The Individual Artist Fellowship program annually awards to up to 18 creatives in six categories grants that recognize their accomplishments as mid- and advanced-career creatives. The program traditionally had three categories but expanded in 2021, thanks to funding from the Windgate Foundation.

Fellowship grants are $5,000 each and are unconditional grants that require no matching funds and are made directly to individual creatives. The grants recognize creatives who live and work in Arkansas and who make an impact through their creative works. The grant does not fund a specific project but allows creatives the opportunity to devote more time and energy to creating and mastering their creative craft.

Fellowship applications open online Friday, Dec. 30, and close at 5 p.m. Friday, April 14. An independent panel of creatives will select recipients. Selected creatives will be recognized during a special reception and celebration in Fall 2023.

How to apply

Applications are accepted through our grant portal. Although each category is different, generally, each application requires a portfolio uploaded in a .pdf or .doc format through our grant portal platform.

All application material is submitted anonymously. Please do not include names on files, images, etc.

What you need:
1. An anonymous portfolio of your work that includes a narrative statement or narrative video.
2. A photo of yourself and a three-sentence bio that the Arts Council can use to promote you, if you are selected.

Click here to apply

Categories

Multisensory Art

This category showcases creatives who create work that is experienced through more than one sense: sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell. A growing trend nationwide, multisensory artwork combines at least two senses and creates new, immersive and dynamic ways to experience art. Examples include light art combined with digital art; touchable artwork with artistic meaning; highly designed and presented food art; infinity rooms; “Whispering table” and audience engagement or participation. Applications for this year’s Fellowship awards in this category must include a tactile (touch) component.

Criteria:

• For the 2023 award, applicants must incorporate tactile elements (touch) with at least one other sense to create a multisensory art.
• Multisensory artwork opens access to viewers by offering multiple ways to experience the same piece. This can benefit people who struggle with accessibility.
• Applications must include a portfolio that includes between five and 20 images with detailed descriptions (title, date of creation, method/medium and details that showcase what you do) and a narrative statement (up to 3,000 words) that answers the questions:
  • How does your work fit into this specific category?
  • Why is your work important to you and/or your community?
  • What is the story behind your work and you as an artist?
  • How has your art been viewed or engaged people in your community, statewide or nationwide?
  • Where are you in your creative journey? 
• For this category, we recommend creatives include links to videos that better showcase the textile/visual nature of their works.

Community Engagement Art

This category uses art to create community dialog or engage residents with art and each other. The art is a mechanism to inspire, invoke and evoke dialog, inspire change or understanding, educate and bring unity to communities. The work should address something the community cares about, create dialog and/or activities toward solutions, and establish or embolden relationships that improve the community’s quality of life, inclusion, place identity and/or preservation. Examples of community engagement art include murals and public artworks where the piece or process inspired change or raised quality-of-life standards or where theater/plays were performed using original scripts produced in public collaboration that created community dialog and conversation. Creatives involved in multiple community engagement works are welcome to apply and showcase the breadth of their endeavors.

Criteria: 

• The individual creative’s work must include aspects of public engagement, such as surveys, education, community advancement or activation, place-saving, community dialog, listening sessions, town hall meetings and/or presentations of history, fact, community or social issues, etc.
• The community engagement category requires that the exhibition/experience/body of work presented was free and open to the public and was held in an accessible way for all Arkansans.
• The individual creative’s work must show a community impact or engagement that is demonstrated through the submitted portfolio.
• Creatives are encouraged to provide supplemental information, such as links or images inside the portfolio for newspaper clippings, photos of activities, quotes from participants, etc.
• The Fellowship requires the submitted works were on display or accessible for at least one day.
• The exhibition/experience could have been presented virtually, indoors or outdoors.
• Applications must include a portfolio that includes between five and 20 images with detailed descriptions of each image (title, date of creation, medium/method, details about what you do) and a narrative statement that answers the questions:
  • How does your work fit into this specific category?
  • Why is your work important to you and/or your community?
  • What is the story behind your work and you as an artist?
  • How has your art been viewed or engaged people in your community, statewide or nationwide?
  • Where are you in your creative journey?

Contemporary Craft

This category focuses on nonfunctional crafts created by using traditional and/or historical methods or materials and using modern and contemporary aesthetics or concepts. The creations should be “art of today” in the truest sense in that the work today with Arkansas heritage and past through the mechanism and lens of traditional arts and crafts. Contemporary craft does not have to be functional, but it traces its history back to traditions rooted in functionality. Traditional crafts, such as quilting, is then used to create a contemporary work emblematic of what Arkansans experience today. Examples of contemporary craft include creating quilts made from scraps from evicted renters; exploring the intersection of arts and place through crochet; and using metalworking molds to create larger-than-life portraits of modern Arkansans.

