After spending a good couple of months working on grant and sponsorship applications this year, it seems the hard work has paid off! I was fortunate enough to have been a successful applicant in this round of ‘ArtStart Grants‘, an initiative of the Australia Council for the Arts.
ArtStart grants are available to practitioners of almost any creative field, who have recently graduated from a course related to their creative practice, and who intend to establish a sustainable arts career.
I’m using this opportunity to develop some promotional materials, and undertake an artists development residency, at Harvestworks in Manhattan, NYC.
It should be a wild ride! And while there I hope to visit many institutions and centres related to media art, and experiment like crazy during the 3 months I’ll be at Harvestworks. I also plan to go via Tokyo, hopefully presenting a screening of ‘Noumina’, and likewise in San Francisco on the way back home.
But before leaving for the residency I’m aiming to have a new integrated webshop built into my website, and up by the 2nd quarter of 2011. You’ll be able to purchase my artworks, and merchandise related to my art practice.
First off I’ll be developing some prints from my recent work ‘Noumina’, and some limited edition t-shirt designs. And something a little more special: Blu-ray versions of the ‘Noumina’ video, which I have yet to release online, or to the public. I’ll also be creating a more ‘limited-edition’ version of the package, encompassing USB stick media, and a small book documenting the project and exhibition.
I’ll be leaving for NYC around mid-year, and during my time at Harvestworks will have an excellent chance to develop some new skills and promote myself as an artist.
I’d just like to thank Australia Council for the Arts for the opportunity, and to Laura Naimo, Hans Tammen, Phip Murray, Phe Rawnsley, Mike Pulsford, and Matt Fallon for all the help and assistance they gave me during the application process!
Oh and just briefly, I finally joined Twitter (as you might gather from the title of this post). I find it looks and works really nicely on the iPad, which is half the reason I signed up! You can find me @mattleafdotcom
Ciao for now,
mt.