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

by Molaundo Jones, Social Media Specialist at Fractured Atlas Suzi Banks Baum | Photo Credit: Jake Borden Suzi Banks Baum has been a member of Fractured Atlas for 4 years. Her project New Illuminations is an artist residency in Gyumri, Armenia bringing book arts and personal narrative writing to women artists. By reconnecting artists with the Armenian tradition of hand-bound books, New Illuminations extends care through art making in a community lying far outside the international gaze. It puts art supplies in hands of eager artists and builds a community of makers in a city hobbled by trauma and poverty.

by Colleen Hughes, Program Associate at Fractured Atlas After November 8, 2016, there were a lot of feelings circulating through the American arts sector: fear, confusion, anger, disappointment, sadness, lostness. Many people, myself included, were asking, “Where does my art and my identity as an artist fit into a USA run by our 45th president?” Well, luckily, Beth Pickens’s newest book, Your Art Will Save Your Life, is here to answer that question. I first discovered Pickens when I heard about her FREE Making Art During Fascism pamphlet, and once I learned of her book, I knew it would be an impactful one. Pickens is part counselor, part consultant for artists in Los Angeles. She began working on Your Art Will Save Your Life after November 8, 2016, as a way to support and encourage artists to keep doing what we do best: make art!

Back in September, we looked at some of the key principles of Ciara Pressler’s Game Plan. Pressler suggested that a good game plan must be measurable, because “if you can’t track it, you won’t hack it.” But what does it mean to have a measurable game plan?

If you’re looking for an older sister to help guide you along and offer both practical counsel and bottomless encouragement, Ciara Pressler has got your back. Game Plan is a workbook to help you think through and define your personal, career, and project goals. Pressler works with artists, creatives, and other innovators collaboratively to develop strategic plans to achieve their missions, and founded the Pressler Collaborative, a marketing collective devoted to that work. In that vein, this is not a book offering advice or “how-to” information. This book won’t tell you what your game plan should be, but rather how to go about crafting one, giving you blank space on the page to jot all your ideas and dreams down, and refine an actionable plan to meet those goals.

But very much look forward to cracking open in 2017 It’s that time of year again. That time when I feel surrounded by “Best Books” lists and realize that I purchased more than a handful of them during the past year that I’ve yet to crack open. It’s not because I’m no longer interested in reading them, it’s more because a few other things jumped the queue. (Thanks a lot, Netflix, for dropping The Crown and making me unexpectedly binge watch it.)

I confess to being somewhat mystified by the personal development aisle in the bookstore. Self-help I understand because boy do I need a lot of it. But there are always a couple of shelves worth of books that never quite made a lot of sense to me. I’m talking about books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People or The Power of Positive Thinking.

As you prepare to brave the roads, rails, and/or skies this holiday season, or just squirrel away under a pile of blankets, consider putting down the glowing screen and try some old school entertainment and enlightenment in the form of a book.

by Nathan Zebedeo, Program Specialist at Fractured Atlas Educating yourself on fundraising — best practices, groundbreaking innovations, and the like — often involves reading books, blogs, and websites that travel a lot of the same ground. Which, on the one hand, can be somewhat tedious. But on the other, hearing the same things many times, from a variety of voices, can allow the wisdom of the ages to actually penetrate a thick skull like my own. All of this is to say that it’s rare that I pick up a book on fundraising and find something that I’ve never heard before. The Little Book of Gold: Fundraising for Small (and Very Small) Nonprofits by Erik Hanberg actually does shed some new light on old problems for me, and I hope that it can be a useful resource for you too.