Individual Artist Grant - Edmonton Arts Council

Starting back in the spring of 2023, Arturo and I worked together on preparing a grant application to the Edmonton Arts Council.  We were looking to secure some funding to help pay for our Apparitions project.  This is a very ambitious multi year project.  It is a collection of images that portray a human presence, without any people present in the images.  The images themselves must be compelling and allude to a story, that the viewer is left to complete.

We wrote and re-wrote and modified our application a number of times.  We had one of our colleagues from the Monochrome Guild, who had previously sat on juries for similar grants, review and critique our application.  That lead to yet more minor revisions.  Eventually we submitted our application in the spring of 2023 and about three months later we learned that our application had been declined.  

Then this year, in the spring of 2024, we set about applying again.  This time around I attended an information session with some council staff to get some input as to what to do to improve our odds.  It was suggested to me that our first attempt was too broad and the time frame too long.  I was informed that if we requested funding for our immediate needs, and properly backed up our request, that our odds would improve.  So we re-focused our funding request on the immediate need of printing and presenting our work for gallery exhibition, and re-wrote the grant.  We solicited a whole bunch of background information to back up our request.  Then we set up an appointment with the Arts Council for a critique of our application.  After that meeting even further final revisions and adjustments were deemed necessary.  Finally, at the end of March we sent it in.  The number of applications that are accepted for funding is traditionally quite low, so we were not all that optimistic.

All in all I estimate, that over the two years of applications, I spent probably something in the order of 75 to 100 hours writing the application, editing and re-writing it, attending meetings, preparing sample images and obtaining backup information.  My colleague Arturo spent close to the same amount of time on it.  We had countless writing and brainstorming sessions over beer, wine and wings at various pubs around town.  In the end it seems it all paid off.

Recently I received notice that our application had been approved for funding.  There were nearly 500 applicants, and around 100 of them were approved, to share in around $2 million in funding.  This is not insignificant and will go a long way towards supporting our project.  We were dumbfounded and gobsmacked when we got the news, but also very grateful, and satisfied with the effort that we put in.

We now have a timeline, as the grant comes with conditions and a deadline.  By January of 2025 we need to have 30 of our strongest negatives printed, framed for exhibition, and packaged ready for transport to gallery exhibitions.  And, now that we have funding secured and know that the exhibition will become a reality, we also have to commence submitting to galleries for exhibition opportunities.