Assets for Artists

Franklin Furnace‘s mission is to present, preserve, interpret, proselytize and advocate on behalf of avant-garde art, especially forms that may be vulnerable due to institutional neglect, their ephemeral nature, or politically unpopular content. Each year Franklin Furnace awards grants to emerging artists, allowing them to produce major works in New York. Grants range from $2,000 to $10,000 based on the peer review panel allocation of funding received by Franklin Furnace. Artists from all areas of the world are encouraged to apply.

Core Clay is a privately owned clay studio with over 40 artists sharing space. Residencies provide an opportunity for emerging clay artists to transition into full-time professionals. Core Clay aims to foster creativity, practicality, and community in the arts, enabling artists to build a network of contacts that will exist long after their program has ended. Artists will have the opportunity to teach, create, display, and critique work during a three month, six month, or year long residency, as well as learn how to properly photograph, pack, and ship finished prototypes.

The goal of Manifest‘s Annual International Publication of Contemporary Photography and Lens-based Art is to support the recognition, documentation, and publication of excellent photographic art on an ongoing annual basis. Manifest is eager to receive works in a wide range of applications with the qualification being that artwork submitted is representative of high quality “photography or lens-based art.” Artists in all disciplines are encouraged to submit; The INPHA 1 book will be released to the public in October 2012.

The NARS Foundation seeks emerging and mid-career artists for whom appointments as residents may make a significant impact on their careers, as well as artists with established reputations for whom a change of environment may offer refreshment and inspiration. Artists have access to an individual studio space and various professional development programs, as well as ample opportunity to share and present their work through artist talks, workshops, lectures, and studio visits by prominent curators, critics and gallerists.

You may have noticed that we’re starting to be more active in posting artist opportunities on this website and on Facebook and Twitter.

But we want to be discriminating about which opportunities to promote. Our philosophy over the last several years has been to encourage the artists we work with to aim high — to focus their energy on the few opportunities that have the potential for high reward, and to not chase validation from less rewarding grants, residencies and presentation opportunities — ones that don’t actually hold that much value for the artist’s career.

Many of the organizations we feature seek well-established artists who consistently show a commitment to the production and exhibition of new work. For this reason, we believe it is important to feature opportunities for the emerging artist looking to supplement their C.V. by working with smaller (but no less legitimate) organizations. Participation in a smaller show or residency has the potential to create the type of lasting relationship that will make all the difference when pursuing a more prestigious grant or presentation opportunity. We certainly believe in a career ladder.

However, we do think artists should generally think twice about paying significant fees to apply for a residency or contest, so we’re looking carefully for opportunities that don’t ask for an application fee or have a modest fee in relation to the potential pay-off. It’s definitely not a science: sometimes it comes down to instinct.

We’d love to hear from you what you think are the sorts of opportunities we should be promoting. Although we serve artists in all disciplines and few opportunities would be open to everyone, we still want to use your internet time wisely.

Please comment if you’re willing to share the criteria you use to separate the worthwhile opportunities from the ones not worth chasing. Be specific: Would you submit work to an online exhibition? What about a printed publication? Would you pursue opportunities focused on a local/regional audience outside your home area? Are you interested in training opportunities?

Thanks for any input that can help us select the best possible opportunities to keep sending your way.

I must have been under a rock, because it took me 7 months to learn that my friends at Berkshire Creative posted video from the “Creative Communities Exchange” that was held at MASS MoCA last May.

Esther Robinson of Arthome joined me in delivering a 20-minute presentation about how and why we operate the Assets for Artists program. I hate looking at myself on video, but it does offer a nice glimpse behind the curtain of a program like this, if that sort of thing interests you. (You have to click over to “Part 2″ to pick up the end of the presentation.)

A bunch of other presentations from the Exchange were also recorded and uploaded to Berkshire Creative’s Youtube channel, and I strongly recommend checking those out.

Thanks to Rich Bradway for providing volunteer videographer services to Berkshire Creative, and thanks to the New England Foundation for the Arts, Berkshire Creative, and MASS MoCA for making the event possible. We got a great response to our session, which really propelled us toward some further expansion possibilities this year.

In November, we put out a call for artists to participate in the “control group” for an annual evaluation study of the Assets for Artists program. We’ve just completed the 2011 edition of that report — in time to submit to our main funder, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, before the end of the year — and we thought we might as well post it here, too.

With some help from the economic modeling tools available from the Center for Creative Community Development (tools I had a hand in developing while helping staff the Center from 2004 – 2009), the report suggests that the program is having a strong economic impact on the participants and the community overall.

Full disclosure: the report was not authored by an outside evaluator; I wrote it myself, so it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that I give us an “A” for effort. Honestly, I tried to let the data mostly speak for itself, not fill the report with anecdotal impressions, and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s an early stage evaluation and the results should be viewed as preliminary findings at best. I think of it largely as a teaser for future evaluation efforts.

Anyway, I’d welcome thoughts on what this evaluation is worth and directions to take it in the future.