In the beginning...

I applied for Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice funding in December 2021, and heard back from them in February 2022. It took me a while to absorb the good news that my application was successful and it was tempered by the knowledge that many worthy artists didn’t get the support (there was a 22% success rate for that funding round).

Like many people, I found the application process quite tough. It takes a lot of work to put a lengthy application together and I was in the process of leaving my part-time job at arts organisation Meadow Arts, where I had worked for eleven years, and going full-time freelance as an arts marketer and artist. This meant that I was very busy, taking on new work and finishing off the old, so it was a very intense schedule: the DYCP application takes around 6-8 days of work. I found that, ironically, writing the application meant that I didn’t have time for my arts practice for a couple of months (or more) last autumn!

I was lucky to be asked to be a guinea pig for my friend and colleague Manda Graham’s new support programme for creative people applying for Arts Council England (ACE) funding, which she called Funding Club. It was immensely helpful to have a small group of people who were also applying for ACE funding to talk to over Zoom at regular meetings. Manda provided excellent support in support documents with useful tips and advice, 1-2-1 sessions, and by giving direct feedback on the applications. I definitely advise having someone to support you during an application, and this could be something formal like Funding Club, or another creative person who is also applying. At the very least, you will need someone to read through your application and give you feedback. I asked two of the artists who are named in my project to give me feedback on my final draft, and their suggestions were all incorporated into the final application.

One of the reasons that I have chosen this time to make an application is that I have reached a point of change in my life. I have gone freelance on a full-time basis, my daughter has left home, so I no longer have childcare responsibilities, and I can think about what the future holds. It’s exciting and challenging, and it’s the reason I chose to call my project, Grow Your Own Artist. 

So, here I am. A successful applicant, embarking on a year-long programme of research and development to increase my technical knowledge of digital creative work and establish how I can maintain a successful art career. Wish me luck!

Grow Your Own Artist is a research and development project by Rebecca Farkas