Our annual series of Artist Business Skills Workshops provide artists with the basic skills and knowledge they need to advance their professional careers. Previous topics have included workshops on What to Expect from a Portfolio Review; Writing An Artist Statement with Toby Sisson; Photographing Your Artwork with Stephen DiRado; Presenting Works on Paper with Tim Johnson; Intellectual Property with Greg Kanaan; and Pricing Your Artwork and Accounting For Artists with Anna Koon, founder of The Focusing Series for artists.
Coming up next:
Photographing Your Work
with Erik Gehring
Saturday, December 14
10:00 AM – 12:30 PM
at 44 Portland Street, 2nd floor (Be Studios)
The Artist Statement
with Toby Sisson
Saturday, January 11
10:00 AM – 1:30 PM
at 44 Portland Street
Artist Business Skills Workshops are free to current ArtsWorcester members, but limited in number of participants. If you have questions about your membership status, please call the gallery at 508-755-5142.
Thank you to the Melvin S. Cutler Charitable Foundation for supporting the Artist Business Skills Workshops.
Material Needs Grants 2020
Call for proposals
Deadline: Monday, January 6, 2020
Material Needs Grants, funded by an anonymous donor, support the expenses of supplies and materials for the creation of new art in Worcester County. With this gift, we are able to distribute grants to local artists between $500 and $1,500. We generally exhibit the new work in the following exhibition season (awards made in early spring of 2020 will go towards the works shown in the 2021-2022 exhibition season).
View guidelines and our application checklist here.
When is the deadline? Midnight on Monday, January 6, 2020. Applications made after this date and time will not be considered.
What expenses could be covered by a Material Needs Grant? These grants are restricted to expenses incurred for the supplies, material, and equipment (purchased or rented) needed to make new art. Proposals for any and all kinds of visual art, including performance art, are welcome.
What expenses are not covered? Examples of expenses not covered would be studio rental, framing, publicity and promotional costs, reception expenses, insurance or transport of artwork.
How are proposals evaluated? Proposals are considered by committee for their novelty, innovation, potential impact (on the viewer, on your career, and on other artists in the area), and feasibility. Can you do it? And can you do it in one calendar year?
Who sits on this year’s committee? Jennifer Davis Carey, artist, previous MNG awardee, and Executive Director of Worcester Education Collaborative; Hank VonHellion, artist, Program Managing Director at the Worcester Pop-Up; and Kristina Wilson, Professor of Art History, Clark University.
Who is eligible? You must have held ArtsWorcester membership for at least a calendar year immediately prior to applying for a Material Needs Grant, and you must reside in Worcester County. We regret that members residing outside of Worcester County are not eligible. If you have previously received a Material Needs Grant, you must wait three years from the previous application date before applying again.
How do I submit? All submissions must be made online through Submittable. Email and hard copy proposals will not be considered.
When will I find out if I have received a grant? By the end of January, 2020.
And then I just make the art? Yes–and awardees receiving grants made in 2020 should expect to have works completed with their funds exhibited in the fall of 2021.
Good luck!
Gravity/Levity: A Juried Members’ Exhibition
Call for Art
Deadline: Monday, February 3, 2020
Notifications: By February 17, 2020
*Please note, our call for a June exhibition is placed now to enable artists to plan ahead for the many overlapping summer sculpture opportunities. Please do not submit work if you cannot guarantee its availability for our exhibition dates.
Sculpture may be perceived as having significant weight, but often the finished work contradicts the medium. A buoyant image can be formed from the heaviest material, while a deeper narrative might be constructed of light paper. ArtsWorcester invites submissions of sculpture that interact with ideas of weight and/or weightlessness, both conceptually and materially. Sculpture in any media is eligible for consideration.
Lisa Crossman, PhD, Curator at the Fitchburg Art Museum, will serve as juror. Five hundred dollars in prizes will also be awarded, and winners will be announced at the opening.
Selected works will be exhibited in our state-of-the-art galleries from June through August, 2020. The space offers complete physical accessibility, nearly 2,000 square feet of exhibition space, professional installation, museum-quality lighting and labeling, ceiling anchors, and plywood blocking in all walls. A stationary loading dock is available for load-in.
All members of ArtsWorcester are eligible to submit work. Submission is free and each artist may enter two pieces for consideration.
Work must be submitted online by Monday, February 3, 2020.
Submission requirements:
- Current ArtsWorcester membership is required to submit.
- Each artist may submit two works of art for consideration and work must be registered online using this Submittable form. Email and hardcopy submissions will not be accepted.
- All work must be original, created within the last ten years, and not previously exhibited at ArtsWorcester.
- One image is required for each submission. Artists may also choose to include up to two additional detail images or alternate views for each submission.
- All works must be able to fit through a doorway 58″ wide by 84″ tall.
- All works must be able to handle a rigid loading dock (3 feet tall). Artists with exceptionally large or heavy pieces must provide a crew to load the work into the gallery.
- No single element of any artwork hanging from the walls or ceiling may exceed 50 pounds. All hanging systems must be tested prior to submission to ensure safe and successful installation.
- All work must be exhibition ready at time of delivery.
- ArtsWorcester provides pedestals, but artists may bring their own if they wish. All pedestals will be painted white to match the gallery.
Above image: Madeleine Lord, Follow the Leader, welded scrap steel