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

Crowdfunding campaigns are time-limited, goal-oriented fundraisers where you seek donations from your personal network. They are great ways to get financial support for your work using small, individual donations that can add up to something much bigger. Crowdfunding campaign donations tend to come from within your expanded network–your friends, family, and community–rather than strangers.

In this digital age where our cellphones are our computers and Twitter gives us the news of the day, it can feel very refreshing to hear a live person on the phone when you are trying to get in touch. At the same time, it can be a bit frustrating when you cannot get through nor receive an instant response.

Grants! Grants! Grants! Everyone loves the idea of receiving a nice juicy grant award to subsidize their project’s expenses. Who doesn’t?! Grants can give you access to way more funding than you might be able to raise through individual donations or a crowdfunding campaign. They can even sometimes give you access to institutional support or advice in addition to funding.

Artist residencies are designed to give you time away from your everyday life to concentrate fully on your creative practice. Artist residencies can actually vary widely. Residencies can be in cities or in the countryside, they can be medium-specific or open to all creators. They can be big or small, designed to facilitate solo work or collaboration. Residencies can take place over the course of weeks or months.

Artist residencies are an important part of the arts ecosystem. They give artists across disciplines the time and space away from their regular life to concentrate deeply on your work and to collaborate with one another. Especially for artists who are juggling other jobs, caregiving, and other responsibilities, it’s hard to find time for your work. You need the mental and physical space to create, and residencies are one of the tools that you can use to give yourself that space.

Applying for grants as an artist can be challenging. It can be time consuming and hard. It can sometimes feel like you’re sending out applications into a void never to hear back from funders. If you are consistently not receiving funding that you’re applying for, you might not even know why.

Some artists want to make art for art's sake and don’t want or even need other people to see it. Abstract artist and mystic Hilma af Klimt didn’t want people looking at her visionary paintings until 20 years after her death, for instance. But for the rest of us, we want our art to be seen! We want people to come to our performances, to our gallery shows, to listen to our podcasts, to read our poetry. 

Not every artist has the luxury of making art whenever inspiration strikes. Most artists are juggling other jobs – sometimes full-time jobs – plus other responsibilities like taking care of children or elders. It can be hard to find time to make your work, or to justify spending time on your creative endeavors. As a fiscal sponsor and artist membership organization, Fractured Atlas is dedicated to providing artists with tools to help you find more time and energy to do your artwork. We want more artists to make more work. Even when things are bad, we need art and we need artists. Plus, as artists ourselves, we feel the struggle between our creative work, our careers, and the rest of our lives!

It’s not easy for anyone to talk about money.

Artists often need help with money. It’s not because artists are necessarily bad with money, it’s just that money tends to be extra complicated for creatives. You might be balancing multiple freelance jobs, running a small business, hiring freelancers yourself, processing tickets and donations, renting equipment, and juggling multiple recurring payments for tools like fiscal sponsorship, a website, and more.