Open Studios December 19, 5-7 PM

Get out of the cold and enjoy the winter holiday spirit at our monthly Open Studios with all new artists-in-residence at the Studios at MASS MoCA. Visit the museum until close and then come over to Building 34 and Building 13 for drinks, snacks and great conversation.

OPEN STUDIOS AT MASS MoCA

Date: Thursday, December 19, 2019
When: 5-7 PM
Where: Now in two locations on MASS MoCA’s Campus!
Building 13, 2nd Floor
Building 34, adjacent to A-OK BBQ

FREE ADMISSION. OPEN TO ALL.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Sam Fresquez - Gilbert, AZ

Tara Sabharwal - New York, NY

Celeste Wilson - Ridgewood, NY

Nina Macintosh - New York, NY

Christina Sadovnikov - Richmond, VA

Camille Villetard & Matthieu Barbezat - Berne, Switzerland

Phil Rabovsky - New York, NY

Galen Cheney - North Adams, MA

Marianna Peragallo - New York, NY

Blake Brasher - Lowell, MA

Melanie Glenn - North Adams, MA

Dale Rio - Philadelphia, PA

Charlene Tan - Daly City, CA

Directions to the Studios

B.13 When you park in the main visitor lot at MASS MoCA, Building 13 is right in front of you. You’ll see Ferrin Contemporary and CYNTHIA-REEVES galleries on the first floor. Enter through the side door (on the end of the building farthest from Rt. 2) and take the stairs or elevator to the second floor.

B.34 Is located behind A-OK BBQ in the front entrance courtyard of MASS MoCA’s campus. When facing A-OK BBQ from Bright Ideas Brewing, just head around A-OK to the right and follow the ramp to the Studios entrance (black door).

Fellowships! Fellowships! Fellowships!

We’re offering a record number of artist fellowships to applicants for the Studios at MASS MoCA’s Spring/ Summer 2020 residency season!

Fall 2019 residents: Ken Craft, Nafis White, Richard Pasquarelli and Antonietta Grassi. Photo by Lydia Panas

PUERTO RICO FELLOWSHIP / PUERTO RICO ARTIST-PARENT FELLOWSHIP

For our third year, we are pleased to offer fully funded, 4-week residencies for a select number of artists, writers or performers who live and work in Puerto Rico. Artists also receive travel and food stipends.

This year we also offer an opportunity for an artist-parent from Puerto Rico to stay for a shorter 2-week residency. In addition to the shorter opportunity and all of the fellowship funds above, the awarded artist will receive an additional stipend to use for child care or related expenses during their time away.

Our sincere gratitude to the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation and the Sustainable Art Foundation for supporting these fellowships.

UNIVERSITY FELLOWSHIPS

Thanks to the support of our university partners, The Studios is able to offer fully funded residencies to current or recent M.F.A. students from ten different graduate school programs, including The University of Arkansas, Boston University, Corcoran, MassArt, MICA, Stamps, University of Oregon, PAFA, VCU, and SVA. Each school’s fellowship has slightly different eligibility guidelines, so read the details of the fellowship on our Financial Aid page before applying.

MASSACHUSETTS WRITER FELLOWSHIP

Funded through the Assets for Artists Program’s general budget, this fellowship shall be awarded to 1 outstanding, Massachusetts writer in any genre (fiction, nonfiction, playwriting, poetry, screenwriting, hybrid genre, etc). The fellowship funds all residency fees for up to four weeks in residence. The writer must have a current address in Massachusetts. On your application, be sure to select the appropriate box under financial aid to be considered for this fellowship.

Don’t qualify for one of these fellowships?

Never fear! We still offer all of our regular need- and merit-based financial aid. All applicants need to do to be considered for our regular financial aid is fill out the “Financial Data” section of the application .

Announcing the 2020 North Adams Project Artists!

Now in its seventh year of supporting North Adams artists with a bricolage of professional development and matched savings incentives, Assets for Artists is excited to announce a new cohort of artists living and working in our amazing hometown. Comprised of both newcomers and longtime residents, this group ranges from paint to fiber and text to sculpture. We’re so glad to have these artists contributing to our community!

