ABOUT WAVEMAKER GRANTS
WaveMaker at Locust Projects supports Miami’s visionary artists with incubator grants for innovative projects that are shared with the public in unconventional spaces.
Since 2015, WaveMaker has awarded $570,000 in funding to 114 of Miami’s visionary artists. Grantees receive up to $6,000 each in three categories: New Work / Projects, Long-Haul Projects, and Research & Development + Implementation. In the spirit of Locust Projects’ artist-driven mission, WaveMakers experiment and take risks, creating innovative work that is shared with the public in unconventional spaces.
WaveMaker is made possible by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts' Regional Regranting Program, a network of 32 regranting partners across the country. Founded in 2015 by the former nonprofit Cannonball, WaveMaker has been administered by Locust Projects, Miami’s longest running nonprofit alternative art space, since 2017.
ABOUT LOCUST PROJECTS
Locust Projects is an arts incubator producing and presenting exhibitions, programs, and projects. Our mission is to:
CREATE opportunities for visual artists at all career stages
INVITE risk taking and experimentation
ACTIVATE conversations around new art and ideas
ADVOCATE for artists and creative practices
Founded by artists for artists in 1998, Locust Projects is Miami’s longest-running nonprofit alternative art space. We produce, present, and nurture ambitious and experimental new art and the exchange of ideas through commissioned exhibitions and projects, artist residencies, summer art intensives for teens, and public programs on contemporary art and curatorial practice. As a leading incubator of new art and ideas, Locust Projects emphasizes boundary-pushing creative endeavors, risk-taking and experimentation by local, national and international artists. We invest in South Florida’s arts community by providing artists with project grants and empower creative careers by supporting the administrative work of being an artist through an onsite artist resource hub and access to pro bono legal services.
ABOUT WARHOL FOUNDATION
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program was established in 2007 to recognize and support the movement of independently organized, public-facing, artist-centered activity that animates local and regional art scenes but that lies beyond the reach of traditional funding sources. The program is administered by non-profit visual art centers across the United States that work in partnership with the Foundation to fund artists’ experimental projects and collaborative undertakings.
The 32 regranting programs provide grants of up to $10,000 for the creation and presentation of new work. Programs are developed and facilitated by organizations in:
Alabama - The Verdant Fund
Albuquerque - 516 ARTS: Fulcrum Fund
Atlanta - Atlanta Contemporary Nexus Fund
Baltimore - Baltimore Arts Realty Corporation: GRIT Fund
Boston - Collective Futures Fund
Chicago - Threewalls & Gallery 400: Propeller Fund
Cleveland - SPACES: The Satellite Fund
Denver - RedLine Contemporary Art Center: INSITE Fund
Detroit - CultureSource: Flourish Fund
Houston - Aurora Picture Show, DiverseWorks, & Project Row Houses: The Idea Fund
Indianapolis - Power Plant Grant
Kansas City - Charlotte Street Foundation & Spencer Museum of Art: Rocket Grants
Los Angeles - LACE Lightning Fund
Miami - Locust Projects: WaveMaker Grants
Milwaukee - The Open Fund
Minneapolis - Midway Contemporary Art: Visual Arts Fund
Knoxville - Current Art Fund
New Orleans - Antenna & Ashé Cultural Arts Center: Platforms Fund
Newark - Newark Artist Accelerator
Omaha- Populus Fund
Philadelphia - Temple Contemporary: The Velocity Fund
Phoenix and Tucson (AZ) - Night Bloom: Grants for Artists of the Sonoran Desert
Portland (ME) - SPACE Gallery: The Kindling Fund
Portland (OR) - Portland Institute for Contemporary Art: Precipice Fund
Providence - Interlace Grant Fund
Raleigh and Greensboro (NC) - Pivotal Fund
Saint Louis - The Luminary: Futures Fund
San Francisco - Southern Exposure: Alternative Exposure
San Juan, PR - Beta Local
Seattle - Collective Power Fund
Washington DC - Washington Project for the Arts: Wherewithal Grants
WAVEMAKER HISTORY
WaveMaker Grants was launched in 2015 with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts by the former nonprofit, Cannonball. Cannonball was previously known as LegalArt, a pro bono legal services program founded in 2003 by Carolina Jayaram and Lara O’Neil. LegalArt started with the urgency to support emerging artists by providing free legal services and professional development programs. These initiatives, which were co-presented throughout Miami with partner organizations, were created expressly to professionalize, sustain, and advance artists’ careers. The program was renamed LegalLink and a new entity, Cannonball, was established with an artist residency in downtown Miami and the founding of WaveMaker. In 2017, with the dissolution of Cannonball’s nonprofit, Locust Projects acquired WaveMaker and LegalArt (now LegalARTLink) sustaining these vital resources for Miami-based artists.
Image above: Luna Palazzolo, Text-a-poem (La constitución íntima de las cosas).