The Fellowship Program seeks to support professional and committed artists reaching pivotal moments in their artistic practice, as well as their career advancement and growth. Applicants are expected to demonstrate why now is the appropriate time in their career for this one-time award.

Candidates for the Visual Artist Fellowship are identified through an open application process. All eligible applications receive equal consideration through a two-round review process (pre-screen review and juror review).

The Visual Arts Fellowship is not an award to support a specific art project, recognition of lifetime achievement, or for artists just beginning their careers.

The Fellowship Program began in 1986 with the Visual Arts Fellowship. In 2019 the program was expanded to include Performing Arts.

The Fellowship is awarded to professional performing artists in Utah to acknowledge their artistic excellence and to encourage their ongoing career development.  This fellowship is awarded based on review by prominent performing arts professionals outside of Utah.

The 2022 Utah Artist Fellowship will award six unrestricted $5,000 visual arts fellowships. These unrestricted cash awards allow artists to decide how the funding will best support their lives and work.

Utah Arts & Museums is the oldest publicly-funded state arts agency in the nation, with beginnings legislated in 1899. From its inception, the performing and visual arts have been an integral component in fulfilling the goals of the agency to increase awareness and understanding of the public value of arts and culture, as well as invest in communities by strengthening the arts and cultural infrastructure. The tradition of recognition and support of excellence continues for individual artists through the Fellowship Program.

Artists practicing in visual arts media such as painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, sculpture, craft, installation, traditional arts, and new genres are eligible. New genres include video, sound, performance, and other media-based arts. Visual art must be a primary, significant, and integral component of the media.

Artists may be deemed ineligible if these criteria are not met. Narrative and documentary filmmakers are ineligible. Artists whose primary practice is performing arts (music, dance, acting) may be eligible for the Performing Arts Fellowship. More info here.

Applicants must meet all of the following requirements to apply.

• Must be 25 or older at the time of the deadline.
• Artists must be originators of work submitted.
• Must be a Utah resident 2 years prior to application.
• Previous Visual Arts Fellowship recipients may not apply.
• Must have a legal right to receive taxable income in the United States.
• Individuals enrolled in any undergraduate, graduate, or post-graduate degree-granting program are not eligible to apply.
• Artist teams are not eligible to apply.
• Immediate families, board or committee members, and employees of the Utah Division of Arts & Museums are not eligible.

*Fellowship recipients are responsible for all applicable federal taxes. We urge that you keep all receipts and other appropriate records for tax filing purposes. Please consult a tax accountant with questions; we unfortunately cannot advise on tax matters.

The Utah Division of Arts & Museums is a state agency involved in public funding for arts and museums. As a public entity, it reserves the right to make final decisions on the use of public funds for projects, programs, acquisitions, commissions, or other activities as deemed appropriate by the Division and/or Board.

UA&M promotes equity that involves all people, including those who have been historically underrepresented in policy-making and fair access to resources.

If you require a paper application, you can print your application and mail it to our office, along with a USB drive of images/videos. Please do not use staples, paper clips, or include any extraneous awards, pamphlets, or promotional materials. They will not be sent to the juror. Please only use this method if you have difficulties with an internet connection or uploads. Postmark deadline for mailed applications is March 7, 2022.

Application forms can be mailed to: 
Visual Arts Fellowship Program
Utah Arts & Museums
617 E South Temple, Salt Lake City, UT 84102

To request an accommodation, please contact our Accessibility Coordinator at mmileham@utah.gov or 801.236.7552 at least two weeks in advance.

Round 1 - Prescreen
Applications are reviewed by staff for completion, eligibility, and adherence to published guidelines. Applicants meeting eligibility requirements but whose applications are found to be incomplete will be contacted and given the opportunity to withdraw and resubmit their application. 

Round 2 -  Juror review
The juror will evaluate image work samples, artist statement, artistic accomplishments, creative contributions, and dedication to the field of visual arts via your CV/Resume. Six fellowship awardees will be selected by the juror and notified by UA&M staff via phone and email. Fellows will be announced publicly in April.

Allison Glenn (she/her) is a curator and writer deeply invested in working closely with artists to develop ideas, artworks, and exhibitions that respond to and transform our understanding of the world. Glenn’s curatorial work focuses on the intersection of art and publics, through public art, biennials, and major new commissions by leading contemporary artists. She is one of the curators for the Counterpublic triennial, opening April 2023 in St. Louis.

Recently, she received substantial critical and community praise for her curatorial work in the groundbreaking exhibition at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky titled Promise, Witness, Remembrance. This year, Glenn was listed as one of the 2022 ArtNews Deciders and on the 2021 Observer Arts Power 50 List.

Submissions open - Monday, January 17, 2022 
Application online info sessions - Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 10 am & 6 pm
Submissions close - Monday, March 7, 2022
Artists notified of results via email - End of April 2022
Professional development sessions begin - May 2022

A recording of our fellowship info sessions can be found on our YouTube page. 

All fellowship applicants will be invited to participate in professional development online workshops. These workshops will offer training and career preparation to build and maintain a thriving artistic practice.