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Galen Cheney

The creative process and the exploration and manipulation of materials are the chief drivers of Galen Cheney’s work, always with an eye toward gritty beauty. Her current project builds off of work she developed during a 2015 residency in China. She guides fragments of past paintings, old receipts, used airline tickets, and other remnants into the surface of new paintings until they become one. These remnants imbue the paintings with memory, history, and a sense of time that Galen finds both beautiful and compelling. During her time with the North Adams Project, she plans to work with a collaborator to create a short video of her artistic practice and to use the A4A trainings to learn how to best utilize the video in her marketing to donors, gallerists and collectors.

“My husband and I moved to North Adams in late 2017 because of the community of artists that we came to know during our visits to Mass MoCA. We recognized that North Adams was a place where the arts and artists were supported and honored. I am grateful for that community of artists and for the opportunities afforded to share my work with the community though various exhibition platforms.”

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William Tavish Costello

William Tavish Costello’s work spans the disciplines of poetry, drawing, sculpture, masonry, photography, performance and community practice. His oil landscapes and portraits have an impressionistic connection to place and his metal and stone sculptures grow directly out of the land. To Tavish, art is crucial to being able to change the social environment into something useful, enjoyable and sustainable for a broad spectrum of people. During his time with the North Adams Project, he has set himself the goal of building his savings, as well as documenting and marketing his work. For future projects, he is thinking about the elements of language and place, both present and past, as well as population social shifts in the northeast US.

“The opportunity to work at the [MASS MoCA] museum has brought me much inspiration, from the art I handle and enjoy there and the cultural overflow it has created in the town. I intend to forge the time and resources to take advantage of these inspirations and funnel it into something productive.”

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David Lachman

After a decade working in video art and installation and exhibiting broadly on six continents, David Lachman returned to his roots in drawing and painting. His new body of 2-dimensional work primarily explores the figure, portraits and landscape. Using atmosphere, mood, symbolism, allegory and humor, he looks critically at the current state of the world and humanity’s role in altering and remaking it. Recently, he expanded into book arts with a collaborative project with artist Marianne Petit. He has taught art at all levels, from after-school arts to college courses. A North Adams resident since 2002, David is looking forward to meeting more of North Adams’ more recent artist arrivals through the North Adams Project as well as developing a focused business plan around his painting and drawing practice.

“After making a shift back to drawing and painting, I started exhibiting work again locally. I want to continue growing what I have begun with that shift and to begin to show out of the area again--North Adams is a very supportive place for this endeavor.”

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Credit: Forrest MacDonald

Chalice Mitchell

Through gestural paint strokes, Chalice Mitchell’s work explores the subjectivity of human experience. Themes that address impermanence, identity, power dynamics, eroticism, and an interrogation of gender categories weave through her different bodies of work. Although grounded in the history of western art, Chalice has been deeply influenced by ink and brush painting from China and Japan. Opposite elements are interwoven in her work to convey an underlying Zen philosophy. A native Berkshirite, Chalice recently moved back home after years abroad in Japan and the United Kingdom. With support from the North Adams project, she is looking forward to upgrading some important equipment, purchasing materials in preparation for her next body of work, and getting more involved in the North Adams community at large.

“North Adams has the perfect combination. I crave the proximity to nature, a thriving arts scene, a manageable city size, and, as a queer woman, knowledge that my rights will be respected here in Western Massachusetts. It’s not often that you find hiking trails, inclusive policies, and first-rate art all in one place.”

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Katie Murphy

Ceramicist Katie Murphy relocated to North Adams with her family in August 2019 with the goal of opening a live-work space and gallery with her husband Jason Murphy. In their house just up the hill from MASS MoCA, S T / / . \ I F E (as the space will be called) will include an art gallery, studio, and risograph publishing. In Katie’s personal practice, the items of a traditional still life take on new, ceramic life. Each of her clay pieces is uniquely crafted by hand from the conceptual stages to the finished product. The work romanticizes the organic organization of forms in nature and focuses on its uncontrollable aesthetic. During her time with the North Adams Project, she will continue the renovation to turn the house she and her husband purchased into the S T / / . \ I F E gallery space, and she is looking forward to the support that will come from joining North Adams’ thriving artistic community.

