21 Grants and Artist Opportunities
to Apply for in May 2025
Written by: crEATe Staff
May 12, 2025
Congratulations to the Class of 2025! We’re wishing all of this year’s graduates the best as you take the next step in your journey. Here’s our list of grants and artist opportunities for May 2025:
Table of Contents
- Sawtooth School for Visual Arts – Artist Residency
- Maryland Federation of Art – Call for Art – The Power of Color
- Tulsa Artist Fellowship – Artist Fellowship
- CICA Museum – Art Call – Art in Action New York 2025
- San Francisco Film Festival – Rainin Grant
- The Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation – 2025 Grant for Sculpture
- Artadia – Artadia Awards
- Black Artists Forward – Art Call – Notes of Ebony
- Fiber Art Now – Art Call – Paper Made II
- Vilcek Foundation – 2026 Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Fashion & Design and Fashion & Culture
- Raleigh Fine Arts Society – 2025 Raleigh Fine Arts Society Artists Exhibition
- San Francisco Film Festival – Documentary Film Fund
- Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant – Artist Grants
- Innovate Artist Grants – Grants for Artists
- Abrams Books – Associate Art Director, Licensed Entertainment
- TubeScience – Associate Creative Strategist
- Ralph Lauren – Concept Design Assistant
- Ralph Lauren – Copywriter
- HOKA – Director, Color Design
- HOKA – Product Developer II
- Savannah College of Art and Design – Technical Designer
Sawtooth School for Visual Arts
Artist Residency
Who is this for?
U.S. based ceramicists, printmakers and woodmakers
Award
Studio space
Stipends
Teaching experience
Deadline
May 15, 2025
Description from the Funder:
For 80 years, Sawtooth has been a creative hub for the region—an energetic craft school environment in downtown Winston-Salem, NC.
Our year-long Artist-in-Residence programs encourage emerging artists to develop new skills, foster community connections, and create new bodies of work while assisting with studio operations. Sawtooth’s residencies prioritize self-exploration and personal growth while also providing support for professional development, including possible teaching and exhibition opportunities. Our residency program is only open to U.S.-based artists at this time.
Maryland Federation of Art
Call for Art – The Power of Color
Who is this for?
Visual artists
Award
Exhibition in MFA’s Circle Gallery
Deadline
May 28, 2025
Description from the Funder:
Color is a fundamental element of artistic expression that transcends language and culture. It empowers artists to convey emotion, energy, and meaning. Artists use color to create an atmosphere, direct the viewer’s eye, and make a lasting impact.
Iconic colors in art history are imprinted in our memory such as Titian Red, Van Dyck Brown, and International Klein Blue. In science and fashion colors such as Perkin Mauve or Chanel Black come to mind. The Impressionists aimed to capture the fleeting effects of light and color, The Fauves were known for their bold, eye-popping color choices, whereas The Great Colorists highlighted how color can convey a sense of motion, express inner feeling, and take the viewer into new imaginative realms. Contemporary artists experiment with color combinations, disrupting traditional color harmonies to elicit thought and emotion. The digital age has opened up opportunities for artists to explore, manipulate, and reshape the role of color in generative art.
The psychology of color in art is a rich and complex field, and color is an invaluable tool for artists.
Tulsa Artist Fellowship
Artist Fellowship
Who is this for?
U.S. based artists and arts workers
Award
Various stipends
Studio space
Other perks
Deadline
May 29, 2025
Description:
The Tulsa Artist Fellowship is a prestigious three-year, place-based residency program in Tulsa, Oklahoma, designed to support visionary artists and arts workers from across the United States. Established in 2015 by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, the fellowship aims to foster a vibrant arts community by providing substantial resources to its awardees. Each fellow receives a total stipend of $150,000 over three years, along with additional benefits including a $36,000 housing stipend, $3,600 each for health and wellness and studio assistant support, a $1,500 studio move-in stipend, and access to fully subsidized studio spaces equipped with facilities like a ceramics studio, woodshop, media lab, and more.
The program emphasizes community engagement, requiring fellows to reside and work in Tulsa throughout the term, and encourages projects that contribute significantly to the city’s cultural landscape. Applications for the 2026–2028 award term are open from April 2 to May 29, 2025, with selections announced in November 2025. Eligible applicants must be at least 25 years old, have a minimum of five years of experience in their field, and demonstrate a commitment to community-invested artistic practice.
CICA Museum
Art Call – Art in Action New York 2025
Who is this for?
