As you tuck your creative practice in for the night, the moment you’ve been dreading for years finally arrives. “Where do grants come from?” it asks, wide-eyed and full of hope. “While one-time grants can come from anywhere, like a gift from Oma, the big grants that reappear year after year are usually funded by an endowment,” you say, wishing you could end the talk there. Internally, you’re debating whether to start with the bright side of endowment funds, like free tuition for medical students in the Bronx, or start in the beginning, where white folks gifted each other other people’s land (“Charles, lad, you must have this forest! You simply must!”).

Every month, Fractured Atlas provides a list of upcoming grants and opportunities for artists and arts-based projects so that you can discover more opportunities to get financial support and other resources for your work. As a fiscal sponsor of over 3,500 artistic projects, we provide access to grants for artists in every discipline.

In grant applications, Goldilocks identifies as an artist first, bear second. Most reviewers assume she’s not a serious artist, because they see the claws, smell the salmon breath, and make their hasty little conclusions. Between raising her fearless cubs and navigating the stressful effects of climate change on their ecosystem, it’s tough to find time for making art—let alone getting it funded. But 2024 is gonna be different, Goldilocks hums to herself. She’s not just looking for any ol’ grant, either. She wants to spend her limited time going for opportunities that she’s ready for, suited for, and genuinely excited about.

Fractured Atlas is no stranger to change. Over the past two plus decades of working as a nonprofit arts service organization, Fractured Atlas has embraced the inevitable ebbs and flows of what it means to be part of a living, breathing arts ecosystem. Today, we’re excited to share some transitions that are underway at the board level. In October, Board Chair Russell Willis Taylor completed her service and the Fractured Atlas Board selected Andrew Taylor to help steward the organization’s next chapter. We talked with them about what the work has meant, field-wide trends on board relations, and the fluid shape of organizational resiliency.

Every month, Fractured Atlas provides a list of upcoming grants and opportunities for artists and arts-based projects so that you can discover more opportunities to get financial support and other resources for your work. As a fiscal sponsor of over 3,500 artistic projects, we provide access to grants for artists in every discipline.

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 experience of pluralism took place on the second floor of the sunniest side of my elementary school building, in the Goose Room. The Goose Room (inside-the-box thinkers might call it an art classroom) was the quietest place in the entire school. While other teachers struggled to negotiate or enforce an appropriate volume level with groups of energetic young people, my art teacher floated from one quiet pod of students to another, asking as many questions as she answered. We learned that there were infinite ways to mix colors, and that mixing ideas, cultures, backgrounds worked the same way.

Every month, Fractured Atlas provides a list of upcoming grants and opportunities for artists and arts-based projects so that you can discover more opportunities to get financial support and other resources for your work. As a fiscal sponsor of over 3,500 artistic projects, we provide access to grants for artists in every discipline.

This past summer, the Fractured Atlas ecosystem welcomed Alberto Mejia as our organization’s new Chief Operating Officer. As the confetti settled, it was time to sit down and chat expansively with Alberto. He shares his personal definitions of artist support and solidarity, his hopes for the creative economy, and how fiscal sponsorship can fit into this complex puzzle. We hope you enjoy Alberto’s colorful window into Fractured Atlas’s work.

Every month, Fractured Atlas provides a list of upcoming grants and opportunities for artists and arts-based projects so that you can discover more opportunities to get financial support and other resources for your work. As a fiscal sponsor of over 3,500 artistic projects, we provide access to grants for artists in every discipline.