What do people really think when they get your grant application?
I am in the process right now of reviewing grant applications submitted for a yearly grant offered by the County Arts Council. I am on the Visual Arts Committee so I am reviewing fine arts. There is a separate branch of the jury reviewing performing arts and literary submissions. This is a regional program so therefore it is quite a small group of applicants, but I think my observations can be useful to any artist applying for a visual arts grant. It may not be a Guggenheim award, but most of this advice will be relevant regardless of the grant opportunity an artist may pursue.
Most grant applications now are submitted via online applications that will standardize your formatting to match every other applicant. Read the directions carefully. There is often a word limitation and the program will cut your statement off in mid-sentence if it rambles on too long. Consider your audience. Who is reading your grant application? People familiar with the art world as it relates to your discipline. In my group we have a former director of a prestigious museum; two people who serve on many other public arts boards and have decision power at other organizations you may be applying to in the future, and other artists. It is never a waste of time to get your work in front of these folks, even if you are not awarded. The award amount is not particularly large, but artists should apply for any grant available to them because it gets their work out in front of arts related people in their communities (and beyond) and it also provides a resume building block from which the artist can go on to apply for more recognized and competitive grants and fellowships if they are awarded. You never know who is going to remember your work down the road or when you will encounter a juror again. Submitting to competitions has the potential to enhance your career in other ways besides the actual award. It is worth the effort. Even though this is a “rinky-dink” regional competition, the jurors came from other parts of the country and have national ties to the art world.
I will repeat this because it is so important: Read the directions carefully! In our preliminary meeting, 3 artists were eliminated due to technicalities related to their application. These were artists who passed the initial check at the Arts Council so on the surface their applications looked okay and complete. The technicalities included submitting a weblink to visuals that was password protected and the artist did not provide the password. The portfolio was not viewable. Another artist submitted a link that was no good, she typed in the address of her link wrong. The grants committee is not going to do an internet search to find your portfolio. Artists need to double and triple check their links before submitting an application. I felt bad for those artists, but at this stage of the game, the committee is looking for anything to throw out applications prior to the review process. Don’t get weeded out because you flubbed on something important like access to your portfolio.
How does the jury process work? In this case, we met as a group to initially go over the applicants. We received a list of applicants and the 5 page guidelines the applicants received. We received a rubric to grade applications on a scale from 0-5. The organization told us of any issues with any applicants (residency requirements, links to visuals) and three were scratched off the list. Two more were designated with a question mark for further investigation. We met as a group initially and we have a week to review all the submissions for our category and we will meet again in a week to go over our impressions and discuss each eligible applicant and will select one winner. It was decided that at the second meeting we would first read off our “no’s” as individuals and any applicant getting the majority of “no’s” would not be further reviewed. This will be the meat of the jury process—the discussions about the small pool of applicants who make it to the final round and the comments made by the various jurors to sway other jurors one way or the other.
Read the directions carefully! What is the purpose of the grant as stated in the overview of the grant? Several artists in the pool of submissions spoke about how broke they were. This particular award is not based on financial hardship—it is based strictly on merit, meaning the quality of the portfolio submitted and how the artist would use the funds to further their professional career is what mattered, not financial hardship. If the grant you are applying for is not strictly financially based, then keep the comments about your financial challenges to a minimum. Mention them if relevant but don’t dwell on them. One juror was quite irritated by one sob story submitted because she felt the whole tone of the application was “begging”. A very vocal critic in the jury room may influence the rest of the panel. We received applications for book projects (on a non-art related subject) and collaborative art projects. While the applications were among the more professional looking entries, they did not meet the criteria for an individual artist award. Worthy projects, wrong funding source.
This brings me to my next point, my own pet peeves in this jury process. Religion and name dropping. There are two artists submitting applications and their statements are infused with their religious beliefs. These artists assumed they were talking to other “believers” when weaving their love of the lord into their artist statements. This is a PROFESSIONAL competitive process. Such statements to me smack of hobbyist or dabbler, not professional. This was before I even viewed the work. A negative impression was formed based on the artist statement. Do not assume the jury shares your personal beliefs whether it is politics, religion or anything else “controversial”. Such inclusions have the ability to immediately dump you on the “no” pile if you have a juror who does not share your beliefs. If it isn’t absolutely relevant to the images you are submitting, leave it out. One applicant mentioned a famous sports related figure he worked for in the 1970′s 3 times in his application. Absolutely unrelated to anything else in the application or the artistic merits under consideration. Why include it? Remember the jury is looking for a reason to winnow down the pool of applicants quickly. Why give them any reason to cut your application immediately?