Artists, performers, designers, and creative professionals
Award
Participation in Art in Action New York 2025
Deadline
May 30, 2025
Description:
Art in Action New York 2025 is a one-day event featuring talks, performances, artworks, and pop-up booths. Each presenter will have 20 minutes to showcase their work, including talks, presentations, performances, and/or experimental workshops.
Presenters will also have the opportunity to showcase and sell their work during the event. Each presenter will be assigned one booth table. Items for sale may include artworks, prints, publications, design products, stationery, and other creative goods.
Artists’ promo videos and event footage will be shared on social media. The event is organized by CICA Museum and will take place in the Manhattan area of New York on December 20, 2025. Presenters will meet online in advance to prepare for the show, and our team will announce the schedule.
Presenters will also be featured in the upcoming book New Media Art 2027, expected to be released in full-color paperback in December 2026.
San Francisco Film Festival
Rainin Grant
Who is this for?
Filmmakers
Award
Up to $25,000
Deadline
May 16, 2025 ($30 Application Fee)
May 30, 2025 ($50 Application Fee)
Description from the Funder:
The SFFILM Rainin Grant program is the largest granting body for independent narrative feature films in the US. Grants support films that address social justice issues—the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges—in a positive and meaningful way through plot, character, theme, or setting and benefit the Bay Area filmmaking community in a professional and economic capacity.
Awards are made to 15-20 projects once a year in the fall, for screenwriting, development, or post-production. In addition to a cash grant of up to $25,000, recipients secure a one month residency at FilmHouse and benefit from SFFILM’s comprehensive and dynamic artist development programs.
The Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation
2025 Grant for Sculpture
Who is this for?
Sculptors and writers in the scultpture field
Award
$20,000
Deadline
May 31, 2025,
Description from the Funder:
In this grant program, the Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation’s goal is to encourage and support sculptors as well as writers on sculpture, both emerging and established.
The Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation encourages submissions from sculptors and writers of all backgrounds. It does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, socioeconomic status, education, or disability.
Artadia
Artadia Awards
Who is this for?
San Francisco Bay Area Artists
Award
$15,000
Deadline
June 1, 2025,
Description from the Funder:
Each year, an open-call application is made available in each of the seven active partner cities. Supporting artists equitably is a critical part of the Artadia Award process: we consider the unique populations of each community and are proud to reflect our country’s diversity with an Awardee pool that is over 50 percent female and over 40 percent persons of color.
In addition to financial support, Awardees can participate in the Artadia Network to receive structured opportunities for valuable new connections and resource sharing as well as receive a dedicated webpage on Artadia’s online Artist Registry. Connections fostered by Artadia have facilitated major steps in Awardees’ careers, such as inclusion in prominent exhibitions (e.g. six Awardees are featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, and seven Awardees in Prospect.6 New Orleans).
Black Artists Forward
Art Call – Notes of Ebony
Who is this for?
Black artists based in the U.S.
Award
Exhibition opportunity
Deadline
June 2, 2025,
Description from the Funder:
Notes of Ebony is a celebration of Black expression through visual and literary arts. This curated collection will feature 20 canvas-printed visual artworks (24×24”) and a selection of poetry and prose. This exhibition honors the many “notes” — ancestral, emotional, cultural, and creative — that shape and inspire Black lives. We welcome all visual mediums and short-form literary submissions (poetry or prose).
All accepted works will be printed for exhibition to protect original pieces in a public space.
Fiber Art Now
Art Call – Paper Made II
Who is this for?
Visual Artists
Award
$500 (First Place)
Deadline
June 6, 2025
Description from the Funder:
Artists are invited to enter their made-from-paper 2D or 3D artwork for Paper Made II. It must be of original design and completed after January 1, 2020.
All artwork must be made primarily from paper or a paper product or created using a papermaking process. Juried selections will be featured in the fall 2025 issue of Fiber Art Now and will be eligible for the on-site exhibition at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on view November 8, 2025 through February 1, 2026. fwmoa.org
Vilcek Foundation
2026 Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Fashion & Design and Fashion & Culture
Who is this for?
Immigran creatives workiing in fashion, culture, and design
Full eligibility list with the button below
Award
$50,000
Deadline
June 9, 2025, 5:00PM EST
Description from the Funder:
The Vilcek Foundation will award six Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in the amount of $50,000 in two categories: Fashion & Design and Fashion & Culture. In each category, three young immigrant fashion professionals who demonstrate outstanding early achievement in their field will individually receive an unrestricted cash prize of $50,000.
Raleigh Fine Arts Society
2025 Raleigh Fine Arts Society Artists Exhibition
Who is this for?
