Waymakers Collective Announces New Grant Opportunity for Southern Artists

The Appalachian Visionary Artist Fund, open for applications through August 4, will give regional artists $5,000 each.

By Robert Alan Grand
June 30, 2026

Digital Only

Craft industry

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Photo courtesy of the Waymakers Collective

This year, a new grant program will help a dozen Appalachian artists and collectives bring their innovative, experimental projects to light.

The aptly named Appalachian Visionary Artist Fund will award 12 artists or collectives with one-time $5,000 grants to support creative practices that stretch outside the studio, encourage collaboration, and cultivate new connections between artists and the public.

This year marks the beginning of what will soon be an annual program for the area, funded by the regional regranting program of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and administered by the Appalachian-based Waymakers Collective.

“We want this to be a place of dreaming for artists—providing some project support to allow people to do what they wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to,” says Joe Tolbert Jr., Waymakers’ executive director. According to the fund’s website, supported projects may include the creation of a new exhibition, public art project, or visual art publication or the subsidization of the ongoing work of an independent art space, among other endeavors.

Artists or collectives must be located in counties within the Central Appalachian Region, including West Virginia and parts of Kentucky and Virginia, and their projects should also take place in this region. Grant recipients are chosen by a rotating panel.

Photo by Ryan Hamilton

Joe Tolbert, Jr., the Waymakers Collective's executive director.

The Waymakers Collective is a community-governed network of grantmakers in Appalachia that funds artists, visionaries, and cultural leaders who bring new perspectives and cultural resources to the region, with a focus on supporting endeavors that are historically underfunded, such as those led by BIPOC, youth, LGBTQIA+, and non-English-speaking and immigrant creatives.

Since its founding in 2020, Waymakers Collective has awarded almost 2 million dollars to 324 individuals and organizations working in the region, most of whom, they say, have never received substantial funding of this kind before.

“Appalachia is a place of diversity and innovation, and through this fund and our work with Waymakers, my hope is that people can begin to see the region differently and see the breadth of artistic practice that happens here,” says Tolbert.

Applications for the Appalachian Visionary Artist Fund are now open through August 4, and recipients will be announced in September. There is no fee to apply.

Photo courtesy of the Waymakers Collective

Robert Alan Grand is a writer and photographer based in Asheville, North Carolina. He received the 2025 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant to cover contemporary art in southern and central Appalachia.

Learn more about the Appalachian Visionary Artist Fund online.

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This article was made possible with support from the Windgate Foundation.

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