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

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:

In our newest series, “Gentle Reminders,” we provide working artists with essential and convenient reminders for the care and maintenance of a nimble and flourishing creative practice. If your art is a garden, this series is about the continual weeding, watering, and miscellaneous upkeep it requires. To kick it off, we’re digging into the importance of regularly rewriting your artist statement.

Fellow perfectionists, I invite you to imagine the following scenario: you just printed a huge, adhesive sticker. It’s the height of a fully grown hobbit, and feels like a perfect, two-dimensional newborn (“they have your eyes!”). Now, imagine slowly unpeeling it, heart pounding, painfully aware that you have one chance to get it right. To your horror, the sticker begins clinging desperately to every surface it can find, including your skin, your clothes, and itself.

I’ll never forget the first time I took myself on an artist date. Okay, to be honest, I forget most of the details. But I’ll never forget how it felt. The clarity! The creative freedom! The subversive undertones. It was my first taste of anti-productivity.

Laurel True is a mosaic artist specializing in public and community-based artwork. She facilitates trainings and teaches people how to make large-scale mosaic murals and architectural mosaics. Laurel’s work can be found in streets all over the world but has also been commissioned for commercial and residential installations. She has been a member of Fractured Atlas since 2011 and recently sat down with us to talk about her work, life as an artist in New Orleans, and how being a member of Fractured Atlas has helped to improve the business side of her arts projects.

Dread Scott is a community-engaged artist and his fiscally-sponsored project, Slave Rebellion Reenactment, was a winner of the 2016 MAP Fund Award. Taking place in New Orleans, Louisiana, November 8-9, 2019, the Slave Rebellion Reenactment is a community-engaged artistic performance and film production.

Alice is a light skinned multi-racial woman with brown, yellow and copper streaks in her curly hair. She smiles and gazes at the camera. A necklace of Autumn colored beads sits around her neck. Photo by Beverlie Lord Alice Sheppard is founder of Kinetic Light, an organization working in the disciplines of art, design, architecture, and social justice, that creates, performs, and teaches at the intersections of disability, dance, and race. Their work seeks to showcase freedom of movement as a pathway for others to understand how mobility is fundamental to participation in civic life and to our understanding of American national identity. Alice became a member of Fractured Atlas in July 2016 and is based in Los Altos, California and New York City.

Toni Morrison speaking at “A Tribute to Chinua Achebe — 50 Years Anniversary of ‘Things Fall Apart’”. The Town Hall, New York City, February 26th, 2008 It is almost impossible to explain the impact of a phenomenon like Toni Morrison. It is infinitely more impossible for me to explain, as a Black woman and artist, what it means to lose her less than a year after losing Ntozake Shange. I have more feelings than language and have asked my colleagues at Fractured Atlas to help me honor a great by sharing their reflections of her persona, words, and work.

by Molaundo Jones, Social Media Specialist at Fractured Atlas Eva Steinmetz, co-creator of “The Boy Project” Eva Steinmetz is co-creator of “The Boy Project,” a theater piece in which Philadelphia boys ages 12–15 imagine their futures as men. Eva is based in Philadelphia and has been a member of Fractured Atlas since November 2017. “The Boy Project” currently has a fundraising campaign running on our crowdfunding site, Fundraising by Fractured Atlas.

Stewart Wilson, creator of Personaland, in a Motion Capture suit (for CGI) Stewart Wilson is creator of “Personaland,” an online global community that is dedicated to supporting artists of all media. “Personaland” is hosted by “the Personas,” a collection of over 31,000 individual digital sculptures designed by Stewart. He was inspired to create “Personaland” through a chance meeting at Artwell with game designer, Kwame Antwi. Using 21st century digital technologies, “the Personas” have come alive in their world and can interact with an international community.