North Carolina artists
Award
$10,000 in prizes
Deadline
June 15, 2025
Description from the Organization:
From a small exhibition in 1964, RFAS North Carolina Artists Exhibition has evolved to become the largest annual all-media juried exhibition in the state. This juried exhibition offers artists an opportunity to present their works before a renowned art professional, art aficionados, and potential buyers. In its over 50-year history, thousands of North Carolina artists’ creative work has been celebrated in the North Carolina community.
San Francisco Film Festival
Documentary Film Fund
Who is this for?
Documentary Filmmakers
Award
Up to $15,000
Deadline
June 23, 2025 ($30 Application Fee)
July 7, 2025 ($50 Application Fee)
Description from the Funder:
The SFFILM Documentary Film Fund (DFF) supports engaging documentaries in post-production which exhibit compelling stories, intriguing characters, and an original, innovative visual approach. Since its launch in 2011, the SFFILM Documentary Film Fund has distributed more than $900,000 to advance new work by filmmakers nationwide.
DFF grants are awarded once each year to documentary feature projects and are open to filmmakers internationally. The Documentary Film Fund grants its support to approximately 3-4 projects each year with grants of $10,000 – $15,000. As with all SFFILM grants, in addition to the cash awards, recipients will gain access to numerous benefits through the comprehensive and dynamic SFFILM Makers artist development program.
The SFFILM Documentary Film Fund has an excellent track record for advancing compelling films that go on to critical acclaim. Previous DFF winners include Sarvnik Kaur’s Against the Tide, winner of the Sundance 2023 Vérité Filmmaking Prize; Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborne’s Going Varsity in Mariachi, winner of the Sundance 2023 Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award; Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s multiple Sundance winner Writing With Fire and Jessica Kingdon’s Ascension both nominated for the 2022 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska’s Honeyland, which won a record number of juried awards at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for Academy Awards for both Best Documentary Feature and Best Foreign Language Film.
Innovate Artist Grants
Grants for Artists
Who is this for?
Visual artists and photographers
Award
$1,800
Deadline
Rolling
Description from the Funder:
Innovate Grant distributes (2) $1,800.00 grants each quarter, to one Visual Artist and one Photographer.
Our newly increased $1,800.00 grants act as mighty sparks of financial support that ignite your creative development.
Grant cycles are open (4) times a year (Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall) giving you more opportunities to access the support you need.
Our process is simple so you spend less time on the application and more time making your important work.
Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Grants for Artists
Who is this for?
Painters, sculptors, and artists who work on paper.
Award
Varies
Deadline
Rolling
Description from the Funder:
The Foundation provides financial resources for visual artists to create new work, acquire supplies, rent studio space, prepare for exhibitions, attend a residency and offset living expenses. The Foundation welcomes, throughout the year, applications from visual artists who are painters, sculptors and artists who work on paper, including printmakers. There are no deadlines. Grants are intended for a one-year period of time. The Foundation will review expenditures relating to an artist’s professional work and personal expenses and amounts range up to $50,000. The size of the grant is determined by the individual circumstances of the artist. Professional exhibition history will be taken into consideration. Artists must be actively exhibiting their current work in professional artistic venues, such as gallery and museum spaces
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Abrams Books
Associate Art Director, Licensed Entertainment
(New York, NY)
Position Overview:
- Lead the design process for book covers and interior layouts, ensuring that all visual elements align with the editorial vision and market positioning.
- Develop and present creative concepts to stakeholders, incorporating feedback and revisions into the design process.
- Manage multiple projects simultaneously, ensuring deadlines are met and resources are allocated efficiently.
- Stay abreast of design trends, industry developments, and production effects to keep the creative output fresh and relevant.
- Supervise and provide guidance, feedback, and support to in-house designers and freelancers to ensure design quality and consistency across projects.
- Work with production team and printers to ensure high-quality printed materials by providing packaged, print-ready files, reviewing proofs, overseeing color correction and retouching as needed.
- Work closely with editorial and production teams to ensure projects maintain their schedules and meet high-quality standards throughout the process
- Maintain and evolve the company’s visual style guide and ensure brand consistency across all projects.
