Creative Pinellas Announces Return of Professional Artist Grant

Creative Pinellas announces the return of their Professional Artist Grant, designed to support and sustain Pinellas County's creative community and to enhance the County as an arts and culture brand. The program provides an unrestricted, non-matching financial award to Pinellas County artists of outstanding talent and ability who, with a history of increasingly successful work on the local, national, or international stage, bring recognition, awareness and interest to our community, inspire other artists and art lovers, and help make Pinellas County a vibrant arts and cultural community.

The online application period opens on Monday, October 8, 2018 and closes on January 7, 2019 at 11:59 p.m. New this year, the Grants of $5,000 each open to performing artists as well as to artists doing original work in literature, interdisciplinary, media arts, music composition, theatre/musical theatre/dance and visual arts. Program guidelines, a sample application, grant FAQs, and the online application will be available at creativepinellas.org/grants when the grant period opens.

Also new this year is a $10,000 Artist Laureate grant presented to the artist who receives the highest overall panel score and who is interested in serving as a partner/collaborator with Creative Pinellas, sharing their skills, and expertise and supporting the organization's mission over the grant period.

"The Professional Artist Grant program reflects Creative Pinellas' desire to support our professional artists, and to provide them with the resources they need to continue living, working and contributing here in Pinellas County," said Christopher Hubbard, programs manager for Creative Pinellas. "It aligns with our ongoing mission to provide high quality, transformative programs that add value for the people and communities they serve, from artists and arts organizations, to the residents and visitors of Pinellas County."

Funds for the grant program will be available in early 2019 and can be used to support artists' efforts to advance their careers in their chosen disciplines in the widest sense. Over the course of the funding period, which ends in September 2019, recipients have opportunities to have their work showcased by Creative Pinellas and to provide insights into their creative processes through blogs posted at creativepinellas.org. Past awardees have written about current projects, critiques on work in progress, reflections on life as an artist, and more.

"We are very excited about our fourth cycle of grants to professional artists," said Barbara St. Clair executive director of Creative Pinellas. "Already, looking back we can see how the program has progressed and how much it has delivered to the community. Past recipients of this grant have gone on to help budding artists, either as mentors for recipients of our Emerging Artist grant, or as instructors in our Arts Insider Workshops. We are so fortunate to live with such a vibrant arts community, and we work to keep that community well supported for the benefit of our residents and visitors alike."

For more information about all of Creative Pinellas' Impact Returns Grant Programs and to apply, please visit creativepinellas.org/grants