Artists Up Overview

County: King County

Topic: Artists Up

Discipline:

With a focus on racial equity and the voices of individual creators, Artists Up develops programs that connect artists across Washington to resources and each other. By providing support to meet needs and close gaps affecting artists, we support statewide innovation and experimentation to build capacity and community power.

We envision a state where all artists have what they need to thrive economically and artistically.

Artists Up is a collaboration between the Seatle Office of Arts & Culture and 4Culture. In-kind promotional support is provided by ArtsWA. As of 2025, Artist Trust is now the steward of the program. If you are looking for events and professional development programs for artists, please visit our events page.

History

Artists Up was established in 2012 because of a common concern: the low numbers of artists from communities of color applying for funding. We began with the goal of creating a collective impact venture that would help increase access for underrepresented artists, address shifting demographics, and correct historical inequities in resources for marginalized artists.

Artists Up worked with the respected consulting firm AdvisArts to shape an approach based on the idea of collective impact, emergent goals, and processes, harnessing previously unknown resources and innovations, continuous learning, and alignment between multiple organizations working with common constituents.

Our first step was to listen and learn. We held a focus group of Latinx artists working in all disciplines to determine their needs and to investigate concerns, attitudes, and barriers to working with existing funding programs. Artists were incredibly receptive, with 40 participating across three sessions.

This was followed by conversations with over 150 Asian and Pacific Islander, Black and African-American, and Native artists. In response, Artists Up began creating a robust mix of programs that continuously evolve to meet the needs of Washington artists—and taking these findings back to each partner agency to refresh their existing approaches, processes, and structures.

Reports

Read more about our learning from these focus groups and our other programs by reviewing the resources below:

Artists Up at 10 Years: 2012-2022

In Spring 2022, the multi-agency staff team involved with Artists Up (AU) decided that the tenth anniversary of the initiative merited reflection and assessment. There was also a need to document the history and accomplishments of the first decade of Artists Up to ensure that the story of this initiative and the lessons learned can be used as a foundation for future work.

Artists Up: Learning from Grant Lab

As a one-time experiment, Grant LAB tested multiple dimensions of change, in concert with each other. The lessons learned align with findings from previous Artists Up research and additional research and conversation in the arts sector. 
With input provided by the artists participating in four focus groups, Artist Up and its parent agencies learned how to tackle their goals with new clarity and purpose. 
ArchiveArtists UPReports