“Making residents happier is a few levels up the Maslowian hierarchy. But it makes sense
that cities shoot for it, since residents who are happier with their city are more likely
to be attached, and attached residents are more likely to get involved.”
-Melody Warnick, This is Where You Belong

2020 Grants

With the participation of both generous citizens and local businesses, together we generated $75,781.01 for our city this year through Get Artistic—$22,010 of which to be given as grants to our six Get Artistic recipients, $3,000 to our DIY Fund winners, and $1,000 to our Artist-in-Residence.

We believe that investing in the arts is one of the most effective ways to turn residents into citizens. Guided by the growing body of research that suggests a thriving creative economy is a major predictor of place attachment, our goal is to help residents feel happier where they live as a means to inspire greater civic engagement.

The grant recipients are identified every year through a vetting process with guidance from an Advisory Council, who represent the local government and cultural institutions.

In 2020, thanks to your generosity, we’ve leveraged Get Artistic to impact more artists than ever before.

• Broderick Flanigan will paint a new, highly visible mural in Athens with local youth who will receive stipends for their work through HARPS: Helping Art Reach Public Spaces.
• Beto Mendoza released Voces en Pandemia in October, which features eleven original songs amplifying the Latinx experience of the pandemic with four collaborating artists from Athens and Mexico.
• Esther Carillo will rent a ceramic studio and purchase clay, paint, and other materials to expand her capacity to pursue her passion.
• The Athens Area Arts Council will provide grants for two local emerging artists and their mentors through their Black Emerging Artists Mentorship (BEAM) award over the course of one year. The first BEAM awardee was recently announced: local musician and activist Convict Julie (Camille Sims).
• ATHICA will hold at least twelve educational events or activities for all ages—digitally, for safer-at-home access in response to the pandemic—generating paid support for multiple artists, educators, and technicians.
• Nuçi’s Space will hire four local visual artists to paint the music center’s practice room doors, expanding their capacity to support visual artists with paid project opportunities.

DIY Fund

In addition to our 6 Get Artistic grant recipients, we’ll also support two community arts projects through the DIY Fund. While the Get Artistic grant program helps artists deepen their individual art practice, the DIY Fund empowers pioneering projects that are more collaborative in nature. Unique to the DIY Fund, we invite the public to vote for their favorite projects at the annual DIY Fair.

• Classic City Wax Volume 2 will be an all-local collaborative album showcasing Athens’ hip hop scene and music industry. Lead by Athens hip hop ambassador Montu Miller, Volume 2 will receive the winning $2,000 DIY Fund award.
• The Mental Hearth will be a series of artist-on-artist interviews de-stigmatizing conversations around mental health and creativity. Lead by Nate Mullet, The Mental Hearth will receive the first DIY Fund Runner-up award at $1,000.

Artist-in-Residence

This summer, we expanded our taproom programming opportunities for artists by establishing the Get Artistic Artist-in-Residence. With a goal of involving consumers, artists, and our very own Creatures in the creative process, local artist and creative waste specialist, Abigail West, spent 8 weeks working with hard-to-recycle industrial brewing materials in our taproom. The resulting artwork comprised of hundreds of individually cut and assembled flowers made from grain bags, which was displayed under our Snow Tire pavilion through October.

Local Arts Booster

Finally, because we believe so strongly in the power of our creative economy to help people love where they live, we wanted to ensure that employees at Creature Comforts had the opportunity to invest in local artists directly, introducing a novel arts reimbursement program called the Local Arts Booster (LAB). In two months, 18 Creatures generated $10,720 in collective impact for their arts communities—90% of which was offset by LAB funding—which supported 13 different artists from Athens to Savannah, where our Creatures call home.

The 2021 Get Artistic season will kick off August 20, 2021, with the Request for Proposals opening earlier in the summer. In the meantime, thanks for helping create: More access. More artists. More art.