With the ACT’s lockdown placing immense strain on the local arts sector, the annual grants round funded by volunteer-led not-for-profit Capital Arts Patrons Organisation (CAPO) comes at an opportune time.
With $32,000 made available by sponsors through 20 grants ranging in value from $500 to $5000, the funding will support local artists in a range of ways.
“Even that $500 goes toward buying a piece of equipment they need to go to the next stage,” CAPO president Penny Jurkiewicz told Canberra Daily.
Jurkiewicz said the available funds will be a significant boost to Canberra’s arts community at a time when support is most needed.
“Most artists I have spoken to are still managing to produce at home, some that can’t because they need studio access,” she said, “They’ve not given up in that respect.”
The money is distributed across multiple artistic practices: there is a writer’s grant, two performance-based grants, five emerging artist awards, with the remaining going toward mid-career and established artists.
Jurkiewicz said the funding goes to individuals or groups working in “any medium where they’re creative”.
Past recipients have put their grant funding toward anything from equipment and studio time to work-related travel or even just paying rent.
“They use the money, which is great, they don’t sit on it,” she said.
CAPO fellow ‘very grateful’
Incumbent CAPO fellow, established local visual artist Julie Bradley, told Canberra Daily receiving the $15,000 associated with the fellowship in 2019 was first and foremost a “recognition” of her practice.
“It’s a great hit for your confidence, great for self-esteem and a really nice light in the tunnel when you’re working away by yourself,” she said.
“I’m very grateful to CAPO.”
The funding Bradley received was initially intended to go toward an exhibition in Melbourne last year. With the pandemic quashing those plans, the show was serendipitously picked up by Belconnen Arts Centre as an inaugural exhibition for their August 2020 reopening.
“It worked out really beautifully and filled the requirements for the grants,” she said.
Having self-funded her 35-year career as an artist by working as a tertiary art educator, persistently applying for grants over months and years paid off for Bradley when she was chosen for the coveted CAPO fellowship.
“I put a submission in every year for 20 years, it was such a shock,” she said.
“I have a pile of rejections every month … but you still apply for them.
“Even getting your information in front of those people judging you is quite a good thing because you never know where that’ll go.”
Current lockdown ‘definitely trickier’ than 2020
Emerging local ceramics artist Abbey Jamieson told Canberra Daily her 2019 CAPO emerging artist grant allowed her to host an exhibition with her colleague Rowan McGinness at ANCA Gallery in Dickson.
“It was nice to have that buffer to be able to follow through with the project,” she said, “without CAPO it would have been quite tight to actually pull it off.”
Currently without access to the soda kiln at Canberra Potters due to the lockdown, Jamieson said this time around has “definitely been trickier” than 2020.
“Last year I had enough clay at home, I was making and still intermittently able to fire kilns at Canberra Potters,” she said.
Despite this setback, she’s able to do a bit here and there in the home studio she shares with her partner, using her small electric kiln to make pots inspired by the extended time in the garden of late.
As for what the next few months might hold as the ACT emerges from lockdown, it’s a guessing game for Jamieson as much as it is for the rest of us.
“Making plans is a bit tricky,” she said.
“As things start to open up, I’ll look into firing a kiln again to fill a few orders that are a few months overdue.”
With this year’s CAPO grant applications open for another three weeks and numbers down a little, Jurkiewicz hopes to receive as many applications as possible before deadline.
“Normally by the end of the application period we’d have around 65 and this year it’s far fewer,” Jurkiewicz said.
“And I’m not sure why, whether people are feeling a sense of despair and lack of energy to apply … I seriously don’t know.
“These grants are here so please, get your skates on quick.”
Jamieson said a lot of her contemporaries are struggling with their mental health, as is the case right now throughout society.
“Not necessarily from a business point of view but personal point of view, a lot of my colleagues are down in the dumps with everything that’s going on, which is pretty understandable,” she said.
“On a personal level, people are struggling and, as a result of that, the creative juices aren’t flowing.”
CAPO grant applications are open until midnight 4 October, visit capo.org.au for more.
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