Taxes for Artists, Freelancers and Creative Businesses with Hannah Cole, ENROLLED AGENT, of Sunlight Tax
May 4, 2022 | 11am -1pm
What can I deduct? Do I bring receipts to my accountant? Is my art a business or a hobby? What is a Schedule C? How do I deduct my home studio?  Why do freelancers have to pay taxes quarterly, and how do I do that? Hannah Cole is a tax expert who specializes in working with creative businesses and artists. A long-time working artist with a high-level exhibition history, and a tax and money columnist for the art blog Hyperallergic, the financial challenges of freelancers and small creative businesses are both relevant and personal to Hannah. She will discuss the basic tax equation, self-employment tax and the estimated quarterly tax system, audit concerns for the creative person, and other tax issues specifically relevant to artists and makers, followed by a question and answer period. Hannah Cole is the founder of Sunlight Tax, which specializes in friendly, informative tax preparation for artists, engaging, art-world savvy tax education workshops for artist groups, and in empowering creative people to set up for long-term success and take control of the financial side of their careers through her year-long artist-centric membership, Money Bootcamp.

Artist Statement Workshop with Paddy Johnson
Thursday, May 5, 2022 | 11 am - 1 pm
Make your artist statement work for you. Whether you’re starting from scratch or updating a pre-existing statement, this course will give you the skills to clearly articulate your intent and goals. The statements produced in this class will position you for success when applying for residencies and grants, playing a crucial role in increasing your work's exposure as well as sales potential.

Led by Paddy Johnson, a New York-based writer known for her work editing artist writing, this workshop offers the opportunity to write in a supportive environment and learn the craft of describing your artwork in vibrant, active prose.

The goal of this workshop is to be generative. By the end of our time together, you will walk away with the ability to write about your artistic practice, gain confidence in the studio, and the tools and techniques to produce new statements with each body of work.

Paddy Johnson has started an advice column for artists and arts professionals on Hyperallergic.

Artwork Preservation Workshop with Marie Desrochers (Visual Artists)
NEW DATE Wednesday, May 18, 2022 | 11 am - 1 pm
Marie Desrochers is an art conservator who currently serves as the Preservation Outreach Coordinator for the State of Utah's Division of Arts and Museums. In this role, she is launching the Utah Collections Preservation Program which will provide training for small collecting institutions across the state. Marie graduated in 2021 from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, where she was a National Endowment for the Humanities Graduate Fellow with a major in Preventive Conservation. She spent her third year internship working at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Her background includes fine arts, chemistry, and art history. In this program, Marie will pull from her training in art conservation to help working artists troubleshoot preservation or material concerns in their practice, supporting the longevity of their work.

Applicants will be asked to provide the following information.

1. Bio: Maximum 300 words.
   A professional bio written in the third-person. May include the medium you work in, key themes found in your art practice, art related education, awards, significant past or current projects, where you are from, and where you live and work.
2. Artist’s statement:  Minimum 200 words, maximum of 500 words.
   A statement written in the first-person describing your art practice and the overarching concepts behind it.
3. Description of intent: Maximum 300 words.
   Please describe why this fellowship award is important to your artistic practice and development.
4. Images or video of artworks:
   1. You may submit a maximum of 10 images of artwork from the last five years. Please note that your application will be reviewed based on your whole body of work with an understanding that the pandemic has affected the production and presentation of new works.
   2. Work samples cannot be from work completed in pursuit of a higher education degree.
   3. In the Submittable form, you will be required to list the title, medium, year completed, and dimensions of images/videos.
   4. There is an area to enter your website or social media artist profile, this is optional, the juror may select to review it or not.

   5. For new media artists submitting videos:

      • You may upload only one video with a maximum run time of 10 minutes. The video may contain up to 5 individual work samples. Installation shots and stills may be part of the video if they are a component of the new media work (video, installation, etc.). Artists submitting a video may upload only 5 still images of other works in addition. Still image submissions are intended to be additional works that are not part of the works shown in the video (2D, sculpture, etc.). Video applicants may also include a link to their video via a platform such as Vimeo or Youtube in the description section.

5. Professional CV: Maximum of eight pages. It may include:
   1. Education
   2. Documentation of exhibition history 
   3. Awards/grants  
   4. Commissions/collections   
   5. Publications   
   6. Gallery representation

Submittable helpful hints:

• Please white-list or add the domain name submittable.com to your safe sender list through your email service. This will ensure you get notifications from us. Check spam filters as well. 
• To save and continue editing, click the "save draft" button. This will allow you to log back into Submittable and continue editing your application.
• Once you click the "submit" button on the fillable form, you cannot go back and edit your application. You do, however, have the option to withdraw a submission and start over. As with any online submission form, it is advisable to review the questions and information that are required and complete them in a savable document, then cut and paste them into the form to prevent loss of data. If you are having technical difficulties, call Submittable at (855) 467-8264, ext. 2.
• There is an individual attachment limit of 400 MB and a cumulative attachment limit of 800 MB per application on Submittable.