Throughout November and December, the Grantmakers in the Arts website photo banner will feature artists supported by Creative Capital! For a feature on their blog, the GIA staff asked us to tell them what we’re excited about right now. This is what we shared about trends that we are seeing in the field, the evolution of our approach to artist services, and what’s in store for Creative Capital in 2013:

Here at Creative Capital, we are currently in the panel review stage of our grant selection process for artists in Emerging Fields, Literature, and Performing Arts. In January, we will announce the 46 projects in our 2013 class of grantees, bringing the number of projects we’ve funded to 418, representing over 500 artists. One of the things we’ve seen in our last grant application round is that, more than ever, artists are breaking the boundaries of artistic disciplines in their work and stretching the definition of what would even be considered art. This is very exciting and reminds us that artists are innovators in the truest sense of the word. They cross disciplines and move our society forward, just like innovators in the sciences and the tech sector. We at Creative Capital feel strongly that it is our job to invest in artists who take risks with their work, creating critical cultural capital. \

Much like the innovative artists we support, we are constantly evolving our approach to artist services, always staying in “beta.” Over the past year, we’ve completely overhauled our program to include a more structured, individualized system of support for each artist. In addition to up to $50,000 in direct financial support, our artists now receive even more individualized and intensive career development training and benefit from an expanded suite of advisory services. We’ve also developed a new Artist Advisor program to engage previously funded “alumni” artists in advising new grantees. This artist-to-artist mentorship is a wonderful way for our alumni artists to remain active as members of our generous community.

Next year is our Professional Development Program’s (PDP) 10th anniversary, and we are so excited that this program has now reached more than 5,000 artists! Throughout 2013, we’ll be celebrating the more than one hundred creative communities that our PDP workshops have impacted nationwide. We’re also entering PDP’s 10th year with a new commitment to online learning, following an amazingly successful first year of offering a suite of live, interactive webinars for artists in all disciplines. 2013 promises to be quite a year for Creative Capital!