Now Art is a mentality that art must be current, accessible and an agent of dialogue and social change. Now Art is immediate, accessible, participatory, low-cost, and deals with current issues that we face as a community/society.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will happen to the money I donate?
Your donation will be collected with the donations of others. When the donation pool reaches $500, this money will be granted to one of the artists who have applied.

How much should I donate?
Any amount is welcomed. The philosophy of this program holds that community, when working together, can create social change. No contribution to that process is too small. Each donation is put into a communal fund; $500 grants are given out as the funds accrue.

Who makes the decisions about which artists receive grants?
damali ayo has served on such grant committees from local artist grants to national educational grants for the past 15 years. Her extensive experience will allow her to hand pick the artists and projects that will make the most of your donation. In addition, each artist will be mentored by damali and a second mentor specific to their location or project area. This process builds a support network and insures that the work is seen to fruition.

How can I stay in touch with artists that my donation is going towards supporting? When and how will I "see" the completed project?
Now Art grants are designed to support participatory art that is delivered to a wide audience. As such, the funders will receive an element of the work, delivered directly to them as a part of the project. This serves to involve a wide range of people in the dissemination of the work, expands the artists reach and renders obsolete the walls of traditional art galleries.

What kinds of social issues are funded by this grant?
Anything that you can imagine that can improve the way we live as a community.

How are the artists chosen?
Artists who apply are researched by damali ayo and her assistants who comprise the Now Art selection committee. Grant recipients will be chosen based on their passion, practicality, and ability to bring the project to fruition. Artists of all communities, disciplines and locations are eligible.

To be chosen to receive a Now Art Grant , the artist/art must:
· Take place outside of a gallery or limited-access space.
· Engage a wide audience in a dialogue about a current social issue.
· Have a component that delivers an aspect of the art directly to those who have funded it.
· Show ability to fully accomplish the proposed project over six months.

To apply:
Send an email with your idea, a link to digital versions of your work and a bit about yourself to nowart@damaliayo.com. Slides will not be accepted. This application process is simple so as to not draw focus away from your primary work of creating art.

Why does the project have to take place outside of a gallery?
Now Art is work that provides wide access to the work. Galleries, by their physical nature are limited in their ability to reach audiences in a "now art' kind of way. Now Art should not be limited to a specific location but be delivered to people in a way that they can easily access it.

Why do I need two mentors?
damali ayo serves as your grant contact and first mentor. She will assist you to execute and disseminate your project through her extensive network. Your second mentor will be in your geographical location or specific to the field of your project. damali personally pairs now artists with mentors who are invaluable repositories of experience and you'll be happy to know them. Now Art grants are also about developing bonds between artists, disciplines and locations.

You say this is a microfinance-based program, do I have to pay the money back?
You return the donation by creating art that directly improves the lives of the people who funded you. Now Art brings art and people together. It is important to include your donors in your funded project through participation, updates and a continued relationship.

Now Art Grants

Support Art that Creates Social Change

Now Art holds that the primary role and responsibility of art is to mirror the dilemmas of society to its citizens, offering a catalyst for change and development; evolves as society evolves; values the artist's use of a wide range of media; integrates contemporary and emerging technologies; prizes the power of individuals to effect change, discarding divisions between personal and political; honors and engages the work of its predecessors, recognizing that art builds upon art.  

Now Art Grants combine the small donations of many individuals and make these available to artists whose work creates art that catalyzes social change. These artists often work with no pay and slim budgets because the activist nature of their work is often dismissed as "not fine art" or because art remains devalued as a viable career choice by society. You can donate any amount you choose to the grant pool. This money is combined and granted to artists who show their commitment to social change through their work. The art created by Now Art Grants will have a component that is delivered directly to those who have donated the grant funds as a direct return of your investment.

Artists creating work that engages dialogue about current social issues will receive grant funds (minimum $500), three months mentorship by damali ayo, a second mentor who has specific experience in the project field, and the exposure to ayo's mailing list of over 3000 people.

To be chosen to receive a Now Art Grant , the artist/art must:

· Take place outside of a gallery or limited-access space.

· Engage a wide audience in a dialogue about a current social issue.

