Grant Opportunities for Artists

The nearly 50,000 professional artists who call New Jersey home form the very heart of the cultural community of this state. And this is just the tip of the iceberg when one considers the thousands more for whom artistic creation, performance and interpretation are a vocational, cultural, religious or recreational interest of the highest personal and community priority. Artists are the creative capital of our communities and this is why it is the Arts Council's goal to promote them, encourage them, assist them to achieve their highest ambitions and help a wider public understand and appreciate all that artists do to make New Jersey a better place.

The Council supports artists in several important ways, through a wide array of programs and services that recognizes, encourages and showcases their talents. In turn, such recognition brings their work to the attention of organizations and communities everywhere to embrace and support this remarkable "creative capital" that helps make New Jersey great.

Individual Artist Fellowship Grants: Highly competitive awards to New Jersey artists in 12 different arts disciplines awarded solely on independent peer panel assessment of artistic quality taken from work samples submitted. The process is anonymous. The awards may be used to support the professional development of the artist. This program is carried out in partnership with the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.

Application Deadline: July 16, 2013
Guidelines and Application information

Awards for these disciplines will be announced in 2014.

• Choreography
• Music Composition
• Poetry
• Sculpture

Individual Artist Fellowship Schedule for 2011-2017

The New Genres in Visual Arts category has been cancelled. Those who previously applied in this category are encouraged to submit in another category that best represents their work such as Media/Digital/Electronic.

The Design category has been temporarily suspended. Graphic design artists are encouraged to apply in Works on Paper or Media/Digital/Electronic. Submissions in architecture, landscape design, industrial design and fashion design are temporarily suspended.

Folk Arts Apprenticeships: Grants to individuals to encourage cultural communities to continue passing on their valued art forms in traditional settings by providing stipends to master folk artists and craftspersons that can help apprentices develop greater skills. Since 1995 these modest grants have supported more than 100 apprenticeships in dozens of different cultural communities and scores of different art forms, reflecting the rich array of traditional arts in our state. Applications are available in the winter with a deadline for submission in the spring and awards announced in July.

Guidelines and Workshop information
Application Form

Artists and Communities Grants: (Program not offered for FY11) Administered as a cosponsored project of the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, these grants help underwrite the expenses of artist residencies both in New Jersey and the surrounding mid-Atlantic states. New Jersey artists may go into residence at a site in New Jersey or in another state. The object is to place an artist in a community setting and engage that community in a creative process that illuminates how artistic creativity can meet community needs.

Projects Serving Artists Grants: Awarded annually to support new or expanded projects of eligible organizations whose primary beneficiaries are artists who reside in New Jersey and whose work has or will benefit New Jersey residents. Projects also can be in the form of programs and services that address artists' needs or actual commissioning of artists to create new work.

New Jersey Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts: The Council was instrumental in the founding of the New Jersey Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts and currently helps it operate through a cosponsored project grant to provide affordable legal services to artists and arts organizations.

Arts Management Intern Program: Administered as a cosponsored program with Rutgers University, the objectives of the program are as follows: to provide practical experience to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as other applicants who intend to pursue careers in arts-related professions; to provide opportunities to promising arts administrators with policy and operations experience through working in an Arts Council program or office; and to provide New Jersey arts organizations with a major source of future arts administrators. For more information please contact Don Ehman at 609.984.7023.