This Monday evening 3Arts, the Chicago-based nonprofit grantmaking organization, awarded 20 Chicago artists with unrestricted grants at the 11th annual 3Arts Awards Celebration, which took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The celebration honored the ten annual 3Arts Awards recipients along with ten recipients of Make a Wave—a unique artist-to-artist giving initiative.

3Arts is a nonprofit organization that advocates for Chicago’s women artists, artists of color, and artists with disabilities who work in the performing, teaching, and visual arts. By providing cash awards, project funding, residency fellowships, professional development, and promotion, 3Arts helps artists take risks, experiment, and build momentum in their careers.

10 artists were awarded $25,000 cash grants, and $1,000 awards were given to 10 other artists as part of a peer-to-peer giving program (called Make A Wave)

3Arts has distributed more than $3 million in total funding to more than 600 Chicago artists over the past eleven years and awarded $260,000 on Monday night alone.

“Championing Chicago artists is a privilege like no other. We are thrilled to present our awardees with opportunities that they profoundly deserve,” said Esther Grisham Grimm, Executive Director of 3Arts. “Last year’s launch of Make a Wave made it abundantly clear that there is nothing quite as exciting as witnessing artists offering support to other artists by paying it forward and encouraging them to dream big.”

With Make a Wave past 3Arts Awards recipients select another ten Chicago artists to receive surprise $1,000 awards, in effect sending a wave of support through the creative community in Chicago. 

The 2018 Recipients of $25,000 3Arts Awards are: 

Dancers and dance educators T. Ayo Alston and Anna Martine Whitehead; musicians Brittany “BrittanE” Edwards and Ben LaMar Gay; teaching artists Leida “Lady Sol” Garcia and Elgin Bokari T. Smith; playwright and actor Sandra Delgado and costume designer Christine Pascual; and visual artists Dianna Frid and Hương Ngô. 

The 2018 Recipients of $1,000 Make A Wave:

The recipients of Make a Wave include music artists: Nura Aly, Jo de Presser (aka Marlon Billups), Joelle Lamarre, Jenna M. Lyle, Carolyn O’Brien; theater artists: Krystel V. McNeil, Ana Santos; visual artists: Silvia Inés Gonzalez, Krystal Grover-Webb, and Gonzalo Escobar Mora.

For more information about 3Arts visit www.3arts.org