“We have been searching for a place to invest in a live/studio/gallery space all across the southeast for many years, and, while we do love and appreciate the beauty of that part of the country, no place hit us with a wave of inspiration the same way that MASS MoCA and North Adams has.”

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Hideyo Okamura

Painter Hideyo Okamura has lived in North Adams for 25 years and has worked as an artist for even longer. Taking the opportunity to retire early from a museum career in 2016, Hideyo shifted his art practice to a full-time occupation. Today, he creates his paintings using basic materials and simple marks. Having grown up in Japan but working now in the US, he finds that non-imagery-based artwork provides a global interaction free of ingrained ideologies, aesthetics and regional frames of reference. Going forward, Hideyo hopes to make his work more physically accessible by exploring public art opportunities, such as North Adams’ DownStreet Art (in which he participated this past summer) or the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s recent Sakura Matsuri Festival. He is also exploring printmaking, and hopes for these new directions to move his art out of the more limited audience of a traditional gallery space. To this end, he plans to use the North Adams Project grant to invest in printmaking opportunities and digital software.

“I see North Adams as an ideal community that possesses the space, openness and creative development to be a laboratory for new art alternatives to the status quo.”

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Francesca Olsen

A quilter and seamstress, Francesca Olsen has thread in her blood. Her great-great-grandfather was a tailor in Naples, Italy, and her great-grandmother worked in a shirt factory in New York. Now Francesca has taken this heritage into a modern quilting and alterations practice. Even when working with a sewing pattern, every choice she makes results in a product that is a unique reflection of herself and the person the work is for, from the colors, to the substrate, to the seam-finishing technique, to the custom tag. Her online shop, No Aesthetic Quilts and Vintage, has additionally traveled to craft shows around the region, including Picnic Portland, a juried show in Portland, ME. During her time with the North Adams Project, Francesca hopes to sharpen her financial and accounting skills and put to work the marketing acumen from her day job for her own creative practice. With the grant funds she will invest in new and better equipment, such as an industrial sewing machine or longarm quilting machine.

“I believe sewing and tailoring are viable services in the Berkshires, a land full of people who buck trends, reject capitalist tendencies, and seek to live a slower life…A handmade garment is, just by existing, an act of protest against the production systems that would prefer we worship the new and never look behind the curtain.”

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Eric Reinemann

Eric Reinemann designs his paintings to capture a sense of time and place. His process has two main parts: research and invention. The former is done on location and involves careful observation of the world. The latter is accomplished in the studio and is a mix of memory, expression and his research. He paints subjects he can access on a daily basis, such as nearby Clarksburg State Forest or the interior of his home up Notch Rd. Working with subjects in close proximity allows Eric to constantly gather new information. Video has become an important medium for his research as well, in order to capture movement, time, and a roving point-of-view. Since becoming a father, Eric’s work has changed as he watches his child discover and observe the world from a completely new perspective. He has shifted away from painting in series to single, large-form assemblages. This, he says, is a turning point for his practice, and he is excited to join the North Adams Project at such a pivotal moment in his work, when he most needs support to develop his business.

“North Adams is a great little spot for us to call home…The artistic opportunities, creative community, and wilderness make this little city ideal for artistic and professional growth.”

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Molly Rideout

Writer and bookmaker Molly Rideout creates stories and essays inspired by the deep history of place and the people who inhabit those places. She thinks often about how few people actually read the contemporary modes of short story publication—literary journals—and explores instead how to connect with her rural neighbors, the people attached to the places about which she writes, through zines or fine art bookmaking and letter press printing or vinyl public art installations in empty storefronts. In transitioning her writing to these physical forms, Molly has found she suddenly needs to contend with the selling and distribution of objects when before she only needed to consider a digital file. She is looking forward to A4A’s business and sales workshops to help her with this new aspect of her work.

