30 Detroit Artists to Receive a Total of $550,000 – No Strings Attached
Metro Detroit artists working in Literary Arts and Visual Arts are invited to apply for a 2023 Kresge Artist Fellowship.
Kresge Arts in Detroit will award 20 fellowships and 10 Gilda Awards to artists of all career stages living and working in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.
Kresge Artist Fellowships are $25,000 no strings attached awards plus a year of professional development support including workshops, mentorship, and promotion (for example, the MI Emmy Award-winning film series). Gilda Awards are unrestricted $5,000 awards plus professional development opportunities.
Artists apply for both awards using the same online application. Awards will be divided between the two categories—Literary Arts and Visual Arts—based on the number of applications received in each category.
“The process of applying for a Kresge Artist Fellowship helped me move through the passion, the muddle, the rejections toward clarity, toward a deeper understanding of what I do,” shares 2012 Literary Arts Fellow Mary Jo Firth Gillett. “In our naysaying world, to receive a Kresge Artist Fellowship is to hear a voice saying ‘We see your talent. We value your art.’ That’s an enormous gift.”
Kresge Artist Fellows and Gilda Award recipients are selected by independent panels of distinguished local and national artists and arts professionals. Previous applicants are strongly encouraged to re-apply, as new panels—with fresh perspectives—are convened each year.
“The Kresge Artist Fellowship application process is extremely generative. By the time you’re done, you’ve crafted an artist statement, community impact statement, biography, CV, and a portfolio of your strongest pieces. Those are the elements necessary to apply for any number of grant and funding opportunities in Michigan and nationally,” says poet, storyteller, and 2021 Kresge Artist Fellow Jeni De La O. To prospective applicants she shares, “The Kresge name is well-recognized in academic and artistic circles and having it on your resume opens up doors. Even if you aren’t selected, the process expands your network and exposes you to resources and opportunities you might not otherwise hear about. Go for it, you won’t regret it.”
