The KUUMBA Academy is a space for Charlotte-based artists of color to learn essential skills, as well as empower the marginalized to give them the support they need to be successful in their artistic pursuits.
The application process for Charlotte’s next generation of artists of color is now open.
The fellowship program is completely free of charge and offers artists a chance to learn essential skills — such as grant-writing, budgeting, proposal writing and more — to help disadvantaged artists with less resources gain access to grant funding and professional development.
Founder Jermaine Nakia Lee knows all too well how difficult it can be for artists of color to secure grant funding or apply for fellowships. As a Charlotte-based artist himself. He has learned the effort can be disproportionately more difficult to secure grant funding for creative projects.
“It is true that most of my non-people of color colleagues have a college degree, so grant writing and composition writing is not foreign to them,” he explained. “For some African Americans, that’s not our truth. So, there’s no equity there and there’s a natural headstart for non-people of color in that way.”
Lee said the application process for applying for grant funding itself is often tedious and inaccessible for new and young artists.
“That’s another barrier because you have some Black and Brown people who might be proficient in spoken or written word, but trying to download a movie file or edit a video, they don’t have those resources,” he said.
Years ago, Lee was a fellow in an artists program through what is now the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture. They had a fellowship for African American performing artists, media artists, literary artists and visual artists, and it provided Lee with what he called “the training of my life.”
“It literally transformed my artistic career,” he offered.
After that experience, Lee knew he wanted to create a similar program to help up and coming artists of color get their foot in the door. He approached the Arts and Science Council in Charlotte as well as the Knight Foundation with an idea: a fellowship program for Black and Brown artists from across multiple disciplines located in Charlotte’s West End, a historically Black neighborhood in the Queen City.
“I knew they were doing work there to revive and maintain the history of that community,” Lee said. “So I wrote a proposal in which all of our coaching classes with the artists would take place in historic West End, and when the artists did their mid-year and final year presentations, as well as their graduation, all of that would take place on the West End.”
Thus the KUUMBA Academy was born. Its first class welcomed 20 artists from many areas of art — including performing arts, visual arts and literary arts. Its inaugural year saw 11 of the 20 fellows graduate from the 18-month-long program, something Lee was very proud of.
“I was impressed by the fact that we had more than half of our original applicants follow through and graduated … this past January,” Lee said. “Ten of the fellows were awarded grants during the time of our fellowship, and they were all first time awardees.”
This year, the fellowship will be condensed into nine months instead of 18, but the cohort will meet twice a month instead of once. There will be 20 artists selected for this year’s class, which will start July 28.
“If one has the time, and they have a distinct vision, a dissatisfaction with the current standing of their artistic career or if they don’t have an artistic career and they want one, that’s exactly who we’re looking for,” Lee said. “People who are hungry, people who have a vision for their future as a creative and just need some mentorship and guidance.”
To apply, you can go here at https://form.jotform.com/221316782562153?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1l3Yl9EhmkktB2twrpF_QEAnfzA73jTLABEcysA2cL4srKmwLCMQ73kAk_aem_AdQLy8ZDUVMI2slBG-vjCmtcOyV8DoGl2N_I3QBVX_kiyNMbuO9xv-zhrQZBLj6MqJAuKddGG2J8rf6QTcKc_Rih.