“Collaboration is a core part of my practice, and I look forward to the opportunity to provide my skills to the projects of others in the area and vice versa.”

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WALLASAUCE / ANDREW CASTEEL

Andrew Casteel first developed the fashion label WallaSauce with his partner Sarah DeFusco by sewing pockets onto t-shirts. They have since broadened their practice to upcycling second-hand materials and giving clothes and fabrics that have been thrifted a second life through sewing, screen printing, hand and machine embroidery and heat press alterations. Today, using secondhand materials is core to WallaSauce’s mission to promote awareness of the unethical practices and environmental damage caused by the second biggest polluting industry after oil—including the dyes used, the microplastics washed out of polyester clothing, and the labor inequality in the garment industry. Andrew’s goal while in the North Adams Project is to invest in heavier duty sewing equipment and to grow a cohort of community members interested in altering or sewing their own clothes.

“Within the five years we lived [in North Adams] through MCLA, we loved it so much we decided to stay and pursue our careers as artists.”

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CIARRA FRAGALE

In December 2019, Singer-songwriter Ciarra Fragale joined our 2020 North Adams Project cohort, a belated, but welcome addition. Originally from the Hudson Valley, Ciarra played her first concert here in North Adams in early 2019 as part of Common Folk’s Shut The Folk Up. About this first show, Ciarra says, “I was immediately taken with the community and compassion that North Adams has to offer. Since then, I have been coming back regularly playing shows and spending time with the amazing friends I have made there. I truly fell in love with the community, and consider myself to be a part of it now.”

With her indie-pop sound dripping in neon, Ciarra released her second full-length album Call It What You Will this summer. Her work is heavily influenced by her surroundings – and now that she’s relocated to North Adams, we can’t wait to see how her work will change and grow.

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Our work in Massachusetts is made possible by our wonderful funders and partners, specifically the Barr Foundation, Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation, and the United States Department of Agriculture.

Open Studios November 14, 5-7 PM

Shasha Dothan, Current artist-in-residence

There’s color on the trees and color on the walls this autumn at MASS MoCA! After a couple months off, join us once again for our monthly Open Studios with all new artists-in-residence at the Studios at MASS MoCA. Visit the museum until close and then come over to Building 34 and Building 13 for drinks, snacks and great conversation.

OPEN STUDIOS AT MASS MoCA

Date: Thursday, November 14, 2019
When: 5-7 PM
Where: Now in two locations on MASS MoCA’s Campus!
Building 13, 2nd Floor
Building 34, adjacent to A-OK BBQ

FREE ADMISSION. OPEN TO ALL.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Lucang Huang - Jiangyan, China
Ben Zawalich - Santiago, Chile
Fay Sanders - Brooklyn, New York
Shasha Dothan - Brooklyn, New York
Ken Craft - Dallas, Texas
Richard Pasquarelli - New York, New York
Nafis White - Providence, Rhode Island
Lydia Panas - Kutztown, Pennsylvania
Jaejoon Jang - Baltimore, Maryland
Traci Hercher - Iowa City, Iowa
Layo Bright - Flushing, New York
Lauren Matsumoto - Brooklyn, New York
Hideyo Okamura - North Adams, Massachusetts
Danielle Galietti - Lincoln Park, New Jersey

Directions to the Studios

B.13 When you park in the main visitor lot at MASS MoCA, Building 13 is right in front of you. You’ll see Ferrin Contemporary and CYNTHIA-REEVES galleries on the first floor. Enter through the side door (on the end of the building farthest from Rt. 2) and take the stairs or elevator to the second floor.

B.34 Is located behind A-OK BBQ in the front entrance courtyard of MASS MoCA’s campus. When facing A-OK BBQ from Bright Ideas Brewing, just head around A-OK to the right and follow the ramp to the Studios entrance (black door).

2020 Massachusetts-Statewide Capacity Building Grants

Our capacity-building grant program is an innovative support model that helps artists strengthen their creative practice and grow its long-term sustainability. Launched in 2008, the Assets for Artists program has served more than 1,000 artists in 5 states.

