Artist Resources

As part of our Artist Toolkit Series we wanted to provide artists in our community with what grants and residences are available as well as the resources needed to help apply for them.

• Alexia Foundation
  Through grants, scholarships and special projects, The Alexia supports photographers as agents for change. More than 1.7 million in grants has gone to 170 student and professional photographers through the program’s annual competitions.

• Alliance of Artists Communities
  The Alliance of Artists Communities is an international association of artist residencies — a diverse field of more than 1,500 programs worldwide that support artists of any discipline in the development of new creative work.

• Artadia (Application opens June - July 2021)
  Artadia is a non-profit grantmaker and nationwide community of visual artists, curators, and patrons. We elevate the careers of artists at pivotal moments in their practice through a proven combination of recognition, grantmaking, community support, and advocacy.

• Bay Area Video Coalition
  BAVC is a community hub and resource for media makers in the Bay Area and across the country, serving over 7,500 freelancers, filmmakers, job-seekers, activists, and artists every year

• California Arts Council: Individual Artist Fellowships (Application deadline April 1, 2021)
  The Individual Artist Fellowships program intends to recognize, uplift, and celebrate California artists. Fellowships will support artists from a broad spectrum of artistic practices, backgrounds, geographies and communities, whose work addresses themes including but not limited to race, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. In doing so, the CAC will showcase the centrality of artists’ leadership in generating social impact and the evolution of our traditional and contemporary cultures.

• Center for Cultural Innovation: Quick Grant (Application deadline 15th of each month)
  The Quick Grant program was launched in 2009 by a consortium of California arts funders to strengthen the work of artists and arts administrators by improving access to information and professional development resources. Since then, the program has continued to strengthen the support system for California arts and culture producers and administrators by providing professional development grants.

• Center for Cultural Innovation: Investing in Artists Grant (Application opens in May 2021)
  The Investing in Artists grants program is designed to support diverse working artists in the Bay Area in the performing arts and media arts, which includes the disciplines of dance, music, musical theatre, opera, theatre, video, film, and animation, to name a few. As such, applicants representing a wide range of cultural expressions and artistic practices in the performing arts and media arts are encouraged to apply.

• Center for Documentary Studies
  The Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) is dedicated to documentary expression and its role in creating a more just society. A nonprofit affiliate of Duke University, CDS teaches, produces, and presents the documentary arts across a full range of media—photography, audio, film, writing, experimental and new media—for students and audiences of all ages. CDS is renowned for innovative undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education classes; the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival; curated exhibitions; international prizes; award-winning books; radio programs and a podcast; and groundbreaking projects.

• City of Emeryville: Bus Shelter Public Art
  The Bus Shelter art installations brighten the mundane with original works from Emeryville artists celebrating flora and fauna. The program started in October 2009 and is currently in its 5th iteration. Every four months a new artist has the opportunity to install four original works in four bus shelters. Artists have been chosen through a juried process and employ an amazing range of media, including pen and ink, digital collage, drawings, mixed media sculpture, oil on canvas, painting and collage, scanned plant material, acrylic and oil on panel, and neon sculpture. Selected artists are provided half sized copies of the four works and $1,000 per original image ($4,000). 

• Creative Capital
  Creative Capital supports innovative and adventurous artists across the country through funding, counsel, gatherings, and career development services

• Creative Work Fund
  The Creative Work Fund invites artists and nonprofit organizations to create new art works through collaborations. It celebrates the role of artists as problem solvers and the making of art as a profound contribution to intellectual inquiry and to the strengthening of communities.  Artists are encouraged to collaborate with nonprofit organizations of all kinds, stretching boundaries and forging new partnerships.

• En Foco
  The 6th Annual En Foco Photography Fellowship is designed to support photographers of color who demonstrate the highest quality of work as determined by a photography panel of peers and industry professionals.

• FotoRoom
  List of awards provided by FotoRoom.

