About Trellis Art Fund
Our Mission
To support the creative work of individual artists.
We seek to impact artists holistically by offering multi-year financial resources, professional support and community. Grants are unrestricted, awarded to artists nationwide, and conceived to encourage artists to keep going – to sustain and uplift their creative practices long-term.
Our Vision
The Trellis Art Fund envisions a world where the work of individual artists is recognized for its intrinsic value. Visual art offers essential benefits to humanity, both as the quintessential expression of our times and as an unparalleled means to understand ourselves and connect with other human beings. As such, we believe that its practitioners deserve recognition and sustained support to cultivate their work. To achieve this, Trellis creates a community wherein artists are supported as they deepen and expand their practices.
Our Values
RESPECT
Artists alone should determine their creative focus and direction. The Trellis Art Fund will not suggest or influence grant recipients in the use of their funds.
FAIRNESS
An artist’s work is work. As such, artists should be compensated for their creative labor.
COMMITMENT
Artists need the ability to plan and deserve holistic support to fulfill their vision. Trellis makes multi-year commitments to its artists as a way of providing stability and the circumstances for sustained focus.
COMMUNITY
Artists benefit from the opportunity to connect with and learn from their peers across discipline and geography. Each Trellis Art Fund cohort will be invited to build community by participating in a growing creative network.
DIVERSITY
Artists hold a range of identities and work from a spectrum of socio-economic backgrounds and geographies. Our cohorts will reflect this complexity.
Anti-Discrimination Pledge
The Trellis Art Fund is an inclusive organization committed to working with individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, ability, religion or any other characteristic protected by law.
We recognize that human beings are complex and dynamic and ever evolving. As such, we are guided by an unshakeable commitment to treat everyone with dignity and respect.
Our cohorts will also reflect the diversity of our contemporary society. Our selection process will embody our desire to address and mitigate the systemic inequities at play in both society as a whole and the art world more specifically. Trellis is committed to paying due attention to artists from historically underrepresented groups and those working outside of traditional commercial market structures. We strongly encourage nominees from these backgrounds to apply for the grant.
Land Acknowledgement
The Trellis Art Fund acknowledges that it operates on indigenous land, specifically the ancestral homeland of the Lenape (Lenapehoking) people. We hope to acknowledge and recognize the displacement of the Lenape people and to honor their ancestors who still live and contribute to New York City communities today.
We are committed to addressing, through our work with individual artists, the history of exclusion and erasure of Indigenous people from the land and from the historical record. Our hope is to uplift and amplify artistic voices from these communities. This is a living land acknowledgment, which we hope to revise and strengthen in collaboration with the Indigenous community over time.