers whose images reflect important themes in the life and the work of Gordon Parks, such as social injustice, the suffering of others, and family values.

College Art Association

The CAA's Professional Development Fellowship for Master of Fine Arts Candidates was initiated to help M.F.A. students to bridge the gap between graduate study and professional careers. Fellows are honored with a one-time grant of $15,000 to help them with various aspects of their work.

The Center for Documentary Studies

Duke University seeks applications for the annual $20,000 Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize, awarded to a collaborative team consisting of a writer and photographer who are in the formative or fieldwork stage of a documentary project.

Langlois Foundation

The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology annually awards two grants to individuals making an exceptional contribution to advancing knowledge at the crossroads of art, science, and technology, or to individuals whose projects are highly original or innovative. Projects proposed by scientific researchers, computer scientists, or engineers must involve a partnership with an artist.

Pollock-Krasner Foundation

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation's dual criteria for grants are recognizable artistic merit and demonstrable financial need, whether professional, personal or both. The Foundation's mission is to aid, internationally, those individuals who have as professional artists over a significant period of time. The Foundations welcome, throughout the year, applications from visuals artists who are painters, sculptors, and artists who work on paper, including printmakers. There are no deadlines.

Puffin Foundation

http://www.puffinfoundation.org
Puffin Foundation Grants are open to emerging artists in the fields of art, photography, music, theater, dance and literature whose works due to their genre and/or social philosophy might have difficulty being aired. Average Puffin Foundation grants range from $1,000 to $2,500.

Hispanic Scholarship Fund

The Hispanic Scholarship Fund / McNamara Framily Creative Arts Project Grant is designed to provide financial resources to outstanding Latino undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in a creative arts related field: media, film, performing arts, communications, writing, etc. This grant is only intended to assist students in beginning and completing an art project. Students may be potentially eligible for grants up to $20,000.

International Opportunities

Asia

Asian Cultural Council

http://www.asianculturalcouncil.org/programs.html
The Asian Cultural Council supports cultural exchange between Asia and the United states in the performing and visual arts, primarily by providing individual fellowship grants to artists, scholars, and students. Some of the grants listed on this site are for Americans who wish to study in China, Japan, or Taiwan.

Japan Foundation

http://www.jfny.org/jfny/arts.html
The Japan Foundation Artist Fellowships provide artists the opportunity to pursue creative projects in Japan for 2 to 6 months.

Canada

CanadianArtsNet

http://www.canadianartsnet.com/resources/funding
This website contains a page of links to arts funding sources for Canadian artists. National funding sources are listed as well as funding sources in each of the provinces.

England

Arts Council England

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/funding/individuals
Arts Council England's Grants for the arts are for individuals, arts organizations, national touring and other people who use the arts in their work. They are for activities that benefit the people in England or that help artists and arts organizations from England to carry out their work.

France

The Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarships at the Foundation des Etats-Unis

http://nfrance.com/~am17204/framset.html
The Foundation des Etats-Unis annually awards up to four Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarships to American visual artists and musicians. The grant is designated for study at the graduate level and allows young, talented musicians and artists to continue their studies in Paris. The stipend covers room and board for one academic year (October-June) at the Foundation.

Scandinavia

The American-Scandanavian Foundation

http://www.amscan.org/index.html
The American-Scandinavian Foundation promotes international understanding through educational and cultural exchange between the United States and Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Each year, the ASF wards more than $500,000 in fellowships and grants to individual students, scholars, professionals and artists for projects abroad.

The Nordic Artists' Center

http://www.nkdale.no/howtoapply.html
The Nordic Artists' Center gives artist from around the world an opportunity to live and work in in a community of artists with full accomodation provided. The residency award also includes a monthly stipend and a travel allowance.