Quality of images matter. This is all the jury has to judge your work. If you submit sloppy visuals, it looks like you don’t take your career seriously. Consider hiring the best professional you can find to shoot your art work. Make sure the professional photographer has shot artwork before. They might be great at portraits but lousy at art work. You need someone familiar with capturing the details of your work accurately. Many of the images submitted may have looked fine to the artist, but when we received them as PDF files and tried to blow them up to see detail, many of the images were fuzzy and out of focus. Some images were poorly cropped or had hot spots from bad lighting. Two artists submitted shots of themselves in front of their work or holding their work. Again—this is a PROFESSIONAL level of competition. If you look like you just won a pie contest at the county fair, you look like a rank amateur to the jury. Your visuals need to be the best they can possibly be. Do not skimp on quality photography. Play around with your images and view them at different sizes before you submit them to make sure the image is readable and accurate on the screen. For many artists (me included) the digital frontier is an intimidating mystery. Take the stress and mystery out of it by hiring a professional. Artists need to learn how to do it themselves also, but in the meantime hire a professional to give yourself the best possible consideration in a competitive applicant pool.
This process has been a real eye opener for me as an artist. The harshness of throwing out applications right out of the gate surprised me. The jurors most eager to do that have sat on juries before. Having spent several hours reviewing applications last night, I now understand why they may be anxious to cut as many people as possible for the smallest of technical infringements prior to any review. Reading some of the statements was downright painful. I now appreciate brevity and clarity of expression. Artists can and should pare down their statements to a couple of paragraphs. Just because you have a page and a half to write a statement doesn’t mean you have to fill up every square inch of the page. Don’t ramble on and on. Be concise.
I found myself irritated by bad photography. If the artist doesn’t care enough to submit quality images, why should I waste my time looking at it? A professional portfolio and a clear artist statement was a breath of fresh air. Those applications stood out because they seemed to value the juror’s time and they presented the work in a quality way. This told me the artist took their career seriously. Don’t talk down to the jury. One artist wrote a statement on his technique that attempted to speak above the average viewer. What the artist could not have possibly known is that my own background is in the same area and his statement struck me as pure bullsh_t. Remember you are talking to a jury of your peers who may be well aware of every process involved in your particular type of work. Explain it briefly in plain English if it isn’t readily apparent, but don’t make it sound like you are engaged in programming trajectory coordinates to launch the Space Shuttle.
I encourage every artist to volunteer to serve on a jury panel. What you will gain in terms of the process and the ability to view a lot of applications will help you prepare a competitive application for your own art career. It also puts you in contact with other jurors who are connected in the art world and does so at a peer level. Local, regional and state panels regularly put out calls for prospective jurors.
I would like to thank Creative Capital for encouraging artists to serve as panelists at their Professional Artist Development workshops. As an artist you don’t really think about some of the things you have to consider when you are on the other side of the jury table. It is vital to be aware of the little things that can get your application thrown out and how anxious a panel is to narrow that pool down before investing any time into the review process. Seeing the process from the other side will only help an artist when it comes time to submit for their own applications and give them a new appreciation for the jury process. Be brief. Be professional. Good luck!
Jean M. Judd
August 13, 2010
Thank you for the indepth blog post from someone currently jurying a grant proposal. The details DO matter. I myself have seen grant submissions (after the fact) by artists who had not won the grant they thought they should. Even just in my quick glance through, I found several errors and pointed them out and the artist was upset that I pointed out what they thought were minor errors (grammar, wrong context, etc) in their beginning paragraphs.
I think that so many of the small errors come from submitting the package at the last minute. Too much of a hurry to get it done and not checking (and rechecking) what has been submitted.
Stephanie Forsyth
August 13, 2010
Thank you so much for sharing this experience! Delving into the grant world can be scary at first. I’m curious about your opinion on a few things:
The artist statement: What do the jurors look for in it? (I have an extremely hard time writing this as a fiber artist.)
The proposal: How much detail should go into this? Was there a common denominator of what the jurors seemed to like in the ones left in the final stages of the process?
Thanks for the great article!
Artist at Large
August 13, 2010
Hi Stephanie– I can’t really give you precise advice other than read the guidelines for the grant very carefully. Every grant is different so you will have to modify your application for each one.
The artist statements that resonated as basic honest statements about what the artist was trying to accomplish, possible influences and possibly a little bit about technique or medium were the best of the bunch. Why do you do what you do? Why do you do it using the particular medium you choose? Why do you say what you need to say in fiber as opposed to painting or some other medium? Why is fiber the best way to deliver your message? Not all of those points have to be addressed in a statement, but they are questions an artist can ask themselves when writing a statement to give them a frame of reference.
Statements that were too vague, engaged in “art speak” or wove in religion left me with a negative impression. Does the artist have a vision? Where are they coming from in the body of work submitted? Can they articulate it concisely? Can they articulate without the juror having to find a dictionary to look up vocabulary words?
Get on the email mailing list for Creative Capital and sign up for one of their Professional Development workshops for artists (free to artists if you are selected). The workshops are awesome opportunities to talk to professional artists about the realities of making it in the art world and get the nuts and bolts tools to accomplish your goals. One of the presenters at the workshop, Jackie Battenfield, has a book out called “The Artist’s Guide – How To Make A Living Doing What You Love”. I also can’t stress enough how helpful it has been to me as an artist to serve on a jury panel. Every artist really needs to do that! It really gives you a framework for how a jury panel approaches the judging process and it makes you aware of the little things that will make or break your application.