amazing grant for MAP grantees

THE MAP FUND ESTABLISHES THE DORIS DUKE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION CREATIVE EXPLORATION FUND

MAP to Offer $200,000 Annually For Early Creative Research Among Its Grantees

New York, NY (February 2, 2009) The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation announced today the establishment of a new pilot program to benefit individual artists in the early stages of research and development of new creative concepts.

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Creative Exploration Fund at MAP will award $10,000 to individual artists who received two or more MAP grants in a five-year period, beginning with 2003-2008, and rolling forward through 2010. The grant was inspired by a recent report by author Edward Martenson, entitled The Impact of the MAP Fund from the Artists Perspective, which surveyed 250 MAP grantees from the past decade. In interviews and through questionnaires, many artists spoke of the frustration of having to financially "start from zero" with each new work, despite the demonstrable success of past efforts.

In response, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is underwriting a 3-year pilot program that aims to help proven artists sustain the momentum of success by moving seamlessly from a completed project to the exploration of new concepts that may need time to incubate, cohere or be discarded. Grantees are encouraged to pursue their most passionately held ideas, those that might, without such support, be deemed too risky.

Ben Cameron, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Program Director for the Arts stated: "Helping artists undertake necessary research, find reflective time, or embark on artistic exploration—explorations which may not lead to a fully blown project—has always been a challenge. We hope that the Creative Exploration Fund will afford artists such time and opportunity. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation salutes both MAP and Creative Capital for embarking on this journey and looks forward to what we can learn together about the value of such an approach."

"Our work with artists has taught us the value of time in the development of new work and the importance of letting the trajectory of the creative process unfold at its own pace," added Ruby Lerner, founding executive director and president of Creative Capital. "This addition to MAP's program provides artists with the precious resource of time, giving them the opportunity to truly nurture new ideas."

Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Creative Exploration Fund Inaugural Grantees:
Richard Alger & Tina Kronis: Los Angeles
Marc Bamuthi Joseph: Oakland
Ann Carlson: Boston
Mary Ellen Childs: Minneapolis
DD Dorvillier: New York
Erik Ehn: Los Angeles
Guillermo Gómez-Peña: San Francisco
Neil Greenberg: New York
John Jasperse: Brooklyn
Noémi Lafrance: Brooklyn
Sarah Michelson: New York
Jennifer Monson: Urbana, IL
Linda Parris-Bailey: Knoxville, TN
Phil Soltanoff: New York
Donna Uchizono: New York

About the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of people's lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and the prevention of child maltreatment, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke's properties

About Creative Capital

Supporting artists nationally since 1999

Ten years ago, Creative Capital reinvented arts philanthropy, constructing a new paradigm to fulfill the specific needs of the country's most innovative artists. Today, it is the premier national artist support organization, committed to the principle that time and advisory services are as crucial to artistic success as funding. Over the lives of its funded projects, Creative Capital provides artists with a flexible program of multi-faceted support and partners with them to determine how targeted funds and services can best work in concert to progress towards the grantees' own goals. Since its founding in 1999, the organization has committed more than $14 million in financial support and services to 324 projects representing 411 artists. A complete list of Creative Capital artists and projects is available online at creative-capital.org.

Sustaining support for Creative Capital is currently provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The TOBY Fund, The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and more than 370 other foundations and individuals.