Support for Individual Artists

GIA members have been working together to promote and improve funding for individual artists for over 20 years. The Support for Individual Artists Committee has been one of the most active groups of funders within GIA. Over the years, the committee has been an incubator for such projects as a scan of scholarly research on artist support, a visual timeline outlining the history of artist support funding, major publications, and programs, and the development of a national taxonomy for reporting data on support for individual artists. The committee continues to advise, inspire, and inform GIA’s thought leadership and programming in support for individual artists.

Click here to listen to the latest podcast, and see below for resources.

November 21, 2017 by Sustainable Arts Foundation

The Sustainable Arts Foundation is pleased to announce its 2017 awardees.

Now in its seventh year, the foundation has moved from bi-annual to annual awards, and they have increased funding by offering twenty $5,000 awards. An additional 20 finalists were also selected.

Chosen from a field of over 3,000 applications, these artists and writers presented work that at times urgently addresses current social and political tensions, and at others buoys spirits and offers a respite.

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October 12, 2017 by giarts-ts-admin

We need to engage with a dynamic world, a world that will not return to a steady state after the challenge. We don’t live in a world of change but rather one that is asking us to constantly create.
— Ian Prinsloo, The Rehearsal Process

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October 12, 2017 by giarts-ts-admin

The quest for support for the arts is continuous. We search for ways to seed or increase the flow of dollars, looking for more philanthropic capacity from every purse. It is never as bounteous as the need.

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October 11, 2017 by giarts-ts-admin

If there is in society a collective consciousness, then art is its imagination. Imagination is different from fantasy, which conjures up desires divorced from reality; imagination is creative problem solving that assesses what is available and re-creates it into something new, better, or self-satisfying. Detroit has been short on many things over the past fifty years — economic prosperity, functioning city services, racial justice, validation — but it is astonishingly long on imagination and creative problem solving.

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October 11, 2017 by Monica

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has announced its 2017 fellows, 24 “exceptionally creative people” who will each receive a $625,000 award over five years. Among this year’s fellows are opera director Yuval Sharon, writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, photographer Dawoud Bey, and journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Learn about all 24 MacArthur fellows.
Read the article on The New York Times.

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October 3, 2017 by Monica

The Ford Foundation has selected a new round of recipients for its Art of Change fellowship, including several who have supported and participated in Grantmakers in the Arts programming over the years:

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August 15, 2017 by Monica

From Arts Professional:

Arts Council England should only fund projects that pay performers at least the minimum wage, a major new report by the Labour Party has recommended.

Focusing on improving diversity in the performing arts and tackling a “chronic culture of low pay or no pay,” the report emphasizes the importance of reforming education in schools, opening up access to drama schools, and increasing representation in both artistic and non-artistic roles.

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August 6, 2017 by Sustainable Arts Foundation

The Sustainable Arts Foundation is now accepting applications for their 2017 awards. Visual artists and writers who have at least one child under the age of 18 are eligible to apply.

They have increased their funding for 2017 and will make awards of $5,000 each to twenty artists and writers. At least half of their awards will go to applicants of color.

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August 7, 2017 by Steve

GIA gratefully remembers the thoughtful contributions of Ebony McKinney, San Francisco Arts Commission, who served on the Individual Artists Support Committee until her untimely passing on July 29, 2017.

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August 3, 2017 by Monica

An article on Artsy highlights a recent initiative and report by Upstart Co-Lab advocating the value of artists’ innovation and problem-solving skills in business settings:

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