If you're involved in Philadelphia's creative community and ever find yourself struggling to afford art supplies or finance your next project, you need to know about
Small But Mighty Arts.
SBMA is a relatively new arts-funding organization that officially launched in 2012 thanks to $60,000 from the Knight Arts Challenge. (Disclosure: Flying Kite's publisher, Michelle Freeman, sits on SBMA's Board of Advisors.) It offers modest cash grants to local independent artists.
Founder Erica Hawthorne, a vocalist and spoken-word artist who goes by the stage name
RhapsodE, relocated from Minneapolis to Philadelphia "purposely to be a part of the creative scene here." According to her, many creative types -- especially those with day jobs -- aren't in the position to compete for big-money grants.
"When you're a creative person, you can easily [spend] upwards of $200 a month on your art form, just caring for it and pursing it," she says. "That's a [major] added expense."
Just last week, five local artists in four separate disciplines were announced as
SBMA's first official micro-grant recipients. Three of them -- a filmmaker, a tap dancer and a video documentarian -- received $500 each. The founder of a small theater company was awarded $450 and a second filmmaker was granted $300.
The artists already have plans for their micro-grants. Michael Durkin of
The Renegade Company, for instance, plans to pay his actors and rent studio time for theater rehearsals.
Tatiana Bacchus, who's making a feature film, will be using her cut for archival photo and video licensing, and to pay for a research assistant.
"As resourceful artists, [we're] used to doing a lot with a little," says Pamela Hetherington of
Philly Tap Teaser. Like Durkin, she'll be paying collaborators and renting theater space with her grant. "It feels amazing to have an organization like SBMA support the work that I've done over the last six years. I'm still very surprised that I won!"
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Erica Hawthorne, Small But Mighty Arts