TubeScience
Associate Creative Strategist
(Los Angeles, CA)
Position Overview:
With training and guidance from your manager/Strategy Lead, you will create performance ads that convert to client revenue growth by:
- Analyzing data in platforms like Meta Ads Manager and TikTok Ads Manager
- Performing consumer, product, and competitor research using basic tools/resources
- Writing scripts and copy for video and static image ads
- Ensuring visuals match creative strategy outlined for the ad
- Giving feedback that aligns to the creative strategy of the ad
- Executing on feedback given by your Strategy Lead
- Identifying top-performing concepts within accounts using data and creative analysis
- Identifying effective concepts/trends in the social media ecosystem
- Utilizing data, research, and creative insights to formulate effective creative strategy
- Collaborating with Post-Production, Production, and your Strategy Lead to produce videos
- Analyzing the results of creative tests and utilizing this analysis to iterate
- Contributing to weekly strategic account planning
Ralph Lauren
Concept Design Assistant
(New York, NY)
Position Overview:
- Sample pulling, management, and returns, including bought and rented samples, design samples, showroom samples, and library samples
- Digital file management, locating selects, organizing team share folder, creating and maintaining multiple forms of file sharing
- Digital and physical presentation support, gathering materials, editing images, assistance with toolkit creation
- Supporting licensee design, attending meetings, following up on resource sharing between design teams, tracking licensee samples
- Maintaining and updating concept print library
- Booking models per design needs
- Booking photographer to document concept presentations
- Printing style out and campaign images for selects process, printing imagery to bring to RL
- Note taking during concept meetings and sharing with attendees
- Sharing digital assets with design teams following presentations and ensuring all team members have access to concept resources
- Preparing for line reviews and style out, supporting space set-up
- Attend line review and look book style out, keep style out garments organized and pull additional styling items as needed
- Researching into concept prompts and pitching ideas to team
Ralph Lauren
Copywriter
(New York, NY)
Position Overview:
- Edit and write clear, compelling, and on-brand copy for the various Ralph Lauren brands. Primary platform is social with a consistent focus on applying campaign and strategic messaging copy to out-of-home, catalog, in-store signage, banner ads, and more.
- Research, develop and write global messaging hierarchies using strategic insights from marketing to deliver overarching campaign copy and narratives that can be translated into tactical and executional copy across a single 360 campaign.
- Develop and refine narrative voice for future campaigns, ensuring consistency in copy style and brand voice.
- Partner with art directors, and members of Social, Campaign, Corporate Communications, PR, Design, Production, Merchandising, and Marketing, to ensure copy is accurate, informative, and relevant to brand strategies.
- Participate in all relevant digital learnings and insights meetings to hone craft, reach data-driven milestones, and achieve social team’s goals.
- Amend and revise copy in response to clients, vendor-partners, and internal teams.
- Evolve copy Style Guide to formally reflect the evolution of Ralph Lauren’s tone and voice on social and emerging digital channels.
HOKA
Director, Color Design
(Portland, OR)
Position Overview:
This role leads will be instrumental into bringing the next level of color expression to a brand already known for its product color. It will be a critical puzzle piece to both driving commercial volume and HOKA-only points of view on product in a competitive footwear and apparel market.
This director role leads an existing team of passionate and incredible color designers with the capacity to do great things – your impact will be immediate and lasting.
We celebrate diversity–of your background, your experiences and your unique identity. We’re committed to ensuring an inclusive and equitable workplace where all of our employees can Come as They Are. We believe that when we bring our different perspectives to work, we are truly Better Together.
HOKA
Product Developer II
(Portland, OR)
Position Overview:
This role leads will be instrumental into bringing the next level of color expression to a brand already known for its product color. It will be a critical puzzle piece to both driving commercial volume and HOKA-only points of view on product in a competitive footwear and apparel market.
This director role leads an existing team of passionate and incredible color designers with the capacity to do great things – your impact will be immediate and lasting.
We celebrate diversity–of your background, your experiences and your unique identity. We’re committed to ensuring an inclusive and equitable workplace where all of our employees can Come as They Are. We believe that when we bring our different perspectives to work, we are truly Better Together.
Savannah College of Art and Design
Technical Designer
(Savannah, GA)
As the technical designer you will work in collaboration with professors and staff as they assist fashion students in turning ideas into finished products, anticipating any design issues and liaising with students to ensure garments adhere to the established specifications, and that the end results are high-quality, marketable products.
In this position you are expected to offer expert technical support in specialized technical design room areas of fabric preparation, pattern layout and marking, garment assembly, and pressing while demonstrating industrial sewing, hand sewing, and fine finishing techniques. Responsibilities include regularly preparing fabric and patterns and supporting the department’s needs.
In this role, you will help develop, update, and utilize the library of blocks and patterns to ensure standards are being met to support the best fit and help students expedite their production process. You must measure samples, compare construction, and collaborate and establish professional working relationships.
Responsibilities include assisting the fashion department with presenting and conducting fits on live models to ensure fitting of garments and apply possible adjustments, recommending materials and relevant finishing techniques to students, and working on the digital fabric printer. Additionally you will help students with creating spec sheets, evaluating sample prototypes, and inspire performance solutions in constructing high-quality garments.
