My First Successful Grant!

On Friday May 27, I got confirmation that I won my first grant! I submitted my Explore and Create: Professional Development for Artists grant application to Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) back in February. This grant will allow me to learn new skills and develop my emerging artistic career via a mentorship at IE Creative on Granville Island.

The Professional Development for Artists component of Explore and Create supports the career growth of Canadian artists and artistic groups by encouraging participation in a wide range of development opportunities. Grants fund activities that contribute to the professional advancement of Canadian artists working in all artistic disciplines.

I discovered IE Creative at the end of 2021, at the start of my search for what I really wanted to do in my career based on my skills and values.

I have extensive experience with traditional art beginning since I was a kid, and I also have rather unique recent training in architecture. Unlike what people unfamiliar with the field might assume about architecture, our undergraduate program at Waterloo was only around 30% about buildings. Our studies covered everything from graphic design to esoteric literature and history. Our projects not only encompassed a huge range of creative fields, but also required a cornucopia of skills. We did everything from building bizarre furniture, to putting on a play, to designing and fabricating installation art, to exploring parametric modeling and coding.

In addition to the hard skills I learned through training in traditional art and architecture, developing as an artist within those fields imbued me with their values as well. A huge focus in any good architectural project is public access. In architecture, far more than in traditional art, the focus is on human interaction: how your project benefits the public realm surrounding it, how it meshes with the greater urban fabric, how every element needs to be safe, how people will touch the materials used, where people's views are drawn and obstructed on a large scale, where the flow of people is directed, how your project must not only be physically but also financially and even emotionally accessible via its very design, how your work fulfills an established need, etc.

I was thinking really hard about how I could connect my skill set and personal values into a new path. As I was putting together an updated portfolio last year, I took note of how my favourite projects were pavilions, installation art, and sculptures. That's when I started looking into public art and doing research on local artists. I came across IE Creative because they were the creators behind Ocean Commotion, a kinetic sculpture in the style of a marble machine. One of the last projects I created in Waterloo was A Chair for Rube Goldberg, so that style of controlled chaos was fresh in my mind.

This is their introduction on Granville Island's directory:

At IE Creative Artworks, we believe that art can serve to inspire and provide a moment of celebration and community interaction when placed outside the gallery walls and into public space. We make large-scale public sculpture primarily using stainless steel, bronze, and hand-blown glass.

Right away, I knew they were perfect. Their artistic vision matches mine, their body of work is appealing to me, and they also work with materials that I am very interested in yet never got the chance to use. Even the actual location of their studio was incredibly serendipitous.

Growing up in Vancouver, Granville Island has always held a special place in my heart. It felt absolutely magical as a place for play and exploration when I visited as a child. Then, as I grew up a little and started seriously learning visual art, I began to appreciate it for the artist hub that it is. The thought of working in a studio embedded in this creative oasis sounded incredible.

I wrote an introduction email as soon as I could. Attached was my portfolio, which included my experimental installation art and kinetic sculptures from architecture school, and my traditional art work. I honestly was not expecting much in response to my unsolicited inquiry. To my surprise, Cheryl Hamilton, one of the two founders, responded enthusiastically the next day with an invitation to visit the studio and talk some more. I visited their studio a few days later, and met Michael Vandermeer, the other founder. Cheryl said they really enjoyed looking through my portfolio and understood right away why I contacted them for an opportunity. They also felt the connection I did in our art. We chatted and they showed me around their studio and office, introducing me to the project they were working on which was suspended in the studio — Corvus.

Cheryl introduced me to the concept of grants and their application process. This was an entirely new world to me. After researching, I found CCA's upcoming grant for emerging artists. The concept of an emerging artist was also new to me, but I was really grateful it existed and was so well supported. This is the most accessible way for people like me to start. Without financial backing like this, I really wouldn't know how to begin delving into a new career path.

Being award this grant feels like validation for my goals. A panel reviewed my work and qualifications, assessed what I proposed to do at IE Creative, and decided I'm worth this investment. I am so grateful to have been met with such enthusiastic support from IE Creative, and to live where there are government programs in place to support young artists like me.