Artists selected for the Massachusetts Statewide grant program benefit from the following:

• A capacity-building grant to be invested in accordance with the artist’s 3-5 year goals. Participants will receive grant funds after participating in free artist-led training and coaching on financial/business planning and goal-setting.

• Free artist-tailored webinars on a range of financial, business, and professional topics. Participants will be required to take at least one workshop, but can participate in as many as desired.

• Free one-on-one coaching, including support in crafting a basic plan to guide the investment of the artist’s grant. The plan--which will outline goals and action steps--must be finalized before participants receive their grant funds.

Participating artists will receive support in identifying top-priority goals. The following is a non-exhaustive list of possible investment areas:

• Building an emergency fund to help manage variable income

• Making strategic investments in your creative practice

• Managing and reducing your debt burden

• Developing a strategy for retirement savings

• Preparing to buy a first home

Applications are open to artists in all disciplines and at all stages of their careers. We are especially excited for applications from rural, BIPOC, or LGBTQ+ artists.

Applications due Friday, September 27, 2019

The 2020 MA Statewide Capacity-Building Grants and Professional Development Workshops are possible thanks to the generous support of the Barr Foundation, Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation, and the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Rural Development Office.

2019 MASSACHUSETTS STATEWIDE GRANTEES

2018 MASSACHUSETTS STATEWIDE GRANTEES

Fall 2019 Workshops

Assets for Artists is back with FREE professional development workshops for artists in all disciplines. We have a great roster of workshops lined up in Massachusetts and Connecticut this fall (with more to come in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in the Winter/Spring 2020). If you're serious about strengthening your practice, learning from art business and marketing experts, connecting with fellow artists and makers, and can commute to our workshop locations, we hope you’ll apply!

Although we call it an “application,” don’t be intimidated! It only takes a couple minutes, and well over half of all applicants receive a spot in the workshop.

Participation is FREE! Workshops will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

*Registration still open for “Deciding if a Gig is Worth It” with Billy Dean Thomas. See below. All other workshop registrations are now full.

The A4A program promotes equal opportunity and seeks diversity in its workshop participants.

FALL WORKSHOPS

TAXES FOR ARTISTS w/ Hannah Cole

Recommended for artists of all disciplines.

Hannah Cole is a tax expert who specializes in working with creative businesses and artists. A long-time working artist with a high-level exhibition history, Hannah has a unique vantage point for understanding the financial challenges of freelancers and small creative businesses. In this workshop she will discuss the basic tax equation and tax issues specifically relevant to artists, followed by a Q&A period. Hannah Cole is the founder of Sunlight Tax and is an Enrolled Agent with the IRS.

Available session:

October 6, 2019 | 1-3pm | Holyoke, MA

DECIDING IF A GIG IS WORTH IT
w/ Billy Dean Thomas

Recommended for musicians and other performers with a gig-based career.

Billy Dean Thomas (aka “The Queer B.I.G.”) is a hip-hop recording artist, composer, and arts consultant whose work addresses intersectional feminism, social justice, and the difficulties of growing up in NYC. Currently residing in Boston, they are a recipient of the Boston Foundations Lab grant, the Barr Foundation Risk Taking Grant, and the City of Boston’s Opportunity Fund grant.

In this 4-hour workshop, Billy Dean will equip performing artists with tools for finding gigs, setting rates, communicating with venues and collaborators, and ultimately assessing whether a gig is a good strategic fit. Attendees will build skills around decision-making and reducing burnout.

Available Session:

October 17, 2019 | 1-5pm | Boston, MA

SPOTS STILL OPEN! Contact assetsforartists@massmoca.org to reserve your spot.

THE ART OF LICENSING w/ Allison Cole

Recommended for visual artists and craftspeople.

Allison Cole is an award-winning illustrator, artist and surface designer who never stops creating. Over the past fifteen years, she has worked with a wide variety of clients that span many different industries, including stationery, wall art, giftware, apparel, home furnishings and bolt fabric.

