“How can we support artists across the country, keeping in mind that each community presents a unique set of circumstances? The answer is simple, yet often overlooked: we do it together.”
Deana Haggag and Shelley Trott write in Artnet about a new collaborative fellowship between Kenneth Rainin Foundation and United States Artists to support artists in the Bay Area.
Four Bay Area artists are the inaugural recipients of The Rainin Fellowship. Administered by United States Artists, the Fellowship funds artists working across Dance, Film, Public Space, and Theater who push the boundaries of creative expression, anchor local communities, and advance the field, explains the announcement.
They write,
Working together over the last two years, we created the Rainin Fellowship—an annual program that provides artists with $100,000 each in unrestricted funds, as well as a variety of professional supports. By pairing the Rainin Foundation’s deep understanding of our local community with United States Artists’ national lens and expertise working directly with artists, the result is something both resource-rich and finely calibrated to the needs of a specific place. We built this fellowship to respond to the issues facing artists in the Bay, but the partnership model behind the program can and should be used in communities across the country.