Artist Grants and Other Funding Sources for Artists

Dear Artists,
Here are a few additional free grant funding sources which I promised in the last blog. These are good organizations that provide money and other supports to artists. Remember to follow the directions in the earlier article. We are in the process of publishing a grant directory for artists, but it will not be out until late Spring 2010. In the meantime I will try to add information and sources as we go along. I did not have time to get all the links, but they are readily available on the web. I'm working off my iPhone and it is hard to get everything I want. But I'm excited that we found these free grant listings and have another dozen possibilities we are checking out before we list. Hopefully you will find some grant awards for artists that apply to you. Be confident about what you do.

It has taken a long time to gather the information but I think this is worth it.

I'll post more shortly.


4Cs Foundation
The mandate of the 4Cs Foundation is to build connections between children and their communities through arts projects in the Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia, Canada. They provide grants for community arts projects and provide support, training and networking for people interested in community arts. Deadlines for applications are October 15th, January 15th and May 15th of each year.

Suite 204, 5663 Cornwallis Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia CANADA B3K 1B6, tel: (902) 422-4805, fax: (902) 425-9560

Process IMPACT
National juried exhibition that provides opportunity for student artists whose art is about activism on civil rights, environment, health care or consumerism to apply for an award and scholarship support. Artists must be 18 years or older and currently enrolled in either an undergraduate or graduate program. Work must be completed in past 3 years. No entry fee or limit on number of submissions. Deadline is January 11

Artists are invited to send images of the work as either digital files on a DVD or CD or 2"x2" plastic or paper mounted slides (no glass). Please do not send original work unless requested. Along with the images, please include a brief statement about the work and its relevance to the theme of the exhibition and a text document with the following information:
Name, Mailing Address, Phone, Email and (for each entry) Title, media, date, size, insurance value.

Mail all materials to:
Process Impact
Eagle Art Gallery
Murray State University
604 Doyle Fine Arts
Murray, KY 42071

National Association of Women Artists
NAWA provides financial support and prizes including cash and solo show in NYC. Entry deadline is December 30, 2009. The call is for small works by women artists. Application pdf is downloaded at:
http://www.nawanet.org/users/nawa2253/docs/National%20Small%20Works%281%29.pdf

The Gunk Foundation Grants for Public Art
The Gunk Foundation is interested in supporting projects that make it out of the museum, gallery and alternative spaces, and into the spaces of daily life. For example, work that is shown in the spaces of public transportation, city streets, or work places and is seen by people "outside" of the art and academic worlds. The Foundation is looking for non-traditional, thought-provoking public work that is site specific.

The Aaron Siskind Individual Photographers Fellowship Grants
The Aaron Siskind Foundation is offering a limited number of fellowship grants of up to $5,000 each for individuals working in still photography and photography-based media. Applicants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States.

The Alexia Foundation for World Peace
The Alexia Foundation for World Peace Annual Photography Contest offers grants to students and professionals for the production of a proposed project. The Alexia Foundation seeks to provide the financial ability for a photographer to produce a substantial picture story that furthers the foundation's goals of promoting world peace and cultural understanding.

The Gordon Parks International Photo Competition
Fort Scott Community College began the Gordon Parks Photography Competition to honor Fort Scott's most famous photographer, Gordon Parks. Each year the Committee awards prizes of $1,000, $500, and $250 to photographers whose images reflect important themes in the life and the work of Gordon Parks, such as social injustice, the suffering of others, and family values.

College Art Association
The CAA's Professional Development Fellowship for Master of Fine Arts Candidates was initiated to help M.F.A. students to bridge the gap between graduate study and professional careers. Fellows are honored with a one-time grant of $15,000 to help them with various aspects of their work.

Free Grants for Artists and Art Programs

8 Tips for Getting a Grant as an Artist or Art Program
So you are an artist or work with an art group and want to apply for a grant for some free grant funding, but you’ve heard it’s difficult or impossible to apply for a grant that gives free money. But by following the set of main "rules" around obtaining a grant, it is much quicker, easier, and far more effective to get it done – and get the grant for free funding you need to do what you do best as an artist or as someone working in the arts. After all, you and your program will need free funding opportunities or free matching funds to do the work you do best as an artist. And that is why the grant funding sources are there for you, because the arts are important and is something the community wants to keep alive and creative. It is much easier and more rewarding to be creative because your time and efforts are not spent worrying about your future, or even your next few months living expenses. As an artist or arts administrator you are being encouraged to reach out for free grant funding to help you be nourished enough to create.