In this workshop participants will learn about the industry of surface design and art licensing, and discover how artists can get their designs on a wide variety of products by partnering with different companies. You will learn about marketing and branding your work, reaching clients and setting achievable goals.

In the afternoon following the group workshop, selected artists will be invited to meet individually (for 30 minutes) with Allison for personalized attention to their licensing questions.

Available session:

October 25, 2019 | 9am - 1pm | Torrington, CT
One-on-one sessions with selected artists will be held in the afternoon

In requesting this workshop, please specify if you’d like a one-on-one session (if space is available) in the afternoon following the group workshop.

FIND YOUR MESSAGE: Branding & Marketing for Visual Artists 
w/ Jessica Burko

Recommended for visual artists and craftspeople.

Jessica Burko is a Boston-based exhibiting artist, curator, and arts marketing professional. In this workshop, Jessica will help visual artists and craftspeople gain a better understanding of how to present their work, identify their target audience, and create a detailed marketing plan while building the confidence to implement it.

On the day following the group workshop, selected artists will be invited to meet individually (for 30 minutes) with Jessica for an in-depth discussion of specific marketing questions and concerns, and to review their arts marketing strategies.

Available session:

November 1, 2019 | 10:30am - 4:30pm | Greenfield, MA
One-on-one sessions with selected artists will be held the following day

In requesting this workshop, please specify if you’d like a one-on-one session (if space is still available) the day following the group workshop.

FOUNDATIONS OF SHARED VALUES IN PUBLIC ART PROJECTS
w/ Carolyn Lewenberg

Recommended for artists wishing to work in the public sphere.

Carolyn Lewenberg is a public artist and educator whose areas of focus include sculptural installation and public art project management. Her work is guided by values of reciprocity towards people and the environment, collaboration, and honoring a spirit of place. Carolyn was a recipient of NEFA’s Creative City grant and has long-term installations at the Boston Children’s Museum and Franklin Park Zoo.

In this workshop, participants will learn about developing foundations for public art projects that begin with articulating shared values as a community. Through a mixture of personal reflection, participatory exercises, and case studies, artists will develop tools for engaging community members and collaborators around shared values, with the goal of creating more authentic and inclusive projects.

Available Session:

November 19, 2019 | 2-4:30pm | Boston, MA

WORKSHOPS COMING THIS WINTER:

UNDERSTANDING YOUR VISUAL ART PRACTICE AS A BUSINESS w/ Kim Faler

Recommended for fine / non-commercial visual artists.

Kim Faler is an installation artist who has been awarded Rauschenberg and Artpace residencies and has exhibited at MASS MoCA and Art Dubai. 

In this workshop, participants will create a framework for understanding their practice as a business and a strategic plan for advancing their goals. Participants will receive guidance on improving their artist statements, portfolios, websites, budgeting, time management, and fundraising.

Available session:

TBD | North Adams, MA

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Our work is possible because of our wonderful funders & partners, including the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Business Development Program. Our Rhode Island workshops are in partnership with the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Our Connecticut workshops are in partnership with the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council, Southeast Connecticut Arts Council, Windham Arts, and Connecticut Office of the Arts. Our Massachusetts workshops are made possible by the Barr Foundation, the City of Boston, New England Foundation for the Arts, Massachusetts Growth Capital Corp, and the Boston Cultural Council.

2020 Rhode Island Capacity-Building Grants

Our capacity-building grant program is an innovative support model that helps artists strengthen their creative practice and grow its long-term sustainability. Launched in 2008, the Assets for Artists program has served more than 1,000 artists in 5 states.

Artists selected for the Rhode Island grant program benefit from the following:

• A capacity-building grant that serves as working capital to be invested in the artist’s creative practice. Participants are provided with a $1,000 mini-grant to be invested in accordance with the artist’s personal goals. Funds are awarded at the completion of the program.

• Free artist-tailored workshops on a range of financial, business, and professional topics. These trainings – mandatory for participants in the grant program – will be offered in Rhode Island in winter/spring 2020 (dates TBD). Participants will also have the opportunity to attend other optional professional development workshops offered by Assets for Artists. See our fall out-of-state workshops here.

