RELEASE: Announcing the Clark Hulings Foundation for Burgeoning Visual Artists
A NEW GRANTS-AWARDING FOUNDATION FOR WORKING ARTISTS TO ACCEPT APPLICATIONS, SEPTEMBER 1-30, 2013
(June 2013) — There is good news for all early-career, professional artists who need a financial helping hand. Making a recent announcement about the trail-blazing goal of the Clark Hulings Foundation for Burgeoning Visual Artists was Elizabeth Hulings, daughter of its namesake, Clark Hulings, and her mother, Mary Hulings.
Explains Elizabeth Hulings: “My mother and I felt compelled to answer a need that we saw woefully unaddressed. We want to support talented artists who are audacious just like my late father. He was fortunate to have been able to finance a midlife transformation from commercial illustration to easel painting, thanks to some savings. The Clark Hulings Foundation recognizes that, for most artists, that option does not exist.”
That is, until now. From September 1 through 30, 2013, The Foundation will accept applications from early-career painters and sculptors to pursue the same course of success that Clark Hulings enjoyed. “Many working artists have tangible prospects for advancing their careers but lack financial resources to capitalize fully on those opportunities,” says Elizabeth Hulings. The first two grant winners, who will each receive up to $5,000, will be announced in November 2013.
According to Elizabeth Hulings: “Most grant money targeted to artists is for education and training, some of it is for residencies and the rest winds up going to exhibiting institutions. Almost no one is supporting the working artist. My mother and I recognized this deficiency and came up with the mission of the Clark Hulings Foundation: to empower burgeoning artists to follow in Clark’s footsteps so that the world can enjoy their art work, as we do his.”
The guiding principle of The Foundation is to aid emerging talents in ways other programs do not. “Perhaps a gallery has offered to mount a one-person show but the artist cannot afford the plane ticket or to take unpaid time off from a day-job to attend it, or to ship the art in the first place—where can this artist turn?” asks Elizabeth Hulings. “By providing responsive support at these fateful junctures in an artist’s career, The Foundation will improve the prospects of promising artists and thus ensure that a larger audience will encounter and be enriched by their work.”
