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Artists at Work sends out a newsletter on the first of every month with new jobs and opportunities listings. This includes calls for art, residencies, grants, fellowships and more!


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Resources

We strive to keep our community apprised of professional development opportunities, including grants, fellowships, residencies, and more.

Maine Grants

Ellis Beauregard Foundation offers project grants in the amount of $10,000 that support bold, compelling, risk taking work in and outside of the standard exhibition venue.

The Kindling Fund supports artist-organized projects that engage audiences and incorporate the visual arts in inventive and meaningful ways.

Maine Arts Commission encourages and stimulates public interest and participation in the cultural heritage and cultural programs of our state; expands the state’s cultural resources; and encourages and assists freedom of artistic expression for the well being of the arts, all while meeting the needs and aspirations of persons in all parts of the state.

Maine College of Art & Design offers grants exclusively to students and alumni. Students can apply for the Above and Beyond Grant, alums can apply for the Belvedere Grant for Craft and the Epic Grant.

Maine Expansion Arts supports arts organizations and arts-based programs in Maine serving rural communities and/or Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, particularly in areas with limited access to the arts.

Maine Humanities Council Arts & Humanities grants, a partnership between the Maine Humanities Council and the Maine Arts Commission, support innovative community projects that have BOTH arts and humanities components.

National Grants

Artist Trust offers a curated list of national funders for individual artists.

Berkshire Taconic offers grants to New England artists who have demonstrated financial need.

The Center for Craft, Creativity and Design Craft Research Fund advances, expands, and supports craft, art, and design scholarship in the United States.

CCI The Center for Cultural Innovation understands working artists need direct support to develop their creative practice and provides grants to provide the support needed.

CIES: Offering a Fulbright grant to lecture, conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields, or to participate in seminars.

Creative Capital is a national nonprofit organization that provides integrated financial and advisory support to artists pursuing adventurous projects in all disciplines.

Elizabeth Green Shields Foundation promotes an appreciation of traditional expression in painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking, by aiding worthy art students, artists or sculptors who need further training or other assistance during their formative years.

The Gottlieb Foundation wishes to encourage artists who have dedicated their lives to developing their art, regardless of their level of commercial success.

Harpo Foundation’s Grants for Visual Artists award provides direct support to under-recognized artists 21 years or older.

NEA Independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities.

The Puffin Foundation has sought to open the doors of artistic expression by providing grants to artists and art organizations who are often excluded from mainstream opportunities due to their race, gender, or social philosophy.

QUEER|ART|AWARDS is an initiative of grants, prizes, and residencies that includes a spectrum of support—monetary and otherwise—for LGBTQ+ artists.

Sustainable Arts Foundation supports artists and writers with children. They make annual unrestricted cash awards to individuals; at least half of these awards are made to applicants of color. They also support artist residencies in their efforts to make their programs more family friendly.

Women Arts provides women artists a list of resources for grants that can help them in their professional careers.

Fellowships

The Artists’ Fellowship, Inc. is a charitable foundation that assists professional fine artists (painters, graphic artists, printmakers, sculptors) and their families in times of emergency, disability, or bereavement.

CAA: College Art Association’s Professional-Development Fellowships support promising artists and art historians who are enrolled in MFA and PhD programs nationwide.

Chronicle Books Design Fellowship offers two graphic design fellowship opportunities within the Design Department. The Children’s Books & Gift Graphic Design Fellowship and the Books & Gift Fellowship.

The Clark: multiple fellowships available for artists and scholars at this Massachusetts museum.

Grant Wood Art Colony in Iowa City, IA, offers fellowships in Printmaking and Painting & Drawing that provide a $40,000 teaching salary, benefits, housing and studio space.

The Guggenheim Foundation offers fellowships to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color, or creed.

Headland’s Graduate Fellowships provide meaningful support to recent, promising MFA graduates, in partnership with esteemed Bay Area academic institutions.

Ox-Bow welcomes twelve fellowship students from all over the nation. These students live on campus for the duration of the summer season, where they participate in campus life as both staff members and as artists.

Pew Fellowships in the Arts (PFA) annually awards up to 12 fellowships of $60,000 to artists of exemplary talent.

The Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program annually selects and supports 50 leading artists and scholars who have both exceptional promise and demonstrated accomplishments.

The Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies supports professional development in museum education, evaluation, and new media.

Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, offers fellowships where residents receive an individual studio, private room, and all meals.

Maine Residencies

Acadia National Park Artists Residency encourages artists to create fresh and innovative new ways for visitors to experience Acadia National Park through the arts.

Arts are Elementary Residency provides annual professional artist residencies to each of Brunswick’s elementary school classes.

Ellis-Beauregard Foundation Artist Residency Program The residency is envisioned as inclusive and diverse, prompting reflection and dialogue with other residents and the community, offering the gift of concentrated time and space in which to unveil new ideas and imagine new ways of working.

CMCA Artist Residency Presented in collaboration with the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, The CMCA Artist Residency Program is open to artists who identify as Black, Indigenous, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latinx, or alternately identified persons of color who live year-round in Maine.

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Haystack’s core summer workshops include one- and two-week sessions in blacksmithing, clay, fibers, glass, graphics, metals, and wood.

Heliker-LaHotan Foundation Residency Program It was the wish of Jack Heliker and Robert LaHotan that their home and studios on Cranberry Island in Maine continue to be used by artists. To this end they left their estates to the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation, with a mandate to operate the complex of buildings on Cranberry Island as a place for artists to live and work. The three-to four-week residencies are designed for mid-career artists of established ability, not emerging talents.

