Artist Resources, Grants for Artists, Creative Projects, Making Money for Artists

To some, making art and reviewing contracts are like oil and water—they don’t mix. In reality, many working artists will at some point engage in a binding agreement with another person or party for a gig, sale, commission, fiscal sponsorship, grant award, exhibition, or collab. But I suspect I’m not the only artist who feels like an imposter when I “review” my contracts. How can I possibly protect myself or my work, without legal training or expertise?

My first gig after finishing an MFA was a retail job without guaranteed meal breaks. One day at lunchtime, I plopped down on the concrete steps by the back door, shoved a sandwich in my mouth, and opened my phone. The only notification was an open call forwarded from a friend. I tapped through to the application, expecting to bookmark a slideroom portal for later. Instead, the app was a simple google form. No images had to be formatted to specific dimensions; there was just a field for a portfolio site URL. Best of all, there was no fee. As a retail worker managing to create and exhibit artwork while living paycheck to paycheck, it was the first application in months that seemed... feasible. I could fill this out in five minutes on my lunch break, I thought. My next thought was, why aren't all applications like this?

The artist’s journey is complex, traversing through multiple seasons and stages of busyness and hibernation. Once the journey starts, one natural, important question is: where do you create, practice, and focus on your art? Across all disciplines, determining what an appropriate art making space looks like is a continual, evolving challenge for artists. A more pointed question is: what does a dedicated space for your practice look like, right now? This question goes beyond defining your basic, physical requirements—like a freight elevator, a dance mirror, electricity—and involves identifying what you need to delineate space for your art practice without necessarily renting a separate space.

From the beach to the dating pool, red flags are a form of communal protection: the water isn’t safe, keep out. Green flags, on the other hand, are like lighthouses, guiding us towards safety and belonging. In my time navigating these choppy arts industry waters, I’ve learned to trust my gut when it comes to people, institutions, and opportunities. If someone feels too good to be true, they’re probably not real. If a workplace leaves you feeling emptier than a box of fruit snacks on the playground, it’s time to clock out (early). But when an application portal prioritizes accessibility or a job listing includes a salary? Those people probably know what’s up. “Trust your gut” is an awfully short blog post (3 words okay, boss?), so let’s dive in and categorize some common arts industry experiences.

If you work in the arts, you've probably had your fair share of creeeepy bosses, ghoulish work conditions, and clients who turn into ghosts as soon as it's time to pay up. This October, Fractured Atlas is commissioning an artist of any discipline to write a 750-900 word article about their very own arts worker horror story 👹 Please review the details below, and fill out this short interest form by Thursday, September 25th for a chance to write and publish your story with a $750 stipend. We’ll be randomly selecting someone to work with, because the art world doesn't need any more competition ੈ✩‧₊˚

Giving you "required reading" isn't quite our style here at Fractured Atlas, but when it's urgent we can get pretty serious. For years, if not decades and centuries, the established economic system in the U.S. has routinely failed artists, refugees, people of color, indigenous peoples, the unhoused, people with disabilities, parents — to say nothing of its ravaging effect on the environment and disproportionate harm on the global south. The creative co-ops we're sharing with you today may not be the solution to a rapidly warming planet or an exploitative billionaire class, but artists have always been the first to dream, test, and demonstrate the viability of alternate worlds. If any part of you dreams of alternative economies, this post is for you.

Hold up. Gig work is work? We know this news may come as a shock to some readers. Unless you’re an artist, in which case you are intimately familiar with the hidden costs, expectations, and contradictions of 1099 work. Like many other unacceptable realities of American living, the financial precarity of gig workers has been normalized in day-to-day life and entrenched in our laws. But there are growing networks of people working to change this reality and offering promising visions for the future of gig work for artists. We’re here to bolster 1099 arts workers with a bundle of statistics, a not-so-secret stash of resources, and a heaping spoonful of hope:

If you’re anything like me, your least favorite thing of all time is talking about your work online. You’ve fantasized about having your The Devil Wears Prada moment and tossing your phone into a fountain. You delete and redownload social media apps like it’s an Olympic sport.

As we awaited the arrival of our second child, my wife and I decided that it was time to look for a house. We were renting a small, two-bedroom house that felt close to bursting at the seams with toys, clothes, and the equipment one accumulates when caring for a small child, so the prospect of squeezing in another baby felt a bit too much like a circus act. Plus our lease was running out and we really didn’t like our landlord (a story for another time).

Reader, is there anything more painful than driving over a jagged pothole? The crunch of your spine, the desperate prayers for your car’s suspension and steering, and of course, a profound shame for not avoiding the pothole in the first place. Now imagine driving down a beat up backroad, no streetlights, with nothing to guide you and your poor steed to safety except your murky intuition. This is how a lot of us go into the grant application process — vaguely uneasy, completely lost, and proceeding valiantly into a mysterious void (i.e. the review panel). But what if you had a cheat sheet, a map, with every pitfall illuminated by bright, flashing warning signs?