For Artists

Percent for Art

Application Tips

Before You Write. . .

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Dear applicant:

Before your write a proposal and complete the application process, we thought it would be useful for you to have some background on the review process, and some tips on how to make your application more competitive.

For each Percent-for-Art project, we receive 75-130 applications. With that in mind, you will obviously want your own application to make an immediate impression – to somehow stand out from the others.

And in our experience, there are applications that make an immediate positive impression, and those that make an immediate negative impression. To help ensure that yours makes the impression you wish, please keep in mind:

1. For each project, there is a selection committee made up of the architect who designed the building, a representative of the facility, a local artist, and a member of the Montana Arts Council. In most projects, there are additional committee members as deemed appropriate, such as engineers or facilities managers.

• Remember:most of the people reviewing your application are NOT artists. In your written text, you will want to speak to a generic audience. Be as clear and concise as possible. Give dimensions of your proposed artwork, and relate those dimensions to the scale of the installation site. Explain clearly and succinctly why your piece is absolutely appropriate for this site.

2. The selection committee usually has 5-8 members. Therefore, you will be asked to submit enough copies of your proposal and application to distribute one to each committee member in advance of the committee meeting. Your application, along with all the other artists’ applications, will be collated into giant three-ring binders and mailed to committee members approximately 6 weeks prior to the slide review and selection meeting.

• Remember:your application is one of many, and will be distributed as a part of the whole package to the committee members. Therefore, any bindings, fancy packets, etc, will be removed before collating into the binders the committee members will receive. Do not spiral bind, staple, or otherwise bind your applications to be viewed as individual documents.
• Remember:the committee will have your application materials, to compare to all other applicants’ materials, at least one month BEFORE they ever see your slides. The written materials themselves will make the first impression, and will be a factor in a committee member’s prioritizing scheme coming into the selection review meeting.

3. The committee will make a lot of decisions about which applications they lean toward long before they see your slides. An example: If there are 100 applications for a project (and it is very common to receive this many), and the committee gave each proposal a 10-minute review (this is one minute per slide) during the review meeting, then their meeting would be more than 16 hours long. No committee would ever be able to meet for that long. This means that when they do sit down to review the slides, they have already made some decisions about which proposals they favor. And then, when they do convene to view the slides, they must move through them quickly and narrow down the field to a few finalists that they can give more in-depth review.

4. There is only one part-time staff member at the Montana Percent-for-Art program. We intentionally keep the staff to a minimum, to ensure that the majority of the Percent-for-Art funds go to the artists, not to administrative overhead. Therefore, you will be asked to help prepare the materials for distribution to the selection committee members. Please prepare your packets as follows:

• Application (with budget)
• Proposal
• Drawing of Proposal
• Slide Description Page
• Resume
  
  
• Each packet should be collated in the above order, and three-hole punched along the left side. Remember, if you use a three-hole punch, do check to make sure that your punch is calibrated so that the holes will line up with the prongs of a three-ring binder. We often receive punched documents that need to be re-punched, and those look very messy.

5. You will be asked to submit multiple copies of your written documents, to be distributed to committee members as described above. You will only need to submit one set of your 10 slides. These will be shown to the entire committee at the same meeting. You must include a self-addressed, stamped envelope, for the return of your slides.

• Remember:the only thing that will be returned to you will be your slides. SLIDE SHEETS DO NOT FIT INTO A STANDARD BUSINESS ENVELOPE. Please be sure to use a large enough envelope to accommodate your slide sheet. Also, a single postage stamp will not cover the cost of returning 10 slides. PLEASE MAKE SURE TO USE ADEQUATE POSTAGE ON YOUR SASE.

If you have further questions as you begin to prepare your application package, please refer to the “Frequently Asked Questions” link in this web site, or contact the Percent-for-Art Director.

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