I was surfing my list of websites to check each day in order to keep up with the visual arts in the Carolinas and on the NC Arts Council’s website I found a couple of interesting items. First was the press release for an exhibition taking place in Rocky Mount, NC, featuring the NC Arts Council’s 2006-07 visual art Fellowship artists – all 14 of them.
Now it should be noted that the visual art Fellowships are only selected every other year in NC. So, to keep comparison with what the SC Arts Commission does – that would be like 7 Fellowships a year. You know this had to be about the SC Arts Commission if you know me and have followed my commentary.
Fellowship awards are financial awards given to reward an individual artist – on merit alone – decided by a panel, usually made up of qualified jurors from outside the state . These jurors look at slides of artists who have sent in an application for the Fellowship by a stated deadline. So the selection pool is made up only of people who apply. That’s an important item to remember. Fellowship awards also are given with no strings attached. Unlike matching grants or grants for specific projects – artists who receive Fellowship awards can do anything with the money. They’re not even required to create another piece of art – if they so wish. So for an artist, it’s the best kind of money – totally free. But, probably not tax free – not sure.
One of the reasons this press release caught my attention was the fact that it was about a curated exhibition of the Fellowship winners. The good folks at the SC Arts Commission don’t seem to think that part of the Fellowship thing should be an opportunity for the public to see works by the artists selected. In the past there have been a few retrospective exhibits by past Fellowship winners and when the calendar fell at the right time, recent winners were included in past Triennial exhibitions, but they don’t seem to see any value in giving the winners an exhibition or the public the opportunity to see what kind of work is being made by artists being rewarded in SC.
The exhibition at the Rocky Mount Arts Center in Rocky Mount will be on view through Sept. 21, 2008. It’s an opportunity for anyone – even folks in SC to go see what kind of works these Fellowship artists make. At least the Fellowship winners in NC.
On this same visit to the NC Art Council’s site I also found two other very interesting press releases about Fellowship awards. The two were listing the artists who were in the final running for the FY09 Fellowships for Visual Art and Crafts. These two articles were stunning to read. In the Visual Art category it listed 84 artists who were selected out of the 324 applicants – from which up to 13 will be selected for the Fellowship awards. In the Crafts category, 20 artists were listed out of the 109 applicants – from which up to 4 will be selected.
It seems that in 2007 the NC Arts Council made some changes to their Fellowship program – increasing the number of Fellowships by separating craft artists into their own category and the amount of money given to each recipient.
OK – artists in SC – you better sit down for this. Fellowship artists in NC are now receiving $10,000 – each.
NC is now selecting up to 17 artists at $10,000 a pop – $170,000 to visual artists – every other year. Or, for those who are slow with the math that’s 8.5 artists and $85,000 a year.
In SC, at best the SC Arts Commission has given 2 to 4 Fellowships a year (one year 5 and a couple just 1) and the money has fluctuated between $2,000 and $7,500 at its highest. Currently the award is $5,000 for 4 awards – every other year. And, that was just increased.
It’s clear that SC is far behind when it comes to this Fellowship thing – in numbers awarded and money given to the recipients. Well, after all SC is a smaller and poorer state, but as I’ve said before in other commentary the real shocker is that the SC Legislature gives the SC Arts Commission more money per citizen than the NC Legislature gives the NC Arts Council. And, although NC has more citizens netting them a bigger budget – they seem to be able to do more with the money they have. It could be that their staff is much smaller than that of the SC Arts Commission. The SC Arts Commission has one of the largest staffs in the nation for such a poor state. So less money is going to artists and for programing. A smaller state should use less staff than a neighboring state that has a much larger population – right.
Here’s another factor in how effective the two programs are. The NC Fellowship program for FY09 received 433 applications. Not too long ago the SC Arts Commission had to make a second call for applications because less than 6 applied and they can’t make an award with that few applications. SC’s visual artists didn’t feel it was worth applying for. But free money is free money.
Here’s another thing that amazed me about the press releases from the NC Arts Council. They were giving us 104 names of artists who were in the final running. They will select up to 17 out of that pool for the final awards. The SC Arts Commission only mentions the “alternate” artists in case the first picks are disqualified for some reason. I’m sure it’s great to know you came in second. But they keep the names of who applied from the public – at least they don’t volunteer the names. I’m sure you could get them by filing a Freedom of Information request, but why should we have to do that? What’s the big secret?
When you start playing with the numbers, for every 2 Fellowships the SC Arts Commission awards – the NC Arts Council awards 8.5. In five years that’s 10 to 42.5. In ten years it’s 20 to 85. Of course that’s if NC doesn’t keep expanding their program. Of course they didn’t always give so many each year. When they first started making Fellowship awards they only gave 4 a year much like SC, but they quickly increased their program while SC’s has slowly gone into decline. And, we don’t even want to get in the amount of money each state has awarded to artists. I don’t want to upset SC’s artists. But I bet you could find some artists in NC who wouldn’t think they are that well off – especially with so many people applying for the award. That means there are also more artists in NC who haven’t received a Fellowship, but were hoping to get one. I guess the grass is always greener…