• Free one-on-one coaching, including support in crafting a plan to guide the investment of the artist’s grant.

Applications are open to artists in all disciplines and at all stages of their careers. We are especially excited for applications from rural, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists.

Applications are due Friday, September 27, 2019

The 2020 Rhode Island Capacity-Building Grants and Professional Development Workshops are possible in partnership with the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Business Development Program.

OUR 2019 RHODE ISLAND GRANTEES

OUR 2018 RHODE ISLAND GRANTEES

2020 Boston-Capacity Building Grants

Cliff Notez

2019 Awardee
Music

Kristin Wagner

2019 Grantee
Dance

Timothy Hall

2019 Awardee
Music

Sawool Kim

2018 Grantee
Painting

Azita Moradkhani

2019 Grantee
Sculpture/Drawing

Our capacity-building grant program is an innovative support model that helps artists strengthen their creative practice and grow its long-term sustainability. Launched in 2008, the Assets for Artists program has served more than 1,000 artists in 5 states.

Artists selected for the Boston, MA grant program benefit from the following:

• A capacity-building grant that serves as working capital to be invested in the artist’s creative practice. Participants are provided with a $1,000 mini-grant to be invested in accordance with the artist’s personal goals. Funds are awarded at the completion of the program.

• Free artist-tailored workshops on a range of financial, business, and professional topics. These trainings – mandatory for participants in the grant program – will be held in locations throughout Massachusetts in fall 2019 through spring 2020. See our fall workshop schedule here.

• Free one-on-one coaching, including support in crafting a plan to guide the investment of the artist’s grant.

• A peer-network cohort of other Boston A4A alumni and regular alumni networking opportunities.

(Note: In order to be eligible for our Boston program, your home or studio address must be in one of Boston's 23 neighborhoods, and you must be intending to maintain that base in Boston over the coming year. See our grants for artists in other parts of MA or Rhode Island.)

Applications are open to artists in all disciplines and at all stages of their careers. We are especially excited for applications from BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists.

Applications are due Friday, September 27, 2019

The 2020 Boston Capacity-Building Grants and Professional Development Workshops are possible thanks to the generous support of the City of Boston, the Boston Cultural Council, Mass Growth Capital Corp, New England Foundation for the Arts and the Barr Foundation.

BOSTON 2019 GRANTEES

BOSTON 2018 GRANTEES

CALLING ALL MASSACHUSETTS, CONNECTICUT & RHODE ISLAND ARTISTS!

Photo: Sita Magnuson, dpict / Mass Collaborative

FOUR OPPORTUNITIES FOR CAPACITY-BUILDING GRANTS & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT!

A4A is now accepting applications for its 2020 Capacity-Building Grants (formerly Matched Savings Grants) and its Fall 2019 Professional Development Workshops. Depending on which state you call home, we have a variety of opportunities for artists in all disciplines and at all stages of their careers. We are especially excited for applications from rural, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ artists. Explore the full opportunities below.

Or read success stories from some A4A grantee alumni!

Photo: Sita Magnuson, dpict / Mass Collaborative

2020 Capacity-Building Grants

Click on the link for details of each region’s program:

For Boston Artists

For Massachusetts Statewide Artists (except Boston)

For Rhode Island Artists

2019 Spring Nuts & Bolts Workshop

2019 professional development workshops

Free workshops on how to handle the professional side of art-making, from marketing to business planning to taxes and more. Fall workshops to be held in Boston, Central Mass, and Connecticut. Artists anywhere, who are willing to make the commute to our workshop locations are welcome to apply. Application deadline: Friday, September 20, 2019

SEE ALL WORKSHOP OPPORTUNITIES

Workshops will be added to the list as dates/locations are confirmed. Check back regularly! Additional workshops TBD will be scheduled for Winter/Spring 2020 for Rhode Island, Boston, Western Mass, & Connecticut.

August News

Works-in-progress by Beili Liu in Studio 4, August 2019

SEE ALL OUR AUGUST 2019 NEWS FROM OUR MAIL CHIMP E-BLAST HERE.