Support for Individual Artists

The Fund for Folk Culture, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has initiated a series of gatherings, supported by a grant from the NEA, to examine topics relevant to folk arts and traditional culture. The first of those meetings was held in its home town at the Wheelwright Museum on March 13 and 14 to discuss the needs and concerns of individual artists in the folk and traditional arts field.

2002, 368 pages with 322 illustrations. The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, 830 N. Tejon Street, Suite 120, Colorado Springs, CO 80903, (719) 635-3220

The Space Program was the first chance I had to entertain the possibility that a life in art might be possible.
— Alison Moritsugu

March 8, 2001 New Haven, CT

Woke up. Couldn't make tea 'cause it's my first night in these Eldorado Apartments, my second night at Yale, and I haven't got any tea 'cause yesterday when I arrived there was a big snow storm and all the stores were closed.

Swallowed my meds and took a shower. Quickly turned on my laptop to review the work I'd done on the BROTHER script last night.

2001, 157 pages, $25. The New Press, New York.

"Anonymous Was a Woman" is a brilliant name for a grant program focused on supporting individual women artists. The phrase is taken from A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf's classic statement of the challenges facing females seeking to create art. With these four words, Woolf succinctly and powerfully evoked the centuries long struggle of women to gain recognition as artists. Yet there is much more to this innovative grant program than its thought-provoking name.

Although most grantmakers get involved in program development, it is rare to have the chance to build an entire foundation giving program from the ground up. However, that was exactly the challenge Olga Garay encountered three years ago as the first program director for the arts hired by the newly established Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF). The New York-based foundation was created in 1996 as part of Ms. Duke's estate, whose family wealth came from her father's tobacco company and Duke Power.

When we initiated an artist award program at The Durfee Foundation a few years ago, we decided to use financial need as one of several criteria for support. Durfee is a relatively small family foundation, and the trustees feel strongly that the foundation's modest resources should be applied where they will make the most difference. This is true across the board at the foundation, not only in the arts, but in our other programs as well.

The Potrero Nuevo Fund is a donor-advised fund housed at the Tides Foundation in San Francisco. Established about five years ago by Bill Laven and Christine Pielenz, the Fund supports projects in the arts, the environment, and sustainable architecture. While the Fund's giving to environmental and sustainable architecture projects is international in scope, the arts giving is focused on the Bay Area, and primarily on individuals and arts education.

Co-sponsored by the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS and the National Association of Artists Organizations, Friday, October 13, 2000, the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, California