Time for some good news: The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation has set in motion the second year of its three-year, $1.5 million Spark Awards, a pilot project to award $25,000 to each of 60 Oregon artists to advance their careers. The program kicked off last year with grants to 20 performing artists. (Read about it here.) This year’s 20 grants will go to literary and media artists, and the 2026 awards will go to visual artists.

The timing for the Spark Awards and other foundation initiatives could hardly be more welcome. It follows April’s announcement of awards of more than $4 million to 315 arts and cultural groups in Oregon by the Oregon Community Foundation as part of a three-year, $52 million collaboration with the Miller Foundation and the Oregon Legislature.

The nonprofit arts and cultural worlds in the United States are in a state of financial disarray as the Trump Administration accelerates its war on the federal agencies that help keep the wheels turning, from the National Endowment for the Arts to the National Endowment for the Humanities to the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Kennedy Center in the nation’s capital, and more.

State agencies such as the Oregon Arts Commission ordinarily get a good share of their budgets from the national agencies, and in turn pass funding along to local arts and cultural agencies and organizations ranging from museums to theater and dance companies, libraries, tribal groups and more. The severe slash in federal funding, including the rescinding of millions of dollars nationally for grants that had already been awarded but not yet delivered, is felt all down the line.

Under such circumstances, funding from individuals and private foundations such as the Miller is even more welcome and necessary than usual if arts groups and individual artists are to keep going. And although the Miller Foundation has spent the past two decades helping to underwrite the work of arts groups across Oregon, the Spark Awards (like the Ford Family Foundation’s Hallie Ford Fellowships in the Visual Arts; see below) are distinctive because they are given to individual artists, with virtually no strings attached.

Unlike so many specific project-oriented grants, the Spark Awards are open-ended. Recipients are free to use the money for whatever helps them out: finishing or starting a project, traveling to gather information or experience, even simply buying food and paying the rent so they can continue their work.

“We’ve heard from artists for years that project funding does not allow for flexibility,” Jennifer Allen, the Miller Foundation’s director of responsive grantmaking, said.

Yaelle Amir, who manages the foundation’s grants to individual artists, added that the Spark Awards are “like operating support for artists.” She works directly with the artists, and not just with the winners. After last year’s awards, she said, “I did a lot of feedback calls with people wo did not win an award. … We wanted to make sure that artists got strong feedback” for the future.

Although how grant winners spend their $25,000 is open, who can apply for a Spark Award is much more specific. The awards are meant for mid-career artists — those who have established their careers, and are expected to have many more years of creating art. Applicants must be at least 30 years old by Dec. 31, 2025, must have been a resident of Oregon for the past five or more years, and must have been a practicing artist for seven years or more, not including time in school. There are other restrictions: If you’re interested in applying, check the guidelines and process here.

This year’s awards are specifically for literary and media applicants, and they have specific requirements, too.

Literary applicants must have “published multiple completed projects over the last 7 years or more in publications with a competitive selection and editorial process,” such as a novel or novella, a selection of short stories, poetry, memoir excerpts, creative essays, or creative nonfiction. Playwrights, who were covered in Year One’s performing arts awards, aren’t eligible in this year’s literary category.

Media applicants must have “presented multiple completed media projects over the last 7 years or more through screening and/or distribution on platforms or establishments with a competitive selection process,” such as a feature-length film, three short films, a series of episodic video, or a series of episodic narrative audio.

The application process began on May 14 and the deadline to submit is 5 p.m. July 2. Last year’s 20 winners were chosen from among 299 applicants. Timing is important: Allen and Amir says applications are already coming in.

And help is available along the way. You can view a recording of an information session here; read the Miller Foundation’s grant-writing tips here; register for 15-minute, one-on-one Zoom or phone support sessions on June 4, 12, 17 or 18 here; attend a Zoom open support webinar session 4-6 p.m. June 25 by registering here; and request aid in translation, interpretation, or other assistance by emailing [email protected].

Applications should be submitted via the grants portal, here. Winning applicants will be announced in mid-November.

29 artists share $97,000+ Career Opportunity grants

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, May 21, the Oregon Arts Commission announced $97,791 in grants to 29 Oregon artists from the OAC and the Ford Family Foundation, the latest round of grants through the Career Opportunity Program.

Unlike the open-ended Miller Foundation grants, the Career Opportunity grants are for specific projects. They are also for less money, ranging from $1,000 to $8,299, with $44,344 coming from the arts commision for artists in any discipline, and $53,447 in supplemental funding for 15 visual artists through the Ford foundation’s Visual Arts Program.

The awardees, from around the state, are: Rebecca Burrell, Suzanne Chi, Kimberly Smith Claudel, Matthew Claudel, Epiphany Couch, Fernanda D’Agostino, Ime Etuk, Ethan Gans-Morse, Damien Gilley, Brian Gillis, Patricia Vazquez Gomez, Emily Kepulis, Joy Kloman, Jenna Lechner, Marne Lucas, Mack McFarland, Ryan Meagher, William Morrow, Roger Peet, LeBrie Rich, Tracy Schlapp, Ketzia Schoneberg, Stephanie Simek, Garrett Sluski, Andrea Stolowitz, Chet Udell, Samantha Wall, Jonathan Walters, and Jennifer Wright.

You can see the full list of winners, amounts given, and projects the grants help underwrite here.

Three $35,000 Hallie Ford Fellows named

Also on Wednesday, the Ford Family Foundation named a trio of Portland artists as 2025 Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts, joining 55 others so honored over the past 15 years. Artists Derek Franklin, Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos) and Vo Vo each will receive an unrestricted $35,000 award.

“Derek, Vo and Sara have distinctive life stories that bring them to art making,” Kara Inae Carlisle, president and CEO of The Ford Family Foundation, said in a press statement. “They come together, however, in their sincere commitment to working with others and care for communities. We are so pleased to welcome them to the ‘forever cohort’ of Hallie Ford Fellows.”

Franklin, who was raised in Scappoose, is a painter and sculptor and artistic director of Converge 45. Siestreem, from the Umpqua River Valley on Oregon’s south coast, is noted for her skills in both traditional gathering and weaving and for her contemporary painting, often on Indigenous, feminist, ecological, and social themes. Vo Vo, an immigrant from a Vietnamese refugee family, explores themes of imperialism, colonialism, capitalism and oppression, explaining: “I work from an international, populist perspective, with an intention to make these concepts approachable, accessible and dialectical.”

Read more about the artists and the Hallie Ford awards here.

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For more ArtsWatch stories about arts funding, including Claire Willett’s stories on the effects in Oregon of the Trump Administration’s DOGE budget cuts, see our Funding category here.