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Finding Money, Time and a Place to Create: Upbeat News in a Down Economy - Mira Bartok

692 views · Published 11 November 2013 · 1:40:39 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: JCCCvideo · 2013 · Education

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Award-winning author and artist Mira Bartok visits Johnson County Community College with a message of financial hope for struggling artists everywhere.
 
Bartok presented "Finding Money, Time and a Place to Create: Upbeat News in a Down Economy."  
 
Bartok is an artist, public radio commentator and the author of The Memory Palace, a New York Times bestselling memoir and winner of the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. She is a visual artist and has also published numerous books for children. 
 
She founded the arts blog Mira's List, a website that helps artists locate and apply for fellowships, grants and residencies. Recently Mira's List migrated to Twitter (@miraslist) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/miraslist) to offer the most up-to-date information on upcoming deadlines. Bartok travels across the country, giving public presentations to help artists of all disciplines find the funding they need to keep creating. 
 
As a writer, Bartok helps other writers navigate the confusing world of publishing by giving public presentations and workshops. But her own work transcends a single genre; she received her bachelor's of fine arts in multimedia arts from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. She then completed an MFA in painting and film from the University of Illinois-Chicago and an MFA in fiction at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
 
The Memory Place combines her memories of her childhood with evocative visual artwork she also created.
 
Larry Thomas, professor and chair of fine art and photography at JCCC, said he thinks all creative people, regardless of genre, can benefit from Bartok's advice.
 
"She really is multi-disciplinary, in the truest sense of the word," Thomas said. "She understands artists of all types."
 
In the Nov. 3 presentation, Bartok discussed what kinds of grants, residencies and fellowships exists both in the U.S. and overseas, how to find them and how to apply for them. She also discussed crowd-funding and other innovative ways to finance non-mainstream creative projects.

Bartok's interactive lectures are a collaboration of the JCCC Scholar-in-Residence program and Artist INC at the Innovation Center at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

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