Hewnoaks Artist Residency Artists with an adventurous spirit are invited to live and work at Hewnoaks between late June and mid-September.

Illustration Institute’s Marilyn Faison Artist Residency The mission of the Marilyn Faison Artist Residency is to provide illustrators, writers and narrative artists an opportunity to create in relative seclusion on Peaks Island, just off the coast of Portland, Maine.

Indigo Arts Alliance provides an environment for the production of artwork in all media across disciplines. The residency program aims to connect Black and Brown artists from across the globe to local artists of African descent.

Monhegan Artists’ Residency Monhegan Artists’ Residency provides free comfortable living quarters, studio space, a stipend of $150 per week, and time for visual artists to reflect on, experiment, or develop their art while living in an artistically historic and beautiful location.

Monson Arts Monson Arts’ residency program supports emerging and established artists and writers by providing them time and space to devote to their creative practices. They receive a private studio, private bedroom in shared housing, all meals, and stipend. Application for this program is open to anyone at any stage of their career, working in visual arts, writing, and related fields (i.e. audio, video, photography).

Searsport EcoArt Residency: The Parsonage partners with Digital Printmaker to offer an artist residency devoted to exploring ecological issues. Artists have the opportunity to spend 2 weeks in Searsport in either the autumn or spring on the Maine coast.

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Open to advanced visual artists and art students in painting, sculpture, fresco, installation, performance, video, photography, mixed media who are at least 19 years of age.

SPACE Artist-in-Residence Program Designed to provide a unique working environment for national emerging and mid-career artists, writers, filmmakers, curators, and collaborative groups, this program is committed to highlighting the contributions of queer artists and artists of color.

StudioWorks Residency at Tides Institute Museum of Art (TIMA) offers residency opportunities to visual artists from the U.S. and abroad to deepen and develop their practice within a community setting. Located within the historic downtown and working waterfront of Eastport, Maine TIMA’s downtown StudioWorks building contains private studios, common work areas, and a ground floor printmaking and letterpress studio.

Surf Point Foundation Surf Point Foundation provides time, space and support for the visual arts community to think, connect and create. We offer three-week, live-work residencies to nominated artists and art professionals throughout the year on the coast of York, Maine.

Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts Watershed residencies offer extended time in an open-studio setting, providing space to explore, experiment, and reflect. The only prerequisite is comfort working independently in a ceramics studio.

National & International Residencies

Artist Communities: ACA is a resource for artists, providing a searchable residency directory that spans disciplines; and other resources to help artists find, apply and fund a residency experience.

Resartis: A global network of vetted residencies for artists, curators, researchers & creatives

Trans Artists: combines and shares knowledge and experience on artist-in-residence programs and other international opportunities for creative professionals to temporarily stay and work elsewhere.

Entrepreneurship

New Ventures helps people all over Maine venture in new directions by offering tuition-free programs for career, business, and financial education.

CEI Maine, a nonprofit with a mission to build a just, vibrant and climate-resilient future for people and communities in Maine and rural regions by integrating finance, business expertise and policy solutions in ways that make the economy work more equitably.

Small Business Development Center assists entrepreneurs and small businesses through no-cost confidential business advising and training.

SCORE Maine SCORE mentors advise emerging and existing small business clients about financial matters such as cash flow management, achieving a healthy balance sheet, improving the bottom line and arranging financing. SCORE also advises on business planning, marketing and numerous other areas of importance to a successful small business.

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Studio Spaces

Here is a selection of studio spaces within 25 miles of Portland:

There are a variety of artist studio spaces available in the Portland area. This information can change frequently, but Creative Portland has a directory of spaces that is searchable by medium.

Maine Organizations

AIGA is a national organization that advances design as a professional craft, strategic advantage and vital cultural force. AIGA Maine is the local chapter that offers memberships to access networking, programming and events, as well as additional benefits.

Creative Portland is a nonprofit organization that seeks to leverage, grow, and sustain Portland’s creative industries, enterprises, and workforce. As the City’s official local arts agency, they provide connections, maps, and a bevy of additional resources as well as managing the listings for Portland’s First Friday Artwalk.

MADE: Maine Ad and Design: To celebrate, cultivate, and connect Maine’s professional creative community, including advertising, design, and marketing agencies, corporate marketing teams, media organizations, independent professionals and students.

Maine Arts Commission is a State of Maine agency devoted to enhancing the cultural heritage and cultural programs within the state. Their programs include arts accessibility, arts education, grants development, media arts, public arts, traditional arts, visual arts, and more, and they offer a variety of grant opportunities.

Maine Crafts Association is a nonprofit organization that provides advocacy for craft artists, with a focus on marketing and sales opportunities, business and creative development programs, public education, networking and more. They offer memberships that provide established and emerging craft artists with connections and visibility.

New Ventures helps people all over Maine to venture in new directions by offering tuition-free programs for career, business, and financial education.

The Union of Maine Visual Artists (UMVA) represents visual artists statewide in all fields of endeavor. They collaborate with other cultural and political organizations and raise awareness for significant issues while promoting an inclusive arts community in Maine.

Additional Resources

Art Deadline has been dedicated to world wide distribution of information for artists and institutions; part of their mission is to sponsor grants to help artists as arts is an important and innate part of the human experience.

Call For Entry Cafe is a resource for finding national and international calls for art.

GYST is an artist-run company providing resources, technology and solutions created by artists for artists.

Hyperallergic is a forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking about art in the world today. Founded in 2009, Hyperallergic is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York.

Sunlight Tax is a great resource for artists and freelancers. Hannah Cole, the founder empowers creative workers with accessible tax and business setup skills. They provide engaging tax workshops for creative audiences.