Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue—known for launching the careers of many young artists and recognizing exceptional talent among those already established—is returning to Boston after five long years. Beginning today, the organization is accepting applications from all visual artists living and working throughout the metro Boston area.* The organization, founded originally in 1997 in San Francisco as The Arts Council, encourages individuals and collaborative artists working in all media and at any stage in their career to apply. Artadia Awards range in value between $5,000 and $20,000, with ongoing professional support and are unrestricted, supporting artists directly and raising the visibility of creative practice around New England and across the country.
In addition to Boston, Artadia has active award programs in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area with awards granted to artists within a participating city on a rotating basis. The recipients are determined through a rigorous, two-tiered jury process (initial application, studio visit) that employs internationally renowned curators, artists, and critics.
This marks the 3rd time in its 15-year history of award cycles that Artadia has set its sights on Boston. The last was in 2009, with Claire Beckett, Ambreen Butt, Xiaowei Chen, Caleb Cole, Raul Gonzalez, Eric Gottesman, Amie Siegel, and Joe Zane as the final recipients. After the announcement in 2009, Big Red & Shiny's James Nadeau talked with four of the awardees to ask them about the application process:
James Nadeau--Having gone through the whole process of application, finalist, and awardee, what are your thoughts on the experience? I realize that this is a somewhat inane question so I'll flesh it out a bit. I am curious about your thought process because the anticipation can be overwhelming. On one hand the stakes involved are enormous - if you win, it validates your work and brings some pretty great exposure- however, there are the emotional complications around the act of competing with other artists (some of whom might be friends). I'd like to know what you think.
Raul Gonzalez--The experience was wonderful . The lead up to the visit was very similar to how I would prepare for an exhibition, deciding which works should be shown over others with an outline of how the presentation should proceed. Meeting the artists and becoming familiar with their work was exciting, I've always been told that Boston has a small community of artists and while I knew a few of the artists I found it refreshing to meet artists with whose works I was unfamiliar. I was honored to be surrounded with this talented group of hard working individuals. The artists in this group are very diverse and talented within their practices and are doing it to create and not to compete, I continued to create and develop ideas to prepare for my visit.
Amie Siegel--You know I don't believe I thought about it that way. It seemed more like it would be a studio visit with curators whose work I've found of interest, and indeed it was a compelling conversation.
Joe Zane--Well, fortunately for me I didn't really have time to get anxious about this one. Artadia was one of several pokers I had in the fire at this time. And the process was remarkably quick. There was hardly time to get used to used to each phase before you were on to the next one - especially the time between the studio visits and the announcement. It was just 2 days! I'm pretty grateful for that. Waiting is horrible. As far as competing against other artists; I didn't really have a sense of competing with this. Artadia was very supportive of all the finalists and there are seven spots. It's not the 'there can be only one' mentality.
Claire Beckett--Something about the Artadia process made the stakes feel very high, probably it was the effect the two-tiered jurying system and then there was the small matter of having 3 curators in my studio at one time!
For more insight and to see the rest of this interview click here. The deadline for applications is October 24, 2014 at 6PM EST.
*Eligible Cities: Arlington, Belmont, Beverly, Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Dedham, Everett, Gloucester, Lexington, Lynn, Malden, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Marblehead, Medford, Melrose, Milton, Nahant, Newton, Peabody, Quincy, Revere, Saugus, Somerville, Stoneham, Wakefield, Waltham, Watertown, Winthrop, and Woburn.
For access to the web-based application, please visit:
artadia.submittable.com/submit
