As an artist, it’s often difficult to balance the creative and financial sides of what it takes to create art. Now, a new round of grant funding from the Regional Arts Commission is helping 181 local artists focus on their art, not the hustle.
Visual and performing artist Carlos Salazar-Lermont is among the grant recipients. He received $7,500 for studio upgrades. He said that even artists he considers “the best of the best” have to self-fund their passions through side work and scrounging.
Salazar-Lermont moved to the Midwest from Venezuela. In 2019, he completed a dual masters degree in Arts Administration & Policy and Modern & Contemporary Art History from the Art Institute of Chicago. He earned his MFA in Visual Arts from Washington University last year.
Armed with advanced academics and business literacy, Salazar-Lermont knows well that the hustle of financing his artistic passions isn’t a temporary challenge.
To help make ends meet, Salazar-Lermont teaches drone photography at Washington University and works at the nonprofit Arts Alliance IL. His solo artists exhibition, currently on display at the Bruno David Gallery, takes “a sardonic view on the marginalization that immigrants experience in the United States.”
Jazz trumpeter and bandleader Kasimu Taylor also received a $7,500 grant from the Regional Arts Commission.
“I think it’s always been there somewhere,” Taylor said, describing the pressure on artists to raise funding to support their creative ambitions. His hustle included selling bags of chips to classmates for small profits. Today, he teaches young musicians at an after-school program and in private lessons in Mehlville. Last year, his group, the Kasimu-tet, performed at the Music at the Intersection festival.
Taylor said the days of record labels funding lavish tours and advertising new releases are mostly gone. Instead, artists advocate for themselves using means such as tip jars, crowdsourcing and, yes, grant proposals.
“There’s big-name musicians in New York doing it, coming off tours and doing the same thing,” Taylor told St. Louis on the Air. “It’s like that everywhere. … There’s a lot involved in the arts, that don’t involve creativity.”
He plans to use the grant funds to record his first album and build up his electronic press kit.
Adam Maness, a St. Louis musician and composer, also understands the hustle required to make it as an artist. Still, he said he would rather focus on the art itself.
“It just doesn’t feel great after you’ve really dug deep … really battling to be very honest about it, about yourself, and then you have to flip some kind of switch and go write some kind of grant proposal or something that explains it,” said Maness, who is also the bandleader of the 442s.
“A very wise friend of mine, a musician, once told me that we bring something these organizations, these social structures don't have, and that they need,” he added.“Remember that, as you’re trying to raise money for something: that this is needed, this is valuable. And they need you to do it, they need you to sell them on it ... they want to be part of that legacy too.”
For the full conversation, including comments from Forbes contributor Chadd Scott about his recent piece “America’s Most Exciting Emerging Arts District Is In… St. Louis?” listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or by clicking the play button below.
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“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Ulaa Kuziez is our production intern. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
