Career Development Grant

Last year (9/2017) during the 20/20 tour was the first time I have publicly shown my art, after taking many years off to raise our family. This grant would help me to afford to paint new work and prepare my display area for hanging art. The previous year (2017) I was a guest artist and shared a space with two other artist, at one of the artist's residence. This year I have the opportunity to display my work at my own residence (in my pole barn), but I need to prepare it for visual and safety reasons. This is considered a major local art showing, premiering artists of the North Shore area at their residence and having some guest artists from outside areas. Last year I wasn't registered early enough to be mentioned on the brochure. One month after, I will have another showing at the Cedar Coffee Co. of Two Harbors for the months of November and December. They have become known in the area as major arts supporting venue and have featured artists of substantial quality. Both the 20/20 Tour and the Cedar Coffee Company are open to the public, I would welcome them to sign a guest book with feedback and keep a log, as I can, myself. I have a sense of quality of my own art and want to be able to have the time to create more new work for these shows of this quality and better. The grant would allow me to take the time in research and execution new work. I want to be able to establish my direction, style and continuity. Since going back to painting last year, in the last 6 months I've wanted to further explore a direction of painting that I've done in the past, but didn't pursue. I want to continue with this style that I'm excited about and as the weather gets more reasonable to apply this style in my plein air work. The grant would allow me to work in the earliest part of July to concentrate on working directly outdoors and representing the North Shore area. I want to collect information directly and then apply my line technique. This body of work would show the extent of my style that will be displayed during these showing and will help to create more opportunities to display my work. This will help immensely to establish my career as an artist locally again.