ART SCHOLARSHIPS
Searching for art scholarships is great practice for aspiring artists. The reason? Great artists throughout history have spent much of their lives looking for benefactors who will lend financial support to their artistic endeavors.
Fortunately for you there are a wide variety of art scholarships available to students artists. The first step when looking for art scholarships is to determine exactly where you fit into the artistic landscape.
An artist is essentially someone who communicates ideas, thoughts or feelings through painting, drawing, writing, photography, music or some other way. Since many art scholarships are geared toward a very specific type of art you will need to know where you fit in. That doesn’t mean you can’t expand your artistic scope later, but for our purposes we need a starting point.
There are three primary ways one can win art scholarships. The first is by far the most common so we will start our focus there.
So what is the most common way people win art scholarships? It’s a combination of good grades and test scores with artistic talent. But how do they judge your artistic talent?
Unlike other types of scholarships art scholarships generally require a portfolio of your work for serious consideration. This can be a sample of two to ten pieces of original artwork done by you.
It’s important to note that art scholarships are available by traditional means as well. These can include academic and merit scholarships in addition to those based on financial need.
What are some other methods for earning art scholarships? There are quite a few art contests for high school students where the winner is awarded art scholarships.
There are also some teachers and professors who will award art scholarships to outstanding students. If you aren’t already aware of some possibilities in this area, it doesn’t hurt to ask your teachers or guidance counselors about it.
Technology continues to create a growing number of outlets and markets for artists. For instance, multi-media and animation jobs are one of the fastest growing sectors for artwork.
Salaried jobs in this artistic arena are expected to rise upwards of twenty percent in the coming years. How is this relevant to you? Scholarship money generally increases in direct proportion to the demand in the economy.
Unlike most professions where there is some relative consistency to the salary structure, life for many artists can be feast or famine. The top ten percent of artists in any given discipline can make a good living while many others will struggle.
This makes it doubly important that those pursuing art scholarships supplement their artistic talents with some marketing and business savvy that will help them exploit their art to its full potential. These skills don’t often come naturally to artist types so work to develop this in yourself.
The creative student is often overlooked in the scholarship world. This has been a truism throughout recent history. The search for art scholarship money—like the search for money for art—can be unforgiving and often fruitless. The one with talent who stays persistent usually comes out on top.