TO APPLY PLEASE GO TO http://instantartgrants.org/
Summary
My wife, Courtney, and I are living in Asheville and want to make a difference at home. Today, we are personally providing up to $5,000 in small, rapid cash grants to queer, black artists in Western North Carolina. Artists can apply through this form: www.instantartgrants.org.
Because we don’t think the “market” of prospective recipients are sitting there thinking “I wish some white people would pay for my art to be printed” but probably are thinking “I wish there was someplace to just get money to print this one thing…” and so we’ve put together our rapid prototype website.
Why we’re doing this...
Our family normally lives across the street from the new HBO headquarters in Los Angeles. Courtney is a yoga mommy, and I work with tech startups and make art, sometimes for big brands. Courtney also grew up riding horses to the bar to go dancing on her daddy’s boots. I’m going to ride my atv through the mud this afternoon with my dog. We’re bicultural, but not like mixed heritage, just mixed lifestyle. As you can guess, we haven’t found a lot of opportunity to build communities of like-minded and like-cultured people, because those communities don’t exist. (Until now?) So, we have been going back and forth between Los Angeles and an old house at the end of a unpaved road near the back of a holler in Fairview. By living about 75% in LA and 25% in Fairview, we get to live the life we want to live — and want our children to live.
The pandemic has changed things. We won’t put our young children in primary school while the institution struggles to find its footing, making tiny children pretend to wear masks for as long as they can tolerate. So we’re going to spend more time in Western NC. If we’re going to live here, we must live our values here.
Given the current cultural moment, we’ve been angstily unsure how we can help. We’re white people with a second home, so a privilege label would go undisputed. But, for what it’s worth, Courtney has helped hundreds of people of color start businesses, some of which went on to grow remarkably fast and raise venture capital funding. Among her recognitions for supporting diversity and inclusion is an Emmy for co-producing Véndeme Tu Sueño about Latinx social entrepreneurs, with Univision. Personally, I have worked for The Children’s Defense Fund, a powerful civil rights advocacy lobby and cultural institution. (I’ve also worked with several local nonprofits including The Moog Foundation and MAPS.) So we’ve known to stay humbly behind black voices in this; and now to tread gently where we we’d like to go.
The truth is, I (Sean) had my own art to make about BLM. I was going to add my voice. But that’s not the right thing to do. So we’re taking the budget for that and doing this with it.
As a statement of principle: if you have feedback for us - positive or critical - we welcome it and hope you will share. We are trying to offer fuel in the tank, not a map or destination. Our goal is to help queer, black artists get their art into the world. Right now. Right ******* now.
Black Lives Matter.
PRIDE is love.
Sean & Courtney Klein McDonald
instantartgrants.org/