• Fractured Atlas
  Fractured Atlas provides tools and guidance so that artists can thrive, fully. We are about our business so that we can guide you in being about yours.

• Getty Images Editorial Grant
  Getty Images Editorial Grant is committed to supporting creative communities worldwide through a series of grants distributed across our business lines, providing financial, mentorship, and licensing resources to support today’s working creatives—and inspire the next generation. Grant recipients are selected by a diverse and distinguished panel of independent judges renowned in the field of photography and communications.

• Headlands Center for the Arts: Bay Area Fellowship (Deadline March 19, 2021)
  The Bay Area Fellowship Program (BAF) represents a radical departure from Headlands’ traditional modes of working with artists. The BAF will engage each artist as a full collaborator in designing and producing their own Fellowship engagement, bringing them into the Headlands community as thought partners while developing an experience tailored to their specific needs. Applicants should come with a desire to work closely and deeply with their Fellowship cohort and Headlands staff to thoughtfully and iteratively design the vision, aims, schedule, scope, and allocation of resources for their own Fellowship. In short, Fellows will partner with Headlands to produce the nature of its support.

• Intersection for the Arts
  Providing artists with resources to grow.

• Kala Art Institute: Artist-in-Residence Program
  Kala Art Institute provides space and equipment to artists working in and across the fields of printmaking, photography, performance, installation and media arts through our Artist-In-Residence (AIR) and Fellowship programs. Artists accepted into our residency programs receive access to Kala’s facilities, which include the Print Studio, an 8,000 square foot printmaking facility, and the Electronic Media Center, digital media lab. Through a wide array of equipment resources, communal space, a dynamic artist community, a 2,200 light-filled square foot gallery, print and media study center, and exhibition opportunities, Kala offers artists a unique and supportive environment to experiment and make new work.

• Kenneth Rainin Foundation
  The Kenneth Rainin Foundation supports visionary artists in the Bay Area who push the boundaries of creative expression and possibility. We champion the power of their work to imagine the world as it could be and then to create it.

• Lenscratch Grant Resources
  Ongoing list of Grants available for artists to submit to.

• Light Work: Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 1, 2021)
  Each year Light Work invites 12-15 artists to participate in its residency program, including one artist co-sponsored by Autograph ABP and one artist commission for Urban Video Project (UVP). Artists selected for the residency program are invited to live in Syracuse for one month. They receive a $5,000 stipend, an apartment to stay in, a private digital studio, a private darkroom, and 24-hour access to our facility.

• Minnesota Street Project: Joint Space Award (Deadline March 5, 2021)
  The Joint Space Award is an open-call application to a Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) individual artist or pair of collaborating artists. This is a unique opportunity to utilize these organizations’ physical and digital spaces. The chosen grantee will receive $5,000, plus up to $5,000 in materials budget to create artwork during a residency at The Space Program San Francisco and an exhibition at the 1275 Minnesota Street Project Galleries. The work will also debut on Adjacent, Minnesota Street Project’s virtual space for art.

• New York Foundation for the Arts
  Each year, NYFA provides over $3 million in cash grants to individuals pursuing artistic excellence in all forms.

• Recology: Artist-in-Residence Program
  The Artist in Residence (AIR) Program at Recology San Francisco is a unique art and education program that provides Bay Area artists with access to discarded materials, a stipend, and a large studio space at the Recology San Francisco Recycling and Transfer Station. By supporting artists who work with reused materials, Recology hopes to encourage people to conserve natural resources and promote new ways of thinking about art and the environment.

• Photographic Museum of Humanity
  PHmuseum Grants Program is meant to support photographers, discover new projects, and explore the boundaries of contemporary photography.

• ProArts
  Pro Arts Gallery & COMMONS is a collectively held space in Oakland, California that blurs the line between art, debate, experimentation, and collaboration. Through the sharing of material and immaterial resources, we reflect Oakland’s existing artistic and cultural fabric, while creating future landscape of other commons-centric spaces that encourage the economic and cultural power of the community. Our collaborative activities are rooted in these mutual values and principles.

