Creative Pinellas Announces Emerging Artist Grant Recipients

LARGO, FL — Creative Pinellas has announced that the 2024 Emerging Artist grant recipients:
Kaitlin Crockett, Vanessa Cunto, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Fran Failla, Tyler Gillespie, Antonia Lewandowski, David McCauley, Harriet Monzon-Aguirre, Gabriela Rosa and Luci Westphal.

These awards aim to assist artists early in their careers who are quickly growing as artists and find
themselves at an important moment when these grants would have an especially large impact on their development as a professional artist.

The Emerging Artist grants aim to support and build meaningful relationships among the outstanding creative artists in Pinellas County and their audiences. It provides a solid foundation to nurture the creative community and elevate Pinellas as an art and cultural destination that draws tourists worldwide.

Grants will be awarded for original work in choreography, literature, media arts, music
composition, theater creation, visual arts and interdisciplinary arts.

“I am excited to see what this grant provides for these new Emerging Artist recipients in the Arts Coast,” said Creative Pinellas CEO Barbara St. Clair. “By providing financial support, mentoring and an opportunity for an exhibition or performance, we are empowering individual artists and investing in their future. With these Emerging Artist Grants, we have been able to and continue to be committed to making space, resources and recognition available to artists and communities who may not have had such access in the past.”

Emerging artists are defined as those who demonstrate excellence in their work, are widely recognized by their peers and the community at large for their work, and still have some ground to cover on their path to recognition as professional artists.

So, for example, the emerging visual artist may have shown some work, but is still building a strong record of exhibition history, awards and commissions, or sustaining an income derived solely from sales and/or production and performance of their work. These artists are also early in their career, are quickly growing as artists and find themselves at an important moment when these grants would have an especially large impact on their development as a professional artist.

The Emerging Artist grant program, now in its seventh year, selects up to 10 artists for the annual
program. Each artist will receive a financial grant of $2,000, a professional artist mentor, chosen
specifically for them, who will work with them on a one-to-one basis during the grant period, and will be part of the Emerging Artist group exhibition, sponsored each year by Creative Pinellas.

Artists are carefully selected by a panel of artists and curators based on their work, vision for the future and commitment to show or perform their work for the benefit of residents and visitors to Pinellas County.

Over the course of the funding period, recipients will provide an insight into their creative processes for interested visitors through blogs posted at creativepinellas.org.

Past awardees have written about current projects, critiques on work in progress, reflections on life as an artist and more.

Creative Pinellas is Pinellas County's nonprofit fine and cultural arts organization.