Criteria:

• For the 2023 award, the contemporary art or craft must include a metal component, such as metalworking, knifemaking, wiring, jewelry making, metal pouring, metal construction.
• The contemporary craft must focus on visual aspects and be a visual piece.
• The work is non-functional and focuses on aesthetics over use.
• The work is accomplished using a heritage, cultural or historical tradition method but produces artwork that does not prioritize function.
• Applications must include a portfolio that includes at least five (up to 20 images) with detailed descriptions of each image (title, date of creation, method/medium, details about what you do) and a narrative statement (up to 3,000 words) that answers the questions:
  • How does your work fit into this specific category?
  • Why is your work important or significant to you and/or your community?
  • What is the story behind your work and you as an artist?
  • How has your art been viewed or engaged people in your community, statewide or nationwide?
  • Where are you in your creative journey?

Traditional Categories:

Performance Art: Original Stand-up Comedy

This category seeks to recognize the original written and performed work of Arkansas comedians and comics. The work must be fully conceived, written and performed by an individual. Judges will be looking for funny.

Criteria

• The work must be original in all ways.
• Applicants are asked to include open-sourced links to their video performances, along with their written material, inside their portfolios. Applicants must submit three videos of 1 minute (up to 5 minutes) each.
• Please omit your name from any material submitted.
• Applicants should bleep out any vulgar words and blur any obscene actions incorporated into their comedy. Please use FCC (6 a.m. to 10 p.m.) TV standards to determine appropriateness (click here for details).
• Comedy must be in a stand-up style and not part of a skit or theatre performance. The applicant, however, can rework their own material to produce the content as a stand-up routine.
• Applicants are encouraged to submit information showing they have garnered public attention, such as performed in venues. Links to fliers, news clips, etc., can be added to the portfolio or inserted directly into the document. Please black out the applicant’s name.
• Applicants should submit a portfolio that includes a narrative statement (up to 3,000 words), three written routines that go with your video (for reading alongside) and three video of performances (up to 5 minutes each). A video also may be used instead of the narrative statement, but video or written narratives must answer:
  
  • How does your work fit into this specific category?
  • Why is your work important or significant to you and your community?
  • What is the story behind your work and you as an artist?
  • How has your art been viewed or engaged people in your community, statewide or nationwide?
  • Where are you in your creative journey?

Visual Arts: Oil or acrylic painting on canvas

This category seeks to recognize the traditional, experimental, experiential or expressive nature of painting on canvas through oil or acrylic works on canvas. Artwork must be original to the artist. This category is open to all methods and perspectives, such as realism, abstraction, cubism, expressionism, etc.

Criteria

• An individual artist, who is the applicant, created the submitted work in its entirety, from concept to completion. Any reference images used must have been taken by the artist. Works that are not original in all ways – from concept to product -- will not qualify.
• The work is on canvas.
• The work is done in the medium of either oil or acrylic – not both. This category does not include mixed media.
• Applications must include a portfolio that includes five to 20 images with detailed descriptions of each image (title, date of creation, method/medium, details highlighting what you do) and a narrative statement (up to 3,000 words) that answers the questions:
  • How does your work fit into this specific category?
  • Why is your work important or significant to you and/or your community?
  • What is the story behind your work and you as an artist?
  • How has your art been viewed or engaged people in your community, statewide or nationwide?
  • Where are you in your creative journey?
• Applicants are encouraged to submit links to any news stories showing the history of or features of their works, such as news stories. All submissions must black out the applicant’s name.

Literary Arts: Theatre monologue

In this category, the Arkansas Arts Council seeks to find theatre monologues expressed in new, inventive and unique ways. Monologues from all categories, from comic to soliloquy, are accepted. The category seeks the best writing that creates feeling, context, character, clarity and audience response.

Criteria

• Applicants must submit between three and five written monologues of up to 300 words each. Each monologue should be 90 seconds to 2 minutes long. A 2-minute monologue is equivalent to about 300 words.
• Submitted work may be published or unpublished.
• The work does not need to have been performed before an audience.
• Monologues should be written and added to the portfolio.
• All monologues should include an intro summary for panelists and to set context for the piece. The summary should note the date of creation, title of play, category of monologue and performances of play, if any. The summary also should include up to five sentences and that explains or sets up the monologue for panelists.
• (Optional) Applicants are encouraged to submit video with their written monologues showing the presentation of their monologues. The performer does not need to be the writer. The videos should be housed on free platforms, such as YouTube, and added as links into the portfolio. These videos are not required.
• The portfolio must include a narrative statement (up to 3,000 words that includes):
  • How does your work fit into this specific category?
  • Why is your work important or significant to you and your community?
  • What is the story behind your work and you as an artist?
  • How has your art been viewed or engaged people in your community, statewide or nationwide?
  • Where are you in your creative journey?
• Applicants are encouraged, but not required, to submit links or embed into the portfolio and/or any news stories or supplemental material showing where they are in their career journey. Please black out the applicant’s name in the submissions.