Mississippi Arts Commission’s Artist Fellowship program is focused on honoring Mississippi artists who demonstrate the ability to create exemplary work in their chosen field.
Donor Name: Mississippi Arts Commission
State: Mississippi
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Fellowship
Deadline: 03/01/2023
Size of the Grant: up to $5,000
Grant Duration: 12 months
Details:
The agency awards fellowships of up to $5,000 in several categories each year. The program does not require a cash match. Professional artists living and working in Mississippi are eligible to apply.
The Artist Fellowship program is highly competitive – only a small number of the total applicants each year receive an award. An artist may submit one Fellowship application per year. Those who are not awarded a fellowship may re-apply the following year. Applicants can receive written feedback from the review panel on their application.
Individuals who receive an Artist Fellowship are ineligible to re-apply for five years. Artist Fellowship recipients are not eligible to receive an Artist Minigrant during the same fiscal year of their Fellowship award.
Fellowship Categories
Certain artistic disciplines in fellowship categories alternate every other year (with the exception of applications in the Folk Arts category). Please select the appropriate category below:
Literary Arts:
- FY24 Categories: Creative non-fiction, playwriting, screenwriting
Media Arts:
- FY24 Categories: Film and video
Performing Arts:
- FY24 Categories:
Visual and Design Arts:
- FY24 Categories:
- Visual arts (Painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, and other fine art including glass, metal and/or woodworking)
- Design (including architectural design, fashion design graphic design)
- Other fine art including glass, metal and/or woodworking
Folk Arts:
- FY24 Categories:
- Visual Folk & Traditional Arts such as basketmaking, woodcarving, weaving, beading, painting, quilting, pottery, creative assemblage etc.
- Performing Folk Arts such as blues guitar, old-time fiddling, shape-note singing, traditional dance, etc.
- Folk & Traditional Arts
- What are the Folk and Traditional Arts? The folk and traditional arts are artistic expressions of community life. A community is a group of people held together by common bonds such as shared beliefs, language, identity, ethnicity, occupation, recreational interests, and regional affiliation. In short, folk arts often reflect the shared values, identity and aesthetics of a community.
- Am I a Folk Artist? Folk artists work within a community-based art form and demonstrate a balance of individual creativity expressed within a collective arts tradition. Traditional artists usually learn informally through apprenticeships, imitation, and/or face-to face instruction, and folk arts are usually passed down from one generation to the next.
- Examples of Folk Arts: Pine-needle basket weaving, Native American beadwork, bowl hewing, Gulf Coast boatbuilding, southern food traditions, storytelling, blues music, hip hop music and dance, leather working, blacksmithing, Chinese New Year celebrations, Our Lady of Guadalupe dance processions, and many other forms of community-based traditional art.
Project Period
- July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2024
Eligibility Criteria
You may apply for an Artist Fellowship if you are a professional artist producing work of high artistic quality.
Individuals are considered to be at the professional level if they:
- earn at least part of their annual income in their artistic disciplines,
- consider their artistic endeavors as a career,
- maintain a high level of artistic quality, and
- make a significant time investment in their artistic disciplines through practice, performance and production;
In addition the applicant must be:
- more than 18 years of age;
- not a full-time student; and
- a permanent, legal resident of Mississippi at the time of application and throughout the grant period. Applicants may be required to show proof of residence (such as driver’s license, proof of domicile, homestead, utility bills).
For more information, visit Artist Fellowship Program.
