I’ve been blown away by some news I received this week. In the summer I hit a (metaphorical) wall and almost gave up my dream I’m living of being a full time artist because the cost of living crisis was hitting hard and my self-employment was barely surviving after weathering the storms of the pandemic years.
At the same time as this was happening I came across a potential opportunity, a glimmer of hope. Something I’d never heard of before kept being mentioned, The DYCP - The Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice Grant, which is a grant for creatives in England to provide ‘Funding to support individuals who are cultural and creative practitioners and want to take time to focus on their creative development.’. Me being me I saw that as a sign, and having nothing to lose devoted a lot of time and energy into putting together the best possible application I could muster. My friend Manda of Creative Spark was running Funding Club a 10 week support group to encourage each other to apply for funding. I gambled on using my credit card and signed up.
During the process of putting together my application I found myself reviewing and reflecting on everything I’d ever done in art, and envisioning what I could do if money was no barrier and submitted an application to Arts Council for the grant to do just that.
In my application I asked for funding to ‘take my next transformative step towards creative freedom to build a well-researched, contextualised & economically sustainable practice. So that I can produce new visual work, solo and in collaboration, exploring a mythopoeic connection with the Earth which engages with the environmental crisis informed by nature immersion and coaching.’ (I’ll explain what that all means later)
This week, the day after Samhain (Halloween) I was in the studio, landing from two full weekend trading events, a day with the druids honouring Samhain and a horrid cold, that day I’d been pottering around putting paintings away and counting coasters. After I finished those tasks my curiosity got the better of me, and I thought I’d just pop on the Arts Council’s funding portal a day early to see if there was any news yet. Not really expecting to see anything. The page loaded and instantly I saw there was a new message, and there sitting in my inbox was an offer letter!
‘Congratulations’ it said ‘your application is successful!’
I was in complete shock and disbelief. I’d spent some time mentally and emotionally preparing myself for a no, as it’s an incredibly competitive grant and thousands of artists apply for it, as it’s a life-changing opportunity and the chances of being successful are not all that high.
Discovering that I’m going to receive the grant is incredible, i’m deeply honoured and wildly grateful. I don’t know how to express how much being given this opportunity right now means to me, the past 3 to 4 years have been ones of extraordinary change and difficulty in my life, and without telling anyone I’d given myself til the end of December to change course with my practice and if it wasn’t looking up I’d have been starting the new year looking for a new career. So it’s also a massive relief.
My project runs from today the 3rd of November 2023 to the 2nd of November 2024 so now my year of DYCP Rewilding Rachel begins! This is a real new beginning for me and my art! And I want to share every step of the journey with you so I’ve made this blog and over the year I’ll share with you here: what I make, what I learn and how I’m putting this wonderful support from the arts council to use. In my next post I plan to tell you all about my intentions for my DYCP year of Rewilding Rachel and how I envision that unfolding.
Love and sparkles
Rachy
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