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Native Artist Resources

Discover grants, fellowships, and artist residencies designed to support Native artists and culture bearers in their creative and cultural endeavors. Explore opportunities to receive financial aid, mentorship, and development resources to sustain and grow your artistic journey.

Opportunities for Native Artists & Culture Bearers

Welcome to the First Peoples Fund Artist Resource page! We're here to champion and support Native artists and culture bearers. At First Peoples Fund, we understand the profound influence of art and cultural practices on our communities. Our commitment is to foster growth, creativity, and cultural preservation. Below is a list of artist opportunities, including grants and fellowships, which are updated monthly. It has a special focus on supporting BIPOC artists and culture bearers through additional resources and support.

If you’d like to add an opportunity, please send all relevant information to programs@firstpeoplesfund.org with the subject line: “FPF Artist Resource Page”

current opportunities

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At this time, there are no artist opportunities we are aware of.
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about artist opportunities including those offered by First Peoples Fund.

past opportunities

Sealaska Heritage Juried Art Show & Competition

Open call for artwork to be considered for Sealaska Heritage art competition. To be considered eligible for this competition, an applicant must be an Alaska Native or Native American who is enrolled or a descendant of an ANCSA Corporation or Indian tribe.

Adolf and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Artist Grant

This program was conceived to recognize and support the serious, fully committed artist. We encourage artist applicants who have dedicated their lives to developing their art, regardless of their level of commercial success. $25k in funding per successful applicant.

Namingha Institute

This annual residency provides selected artists with a challenging and stimulating environment to explore their artistic interests through various media. Throughout the two-week residency, students will participate in classes with the master artists—or other distinguished artists of their choosing—on the Museum of Northern Arizona campus. Residents will stay in rustic cabins near the studio and receive a $1,500 stipend.

Oglala Lakota Artspace Artist-in-Residence

The Oglala Lakota Artspace Artist-in-Residence (AiR) Program is designed to support Oceti Sakowin culture bearers and artists working in the continuum of Lakota art, historically, traditionally, and contemporarily, to develop their practice and build collaborations with local artists and the community. Stipend provided.

University of Minnesota Native American Artist Residency

The Arboretum plans to host a four-month Artist Residency Program for one local Native American artist from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota or South Dakota, beginning June 1 to Oct. 1, 2026, providing an opportunity to explore artistic ideas that highlight themes of nature and landscapes.

Fulcrum Fund

The Fulcrum Fund supports New Mexico–based artists and collectives whose work centers around visual arts, helping them expand existing projects or explore new directions outside traditional museum and gallery systems. In 2026, the Fulcrum Fund will distribute $60,000 in grants ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 to support innovative, artist-led projects that inspire curiosity, engagement, and dialogue.

New Mexico, USA

McKnight Fellowships for Fiber Artists

This program provides two $25,000 unrestricted fellowships to be awarded each year to individual fiber artists–at ANY stage of midcareer and beyond–living and working in Minnesota. These are not project grants, but unrestricted fellowships awarded to artists who have a creative practice that is clearly beyond emerging.

2026 Graton Artist Opportunity

The Sundance Institute | Graton Artist Opportunity serves to cultivate a stage for artists from federally and non-federally recognized California Indian tribes to tell their stories through film.

CA Indian Tribes

Banff Visual Arts - Nomadisms Residency

Nomadism is conceived as a mode of existence and territorialization grounded in practices of regulated mobility. This residency invites participants to engage with the theme of nomadism as both a critical and aesthetic framework.

Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) Summer Research Fellowship Program

The Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) will be hosting its second Summer Research Fellowship Program in 2026, offering scholars, researchers, and folklorists the opportunity to spend 4-6 weeks in Santa Fe, New Mexico, conducting research on the museum's extensive folk art collection and archives.

Santa Fe, NM, USA

IAIA Holiday Art Market

IAIA is seeking artists for its annual Holiday Art Market, which will be held on Saturday, December 13, 2025, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Performing Arts and Fitness Center (Gym) and the Library and Technology Building on the IAIA campus. All Native artists and creatives are encouraged to apply.

BIPOC Artist-in-Residence at North Carolina Glass Center

North Carolina Glass Center’s BIPOC Artist-in-Residence program provides hot shop artists with the opportunity to dive deeply into their artistic research, practice, and creative endeavors while working closely with our local artist community and outreach programs. 6-weeks, travel reimbursement & $1500 stipend.

Gloria’s Foundation Fellowship

The Gloria’s Foundation Fellowship is an opportunity for change makers and hope-a-holics whose work centers around justice and social change to deepen their own endeavors and contribute to present and future organizing. Fellows must be located in NYC for the duration of the fellowship year. Access to Foundation space, Foundation library, programs, two events w/ Gloria Steinem, 3 private 1:1 conversations w/ Gloria Steinem, and a $5k stipend.

School for Advanced Research Resident Scholar Fellowships

he School for Advanced Research (SAR) awards resident scholar fellowships annually. Stipends for senior scholars are $70,000 for nine-month fellowships and $35,000 for 4.5 months. Stipends for junior scholars are $50,000 for nine months.

MASS MoCA General Artist Residency

Open Call for MASS MoCA artist residencies for July – December 2026. The Studios at MASS MoCA runs year-round, hosts up to 10 artists at a time for stays of 2 or 4 weeks, and primarily seeks applications from visual artists (painters, sculptors, installation artists, photographers, video/new media artists, fiber artists, printmakers, etc.) and writers in all literary disciplines. Artists from around the world are encouraged to apply.

North Adams, MA

Change Labs Pitch Your Hustle

Pitch Your Hustle is a platform where Native entrepreneurs showcase their businesses, share their stories, and compete for cash prizes to support their ventures. This year, half of the prize money is dedicated specifically to artisan and creative-based businesses. Awards between $2000-$6000

Indigenous Pasifika Storytelling Artist Residency

The Indigenous Storytelling Artist Residency is a Hummingbird Family Services (HIFS) Storytelling Program project. The artist in residence will work with the families our organization serves. During the residency, artists will hold storytelling workshops with our families and create art aligned with traditional cultural values on pregnancy and parenting. $30k to cover living costs, rental spaces for workshops and supplies for the artist.

Pasifika artists

Loewe Foundation Craft Prize

The LOEWE FOUNDATION launched the international annual LOEWE FOUNDATION Craft Prize in 2016 to showcase and celebrate newness, excellence and artistic merit in modern craft. With a €50,000 award for the winning entry, the prize aims to celebrate and support working artists whose talent, vision and will to innovate promise to set a new standard for the future.

worldwide applicants accepted

News > Native Artist Resources

Explore our grants and awards

Native artist, Richard D. York (Citizen of the Cherokee Nation) painting in his studio.

Yéigo Action Grant

The Yéigo Action Grant provides support for the growing landscape of Native artists and culture bearers who need financial assistance with a professional development opportunity or towards a hardship that is hindering their creative practice.

A portrait of Native artist Chanelle Gallagher (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) throwing pottery in her studio.

Artist in Business Leadership Fellowship

Our yearlong program that helps independent Native artists pursue art as a way to build a business to support themselves and their families. The program provides them with network-building, professional development training and funding to launch them into success.

A portrait of Native artist, Lance Twitchell (Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska) standing in a forested area in front of a raven sculpture.

Cultural Capital Fellowship

Our yearlong program that offers financial and technical support to culture bearers and artists to further their work of passing on ancestral knowledge within their Native communities. Participants receive support to strengthen their community's commitment to nurture our shared humanity and honor our connection to one another