Individual Artist Fellowships
AboutA program of the California Arts Council, administered on the Central Coast by Arts Council Santa Cruz County in partnership with SLO County Arts Council, San Benito County Arts Council, Arts Council for Monterey County, Santa Barbara County Office of Arts and Culture, and Ventura County Arts Council. The fellowship provides unrestricted funding to artists and culture bearers across all disciplines, supporting the continued development of creative work.
Fellowship Funding Levels
The California Arts Council’s Individual Artists Fellowship is designed to meet artists where they are in their creative journey. Three different fellowship levels have been created to provide support for each career stage:
Emerging Artist Fellows
$5,000
Emerging artists are those in the beginning stages of making their work public and engaging the larger community in their practice. Individuals at this career stage may have had a few public showings of their work, but do not yet have ongoing resources or support.
Established Artist Fellows
$10,000
Artists in the Established tier regularly make their work public and engage the larger community in their practice. Individuals in this tier can give multiple examples of artistic and/or cultural works that have made a significant social impact. A substantial portion of their income may come from their art.
Legacy Artist Fellows
$50,000
Artists in the Legacy tier can point to a significant body of work produced over a substantial period of time that has engaged their communities and made a significant social impact. Artists in this tier may be able to point to Emerging and Established Artists that they have mentored or otherwise positively influenced, and may have received national recognition for their work.
Returning in 2026
SLO County artists will have another chance to apply for the Individual Artist Fellowship in 2026. Applications will open on April 15th.
SLO COUNTY OFFICE HOURS
Questions about the program or your application materials? Drop in office hours are available for artists in SLO County!
April 15 - June 1 | Fridays from 2-4pm
Click to Join
Note: No office hours will be held on Friday, May 8th
REGIONAL ORIENTATIONS
Presented on Zoom, these orientations will begin with a presentation by Tamara Liu, Grants Program Manager, covering everything you need to know about applying for the Individual Artists Fellowship. There will be time for questions after the presentation.
April 15 from 1pm-2:30pm (Click to Join)
April 23 from 6:30-8pm (Click to Join)
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Having issues with submitting materials or file types? Do you need technical support with the grants portal? Visit Tamara Liu's office hours available every Monday from 4-5pm (or set up another time with Tamara via email at tamara@artscouncilsc.org).
Technical Support Office Hours will become available after the application opens!
Visit the Arts Council Santa Cruz website to learn more about this program, review key dates, access the application, and understand artist eligibility and fellowship requirements.
Call for Panelists!
Help serve on the Individual Artist Fellowship panel! The 2026 applicant review process will take place between June 10th and July 31st. If you are interested in becoming a panelist or just want to learn more about this opportunity, please contact SLO County Arts Executive Director Jordan Chesnut by email at the link below.
Meet the 2023-2024 Individual Artist Fellows from SLO County
-
Established Artist
Shell Beach artist, Colleen Gnos, is best known for for her ocean and agriculture inspired murals, gold-scaled mermaids painted on surfboards, and her idyllic scenes of surfers and breaking waves. In the last few decades, Colleen has completed public art projects, created art for dozens of wine labels, and has shown her paintings across the USA and Italy.
-
Emerging Artist
Born in Rome, Joanna Fusco is an artist and a writer. One of ten stewards living in an intentional community on California's central coast, her recent work explores the idea of manifest destiny in the American west and its natural friction with the current sentimental and fleeting possibility of modern home ownership. “Unsupervised” is the Substack newsletter where she writes that comes out three times a month, it is also a 2023 featured publication.
71 California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship Grants Awarded in Central California in 2023.
2023 California Arts Council (CAC) Individual Artist Fellowships totaling $660,000 have been awarded to 71 artists in the seventeen county central California region, ranging from Fresno through Santa Clara to Santa Barbara and nearly everywhere in between. The program is designed to recognize, uplift, and celebrate the excellence of California artists practicing any art form. In doing so, the CAC is showcasing the centrality of artists’ leadership in guiding the evolution of our traditional and contemporary cultures. The fellows were selected from 512 artists that applied within the region.
Fellowships will support artists of all disciplines at key career stages: Emerging, Established, and Legacy.