Creative Pinellas Announces the 2024 Emerging Artist Grant

(Largo, FL / Pinellas County, FL) – Creative Pinellas is pleased to announce their 2024 Emerging Artist Grant. These grants, which are open to applicants from July 19th through September 6th, 2023, aim to support and build meaningful relationships among the outstanding creative artists in Pinellas County and their audiences. It provides a solid foundation to nurture the creative community and elevate Pinellas as an art and cultural destination that draws tourists worldwide. Grants will be awarded for original work in the disciplines of choreography, literature, media arts, music composition, theater creation, visual arts, and interdisciplinary arts.

“This is always a significant grant for Creative Pinellas and for the arts community in the Arts Coast,” said Barbara St. Clair, CEO of Creative Pinellas. “By providing financial support, mentoring and an opportunity for an exhibition or performance, we are empowering individual artists and investing in their future. With these Emerging Artist Grants, we have been able to and continue to be committed to making space, resources, and recognition available to artists and communities who may not have had such access in the past.”

Emerging artists are defined as those who demonstrate excellence in their work, are widely recognized by their peers and the community at large for their work, and still have some ground to cover on their path to recognition as professional artists. So, for example, the emerging visual artist may have shown some work, but is still building a strong record of exhibition history, awards and commissions, or sustaining an income derived solely from sales and/or production and performance of their work. These artists are also early in their career, are quickly growing as artists and find themselves at an important moment when these grants would have an especially large impact on their development as a professional artist.

"I am proud to be a part of our grant programs like the Emerging Artist Grant which offers multiple opportunities for the grantees," said Creative Pinellas Grants & Business Manager Charlene Harrison. "The grantees receive a wealth of experience that will stay with them forever."

The Emerging Artist Grant program, now in its seventh year, selects up to ten artists for the annual program. Each artist will receive a financial grant of $2,000, a professional artist mentor, chosen specifically for them, who will work with them on a one-to-one basis during the grant period, and will be part of the Emerging Artist group exhibition, sponsored each year by Creative Pinellas. Artists are carefully selected by a panel of artists and curators based on their work, vision for the future and commitment to show or perform their work for the benefit of residents and visitors to Pinellas County.

"The Emerging Artist Grant has been instrumental in my artistic journey. It has pushed my artist vision personally and conceptually,” said 2023 Emerging Artist grantee Jenipher Chandley. “It provided me with the opportunity to embrace the challenge of time, and overall gave me confidence to push boundaries and evolve in ways I never thought possible."

Program guidelines, eligibility details, grant FAQs, workshops and the online application will be available atcreativepinellas.org/emergingartists starting July 19th, 2023 at noon and closing September 6th, 2023, at 11:59 pm (Eastern). Grantees will be selected on or around October 16, 2023. Creative Pinellas will work to pair recipients with an artist mentor to guide the grantee through their development as a professional artist. They will have several months to create new work culminating in an exhibition at the Gallery at Creative Pinellas tentatively set for Spring 2024 as well as a virtual gallery exhibit.

Over the course of the funding period, recipients will provide an insight into their creative processes for interested visitors 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.

For additional information on this grant program, contact Charlene Harrison, Creative Pinellas Grants & Business Manager at Creative Pinellas at grants@creativepinellas.org.

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Art Uplifts Humanity

We Uplift Art and Artists All Across Pinellas County

Our mission is to foster and sustain a vibrant, inclusive, and collaborative arts community across Pinellas County. We provide support, connection, and opportunities to artists, organizations, and the public in order to grow and sustain the area as an internationally recognized arts and cultural destination.

As the County’s Local Arts Agency, Creative Pinellas and the programs we deliver are funded by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners, Visit St Petersburg / Clearwater, the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and by sales of the State of the Arts specialty license plate in Pinellas County.