An artist is not required to have any particular degree or type of education to qualify as an emerging artist. Emerging Artists Grants are intended to fund a specific project, not for general ongoing support. The Emerging Artists Program enters its seventeenth year in 2000.
Artists practicing any art form are eligible to apply for a grant.
Applicants must be current residents of Chatham, Durham, Granville, Orange, or Person Counties, North Carolina, and must have resided in one of these counties for at least one year prior to the application deadline. Applicants must be at least 18 years of age and cannot be currently enrolled in a degree or certificate program in their art form. A recipient of an Emerging Artists Grant may not reapply the year following an award. The Emerging Artists Program is funded and administered by Durham Arts Council, Inc., and supported by grants from the North Carolina Arts Council, The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, The Ella Fountain Pratt Fund, Orange County Arts Commission, Chatham County Arts Council, Granville Arts Council, Person County Arts Council, gifts to the Durham Arts Council United Arts Fund and gifts from other interested organizations and individuals. Grant applications are reviewed by a local professional artist in each field, the comments of that judge are then forwarded to a subgroup of the EAP Committee who review applications in that art form and prepare recommendations that are then forwarded to the full EAP Committee which prepares the final award recommendations for all the art forms.