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New Arts Council funding allows exibility for artists 6 Wednesday February 17 2016 ARTS CULTURE FUNDING Smiths Landing First Nation encourages you to pursue your path in education. Keep up the good work Aurora College staff and students The Town of Fort Smith celebrates Aurora College Week Feb. 15-19 Wishing every success to all Aurora College students. May your goals be achieved Fort Smith is proud to be home to Aurora College Thebacha Campus By DALI CARMICHAEL FortSmithmultimediaartistMelanieJewell is constantly busy mapping out new ideas for projects moving ever forward with her work assheexperimentswitheverythingfrompho- tography to prints to grati and sketching. In between her artistic endeavours she is busy supplementing her income with annual stints as a wildre ghter and other part-time work around the community. She also just es- tablished her own online Etsy shop https www.etsy.comcashopNorthwestJewell. Withsuchabusyscheduleitcameasarelief to her to hear the NWT Arts Council is in the process of shifting its funding programming to a model that is easier to access for artists both in Yellowknife and in the communities. One of the big changes coming for 2016 is we will be moving to a grant model said Boris Atamanenko manager of community programs with the Arts Council who is also a print maker and graphic designer. The grant isnotaccountablefundingwhereasbeforewe workedwithcontributionagreementswhichis a little bit more paperwork for people to have to manage and then report on their projects. I think were excited to see that were moving towards the grant model because it will be a little bit easier to administer from our end of course but also for the artists to get right to what were doing and know that the govern- ment has faith in their artistic creations. As an artist in the North Jewell said it is great to have these supports. In the past she explained she stressed about putting together fundingapplications.Betweenpredictingcosts -includingshippingofexpensiveartsuppliesto her community - saving receipts and lling out piles of paperwork over an extended period of time the task was cumbersome and didnt al- ways lead to a payout. Its so helpful to have these grants now she said.Itmakesthewholeprocesssomucheasier. Late last month Atamanenko teamed up with local Industry Tourism and In- vestment officers and the Northern Life Museum and Cultural Centre to share funding opportunities with artists in Fort Smith. In addition to discussing Support for Entrepreneurs and Economic Develop- ment SEED money available through ITI and the benets of joining the NWT brand- ing and marketing program media makers learned they can receive up to 15000 in annual grant money from the Arts Council. It is also moving to an online process which will be up shortly Atamanenko said. Right now people can download a single application form and guideline. It used to be we had a guideline for each of the artistic disciplines but its now kind of a one-stop form for people to use and shortly they will be able to actually enter their information on an application right online. The new one-stop shop model was out- lined in the Arts Councils ve-year stra- tegic plan launched in 2014 in coordina- tion with the organizations 30th anniver- sary. The move will harmonize a majority of government support grants available to artists in one place with the exception of the Northern performers program which will remain separate. Hopefully this will make it easier for people to access the funding stream and will allow for more eective administration of the arts funding. For artists looking to apply on grants for audio recording performing arts writing and publishing visual arts and crafts film and media arts and mentorship programs the deadline for grant applications is Feb. 28. PhotocourtesyofMelanieJewell Fort Smith multimedia artist Melanie Jewell is looking forward to an easier application process for Arts Council grants. It replaces the former contribution agreement which involved more paperwork and less time to create.