Early Career Artist Grant: Tools & Equipment
With generous support from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, ACC has established three grant opportunities, available exclusively to members of our Early Career Artist Program. The American Craft Council provides innovative programs that support craft-centered livelihoods, including initiatives designed to meet the needs of artists as they build their careers.
Meet the awardees.
Fifteen Early Career Artist Program participants will receive a $2,500 grant to purchase tools and equipment that will help grow their creative practice and business. Examples of tools and equipment include: a kiln, a jeweler’s saw, a workbench, or an anvil. Materials are not eligible for this grant.
You are now entering a filterable feed of Awardees.
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Kennedy Lor
Kennedy Lor is a Minneapolis-based accessories designer, specializing in the radical reconstruction of secondhand leather and garments. He blends architectural pattern-making with sustainable practices to create one-of-a-kind handbags and statement pieces. Kennedy’s work redefines luxury, preserving the history of salvaged materials within contemporary, wearable art.
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Maryamm Abdullah
Maryamm became a full-time potter 3 years ago and has made hundreds of ceramic pieces on an inexpensive pottery wheel from Amazon with no bat system. A bat system allows thrown pottery to be interchanged so that the work will not get distorted when moved. Most of Maryamm’s work is wheel-thrown, and sometimes she waits hours for work to dry before she can safely move it, limiting productivity. Maryamm used the Tools and Equipment grant to purchase a new potters wheel and associated expenses.
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Nana Gagatsovi
Nana discovered her passion for woodworking later in life—a midlife crisis unraveling into creative awakening. Made in the USSR, forged in Russia, and programmed in the U.S., she carves furniture the way she has carved her identity: stripping away what doesn’t belong and honoring what remains.
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Nathaniel Newcomb
Nathaniel Newcomb mills his own wood and works at a large scale; therefore, having tools capable of cutting both precisely and safely is essential. Nathaniel is receiving a Tools and Equipment grant to purchase a Makita electric hand planer and a Skilsaw Sawsquatch, a powerful circular saw equipped with a small chainsaw-style blade. These tools would bring a new level of precision and professionalism to Nathaniel’s work and allow him to produce more finished work and participate in additional ...