So let's look at what you want and how to really get some free grant money for you and/or your organization.
Getting Started
The first step in getting maximum grant funding is to get organized! Begin your search or establish a team of volunteers to look at a few potential funders – like the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. There are also funds available through your state or county arts associations, but in this time of troubling financial issues – this may be more difficult to obtain. Private and National organizations have continued their commitment to assure artists get the support they need. They know that free funding, beneficial grants provide the support an artist needs.

Writing the Proposal
Before examining each section of the proposal, here is some general advice:
● Write clearly, concisely, and honestly;
● Use direct and easy to understand style;
● Be specific! Provide the reader with examples and details without extending the content unnecessarily;
● Remember to show and not just tell;
● Avoid unsupported assumptions. Prove the problem exists with the targeted population, and that the proposed project can have an impact;
● Emphasize, at all times, the connection between the project’s objectives and the foundation’s priorities;
● BE POSITIVE! Maintain the attitude that the foundation is receiving a great opportunity to participate in a useful and needed project.
Title Page
When naming a project, use imagination and creativity. The title should describe the project with words that are easily remembered. Be serious, not facetious! The title should convey the desired image to the prospective funder, as well as to the community at large. Be original.
Introduction
Depending on the foundation’s guidelines, the contents of this section may be included into other parts of the proposal. The introduction gives the background information on the applicant or organization as well as the project. Most importantly, the introduction demonstrates the credibility of the organization and the validity of the project. With this in mind, do not overwhelm the reader with too much history and structure. In addition, although ideas and philosophy are an important foundation to a project, the introduction should show that the applicant organization takes action and follows through on its ideas.
Possible things to include are:
● When, why and how the organization was started
● Statement of purpose, goals, and philosophy
● Mention of significant events
● Brief description of prior and current activities
● Description of the targeted population of the project
● Evaluations from other funding sources
● Excerpts from letter of support.
Statement of Need & Purpose
This section identifies and provides background on the problem that the project intends to address. Establish the project’s relevance to their priorities and the specific goals they hope to achieve.
The purpose forms the heart of the proposal as it states the goals, objectives, and expected results of the project.
GOAL — a conceptual statement of the ultimate purpose of the entire project. It usually describes a long-term result, although one that is attainable within the duration of the project.
OBJECTIVE — a specific, concrete declaration of a short-term or intermediate accomplishment, which can be measured later to determine the level of success.
As a guideline, a project usually has only one or two goals and several objectives. If the proposal contains a long list of goals, either some of the goals are actually objectives, or the project needs to be more clearly defined as to its ultimate purpose.
The Procedures and Methodology
The statement of need defines the problem; the purpose outlines the proposal’s intentions to solve the problem; and the procedure section describes the methods that will be used. When detailing the activities and their rationale, try to convince the prospective funder that the you are eager to perform the tasks and are an action taker. And that you can achieve the expected outcomes.
Evaluation
The evaluation section describes how the project will be examined for the achievement of its objectives and goals. Foundations want to ensure that their money is well spent on successful program. The content of this section enables the applicant organization to give progress reports back to their funder. Therefore, the evaluation techniques must give accurate and valuable information.
You’re Done. Congratulations! Here's to your great success. Here is hoping you get free funding to create the best project ever. Remember to be confident about all of this. Free grant funding isn't a handout. It is not a way to get free money you do not deserve. It is all about getting the support you need to do what only you do best. So do everything you need to fill out the application and request free grant funds with enough free money to get the job done. And please be sure to get your grant in prior to the deadline.
Here are a few foundations that provide free grants and free grant funds. We will be adding more as we check them out.
Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Princess Grace Foundation, International Child Art Foundation
Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
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