Have you considered crowdfunding your art?

2015 AiR, Carrie Mixon is following the route of many artists today, taking her art residency plans to the crowds of friends, family and arts-passionate givers out there with a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.com.

Inviting people into the exciting adventure and story of your art residency through crowdfunding art projects is on the rise and so are the number of websites out there offering competitive and creative plans. The most well known crowdfunding sites for arts & design projects are Kickstarter, Indiegogo, RocketHub, and Peerbackers.* The way crowdfunding works is that the site carrying your campaign processes the funds given by backers and helps you to communicate your creative project … for a small fee of course. In exchange for backing your project, you promise various creative “rewards” for different levels of funding. These rewards can range from thank you notes to signed prints or actual samples of your artwork or even personal time spent with you to share stories of your residency.

Just look at Carrie’s passionate description of her story, art and plans for a residency on her campaign page and you’ll understand why people want to help her (and other artists like YOU) get out there to amazing places in the world to do what you were made to do. The benefits of such a season of research and intercultural exchange bear fruit of such value as cannot be assessed in mere dollars.

WHAT IS “FIBER ARTS?” Wikipedia says that “Fiber art refers to fine art whose material consists of natural or synthetic fiber and other components, such as fabric or yarn. It focuses on the materials and on the manual labour on the part of the artist as part of the works’ significance, and prioritizes aesthetic value over utility.” —- Maine Fiber Arts (.org) defines fiber arts to include “basketry, beadwork, braiding, clothing design, crochet, dyeing, embroidery, felting, hooking, knitting, lacework, mixed media, needlework, paper, quilting, sculpture, sewing, spinning, surface design, textile design and weaving.” **

Story …

[Growing up in] Kenya taught me to love place, color, and all the gritty, growing details of life and culture. I have experienced the impact a place can have on a person.

Art …

I believe we are embodied People, each occupying a particular Place for a reason, and there is a deeply complex and beautiful relationship between those two realities. … Fiber art is a wonderful medium for this because fibers and textiles are an integral part of all the social and physical spaces we create and react to everyday.

Residency …

Though I am going to Morocco as a learner, I’m passionate about contributing to the global community by encouraging and supporting the arts as an avenue for greater cross-cultural understanding.