· Have a component that delivers an aspect of the art directly to those who have funded it.

· Show ability to fully accomplish the proposed project over six months.

Make a donation, ask a question, join the mailing list and apply by contacting nowart@damaliayo.com.

become a now artist
Send an email with your idea and a bit about yourself to nowart@damaliayo.com digital images/audio of your work are always welcome and should not be emailed, but a link to them should be included in your work. This application process is simple so as to not draw focus away from your primary work of creating art.

Seeking Funding!
If you find yourself entranced by these projects as I did, consider a donation of $20 to $100. Every $500 means a new artist gets funded. If you're feeling excited about the program, why not donate $500? Your donation will launch a new Now Art project!

New Now Artists Coming Soon!

Currently Funded

Eric Gottesman
Salam 2.0 by Eric Gottesman and Now Art network members"Starting in 1999, I began making photographs and videos with Salamawit Alemu, a young Ethiopian woman who was eight years old when I first met her. Her life story was one of constant change and it touched me deeply. I taught her to use a camera and asked her to make photographs about her life. I wanted to learn to see from her perspective. We have taught each other a lot over the last eight years, as we continue to make images together.

"I have tried to bridge the distance between me as an artist and Salam as my subject. Now, I would like to try to bring another perspective into this process: yours. damali and I have started a conversation about what might happen if we invited you, the Now Art network, into the process of creating images and text to try to impact someone else.  I am going to send you an electronic version of a book that I have designed. It will contain the work that Salam and I have produced together. I will invite you to read it and then to respond to our work with your own work, to send images and text that interprets Salam's experience through your perspectives. I will then edit those perspectives into a book, along with the work that Salam and I have produced to create something that is (hopefully) greater than the sum of its parts. In the past, according to traditional Ethiopian culture, one could ask a priest to make a parchment scroll with text and images to ward away illness or to heal existing ailments. In the present, young Ethiopians like Salam have Facebook accounts and blogs. This participatory book will be an experiment in a long and evolving history in Ethiopian culture of using text and image to connect the imagemaker, the subject and the audience."

The resulting work- creted by you and Eric and Salam will be sold as a fundraiser for Salam herself to help her change her current circumstances and create the life she deserves.

More on Eric at http://ericgottesman.net

Laura Parker
Meet a Stranger + podcast produced by April Baer
Laura's "Meet a Stranger" Blog is a wonderful collection of people that Laura gets to know and delivers their stories right to your computer screen through her blog and direct emails of the "stranger bios." Laura has a gift for plain-language story telling and describing people as they describe themselves. Her project exemplifies the essence of Now Art, engaging real people with each other and with our world through art.

April Baer lends her journalistic and producing skills to bring Laura's project into a new medium- audio. April and Laura will team up to create a limited series of Meet a Stranger podcasts so that you can read, see and now hear the strangers that Laura brings you!

Angela Mobley
Truth Cards
Anglea will collect a variety of greeting cards made by artists. She will then utilize the members of this list and the general community to "shopdrop" (the opposite of shoplifting) the cards into stores where any citizen can purchase them. 

In the ritual of utilizing a generic sentiment to give grandma on her birthday or a co-worker for her new baby, we use the greeting card—a mix of predetermined and mass produced image and text. What is it about the non-specific wording surrounded by pastel flowers on a piece of paper that continues to take us back to the store to look for another? Why do we chose this paper medium to state life’s undercurrents, the things gone unsaid?

How would it feel to come across a difficult truth presented in the format of a greeting card?

"Truth Cards" make present the fact that stating the hurtful and intolerable is just as important as declaring the happy and celebratory events in one’s life. Angela's art is most interested in works that can shift one’s daily experience by encasing something challenging in an everyday, known object-- in this case the greeting card.

Angela has been buying cards from stores, scanning them in, retaining the image and font and shifting the wording only slightly. The cards are then returned to the original site and placed among the originals. Using social spaces where cards are sold, allows anyone looking at greeting cards the access to these “truth cards." For example, cards to a “Special Sister” and “Terrific Father” are slightly altered to a “Competitive Sister” or a “Terrible Father.” The inside text is shifted minimally, just enough to change the card's meaning.

More about Angela Mobley at angelamobley.com.