In 2022, the Society awarded two (2) grants of $2,000 each to individual craft artists who are advancing their craft field or their personal career through innovation. In 2023, the Society will award four (4) grants of $3,000 each, with award cycles in the summer and winter.
The Society’s Craft Innovation Jumpstarter is a new artist support program that focuses on craft artists who take chances, learn through experimentation, and want to connect with others working on similar creative problems. In its pilot phase, the Society’s program will provide grants to artists needing financial resources to pursue new directions or to advance new ideas in their work.
Please see eligibility requirements below. Click here to read about our 2022 awardees.
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The pursuit of craft necessitates a problem-solving mindset: Craft makers are ingenuitive explorers, material risk takers, and small business owners. They pursue new ideas and solutions for their work with empathy and deep understanding of their materials and processes. Their imagination and lifelong learning offer exciting opportunities for discovery and interdisciplinary innovation. But when craft artists are ready to bring their solutions and innovations to the next stage, they often lack the necessary finances and other support to be able to make investments toward their new direction. The Society of Arts + Crafts seeks to address this gap by providing a new platform of resources—financial, informational, and experiential through the Craft Innovation Jumpstarter.
Over time, the Craft Innovation Jumpstarter seeks to develop a rich community of problem solvers and risk takers, whether they are working in longstanding craft traditions or aiming to pioneer new kinds of processes, materials, and forms of expression. The Society will use the program to foster connections between the craft field and other domains that draw upon the know-how of craft practitioners.
The pursuit of greater equity, inclusion, and diversity in the craft field will be an important focus of the program.
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