Applications are now open for 2025 Individual Artist Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. The application submission deadline is Tuesday, July 16, at 5 p.m.
Individual Artist Fellowships are awarded to practicing New Jersey artists through an anonymous, competitive application process administered by Mid Atlantic Arts to help them pursue their artistic goals.
Categories offered for the 2025 fellowships are choreography, crafts, music composition, photography, playwriting/screenwriting, poetry, and sculpture. The review process
Past awards have ranged from $4,000 to $32,000. The amount of the award is determined annually by the State Arts Council based on funding provided through the New Jersey Hotel/Motel tax. Fellowships are awarded to applicants who demonstrate the highest artistic skill, with no cap or quota per artistic discipline. In 2024, from a total of 692 eligible applications, 160 fellowships and finalist awards were granted in six categories. Grant awards totaled just over $1.7 million. Applications are reviewed anonymously by a panel of independent reviewers.
To be eligible, artists must be permanent residents of New Jersey both at the time of application — typically in July — and at the time of award — typically in March.
The applicant must be age 18 or older and must be the artist whose original work is represented in the work samples. Artists who received a fellowship in any category in the past five years are not eligible to apply.
Applicants may not be matriculated students in any graduate, undergraduate, or high school program at the time of application and award. Fellowships may not provide funding for scholarships or academic study in pursuit of a degree.
Collaborating New Jersey artists are not eligible to submit a joint application for collaborative work. The applicant artist must have sole creative control over all work submitted to the fellowships program under their name.
Mid Atlantic Arts will offer two application assistance webinars for prospective fellowship applicants to provide an overview of the rules, requirements, and instructions on how to use the application system. The first takes place Thursday, June 13, from 1 to 2:30 p.m.; the second is Tuesday, June 25, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Registration is required.
Interested applicants need attend only one webinar; the content is identical. A recording of the webinar presentation will also be posted below following the June 13 presentation.
For more information, access to the application portal, and webinar registration, visit www.midatlanticarts.org/opportunity/new-jersey-state-arts-fellowships.