• The Puffin Foundation
  The Puffin Foundation Ltd. has sought to open the doors of artistic expression by providing grants to artists and art organizations who are often excluded from mainstream opportunities due to their race, gender, or social philosophy.

• San Francisco Arts Commission
  The San Francisco Arts Commission is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy.

• Southern Exposure
  Southern Exposure offers visual artists the opportunity to work in formats and contexts that extend and challenge their artistic process and offer exposure to new audiences. With a focus on commissioning new work, Southern Exposure supports artists in the development of ambitious new projects, events, performances, and exhibitions. We present conversations, workshops, and gatherings, contextualizing artwork and expanding the conversation by addressing contemporary socio-political and cultural issues. An artist-run Curatorial Council made up of a rotating group of artists and Southern Exposure’s Artistic Director selects artists and projects to present in our gallery and off-site.

• Sustainable Arts Foundation
  The Sustainable Arts Foundation supports artists and writers with children. We make annual unrestricted cash awards to individuals; at least half of these awards are made to applicants of color. We also support artist residencies in their efforts to make their programs more family friendly.

• W.A.G.E
  Working Artists and the Greater Economy is a New York-based activist organization founded in 2008. Our mission is to establish sustainable economic relationships between artists and the institutions that contract our labor, and to introduce mechanisms for self-regulation into the art field that collectively bring about a more equitable distribution of its economy.

These uncertain times are especially challenging for artists and the arts community. Below is a list of emergency funds and resources available to artists (listed alphabetically).

• Americans for the Arts - Action Fund
  Information on accessing federal funds from the perspective of a self-employed individual artist, a nonprofit arts organization, a commercial arts company, a taxpayer, and a governmental arts agency.

• Artist Relief Fund
  Artist Relief will distribute $5,000 grants to artists facing dire financial emergencies due to COVID-19.

• California Arts Council COVID-19 News and Resources Page
  California Art Council’s list of emergency funding opportunities, emergency preparedness best practices, and webinars.

• Center for Cultural Innovation Workshops
  A list of live and recorded webinars in response to COVID-19

• COVID-19 Freelance Artist Resources
  A community sources list to serve artists and those interested in the supporting the independent artist community

• COVID -19 Resources for Photographers
  A list of resources put together by the editors at Lensculture

• BAVC-Career Workshops
  Workshops presented by the Bay Area Video Coalition to prepare you for a rapidly changing post-COVID 19 workforce.

• East Bay EDA Recovery Guide
  A list of resources presented by the East Bay Economic Development Alliance

• Emergency Resources for Artists and Freelancers
  A list of funds and resources put together by the Center for Cultural Innovation

• Foundation for Contemporary Arts CVOID-19 Emergency Relief Fund
  One-time $1,000 grants to artists who have had performances or exhibitions canceled or postponed because of the COVID-19 virus.

• List of Artist Resources During the COVID-19 Outbreak
  A list of resources for artists and arts professionals compiled by Creative Capital

• National Endowment for the Arts - CARES Act Guidelines
  NEA’s guidelines for distribute funding to nonprofit arts organizations from the CARES Act to preserve jobs and help support organizations forced to close operations due to the spread of COVID-19.

• The San Francisco Arts and Arts Relief Fund
  Set up by the San Francisco Arts Commission and Grants for the Arts, this relief fund offers financial support to the arts community during the COVID-19 emergency.

• YBCA’s Guaranteed Income Pilot

  To support artists living and working in the City of San Francisco during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, The Office of Racial Equity at the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, the Arts Impact Endowment—co-funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) and Grants for the Arts—and YBCA have come together to launch the Guaranteed Income Pilot for the City of San Francisco.

• 2020 Inge Morath Award - Magnum Photos
  a $5,000 grant given to a woman photographer under the age of 30 to support the completion of a long-term documentary project.