Hillsborough awarding grants to growing professional artists

Grant program helps rising artists in Hillsborough

FOX 13 photojournalist Barry Wong shows us how the Hillsborough County Arts Council’s Professional Development for Artists (PDA) Grant Program impacts the careers of growing professional artists.

TAMPA, Fla. - For Marc Brechwald, a new digital SLR camera has been a key to growing as a professional artist. The pencil artist paid for it by using grant money he was awarded by the Hillsborough County Arts Council’s Professional Development for Artists (PDA) Grant Program.

"One of the things about being an artist is being able to take really good pictures of your art, because a lot of what we do is online," Brechwald said. "Having a nice camera to be able to do that and then present your art in the way you want to present it online and on computers and phones, that was very important to me."

The program awards $30,000 a year to local artists, and each artist is able to earn up to $2,000. The program started nearly 40 years ago.

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"The Arts Council is the unifying voice for the arts in Hillsborough County," Arts Council Division Director Martine Collier said. "We’re here to serve the citizens of the county to connect them with the arts."

Grant recipients can only use the funds on something permanent. For example, a painter cannot buy paint or canvases, but could buy an easel. Previous awardees have purchased a computer, an underwater camera and training classes.

"This may not seem so at first glance, but this is workforce development," Collier said. "This is giving skills to the artist. It’s such a small investment, but it has such a big dividend."

For Brechwald, a digital camera is an expense that he simply didn’t think of when becoming a full-time artist.

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"Say I were to submit for an art show or an art contest," he said. "The people that look at those, the curators, want high-quality images, because they're going to zoom in, and they're going to see, okay, what's your technique? They want to look closely to see how you accomplish that."

Brechwald was encouraged to apply thanks to other artists. He’s now encouraging others to apply. The application deadline for this year’s PDA grants is on Friday.

For more information, visit hillsborougharts.org/artist-grants.

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