The Mass Cultural Council is accepting applications for its Traditional Arts Apprenticeships Program to help communities preserve their own cultural heritage by fostering relationships between mentor artists and promising students, especially those sharing the same ethnic, religious, or occupational background.
Donor Name: Mass Cultural Council
State: Massachusetts
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 03/31/2022
Size of the Grant: $16,000 to $20,000
Grant Duration: 2 years
Details:
The Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program is designed to:
- Fund mentorships where apprentices learn directly by observing, imitating, and processing the critique of the mentor artist
- Support traditional arts lacking a strong infrastructure for cultural transmission, especially those that may be endangered
- Help communities preserve their cultural heritage
Funding Information
Awards have ranged from $8,000 to $10,000 per year for a total of $16,000 to $20,000 over the two years.
Grant Duration
Apprenticeships must take place between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2024.
Eligibility Criteria
You are eligible to apply if:
- You are 18 years or older.
- You have achieved a high level of skill in a traditional art form, learned your skills from acknowledged experts within the tradition, and are held in high esteem by your peers.
- You are already mentoring an individual apprentice who demonstrates interest and competency in the traditional art form and a long-term commitment to carrying the tradition forward.
- You and your apprentice are “legal residents” of Massachusetts at the time of application and will be for the duration of the apprenticeship.
To be eligible, your proposed apprenticeship must meet the following requirements:
- The proposed apprenticeship must be in a traditional art form.
- Traditional art forms are deeply-rooted cultural traditions that have evolved over time. They reflect a community’s shared sense of aesthetics and meaning and are shaped by culturally-defined standards of excellence. Traditional arts are typically passed on within familial, ethnic, tribal, religious, or occupational communities.
- A direct line of transmission within the community in which the art form originated is ideal but not always possible. Apprenticeships in historical styles (e.g., Colonial-era crafts) in which a direct line of transmission has been lost are eligible provided that the mentor artist is practicing with historical accuracy and cultural knowledge of the tradition.
- The mentor artist and apprentice will meet no less than 80 hours over the course of each year (July 1 to June 30) for a minimum of 160 hours over the two-year period.
- The mentor artist must submit a work plan that specifies what is to be taught and how (including the traditional techniques and methods involved) and must give a clear sense of how much time the mentor and apprentice will be working together.
- To encourage the participation of apprentice artists from all income levels, mentors must compensate apprentices who are 18 years of age or older.
For more information, visit Traditional Arts Apprenticeships.
