Our Commitment to Support Black Artists
Level Ground was started by a group of friends in 2013 during a watershed moment for LGBTQ rights and marriage equality. We believed (and still do) that social progress is only realized when we're actually friends with people who are different from us. In over 7 years of artistic collaboration and experimentation we’ve worked to intentionally center and reflect LGBTQ people and their experiences in our community, our programs, and our organizational practices. We cannot, however, achieve our mission of enacting cultural equity through the arts until we also and intentionally center Black artists, audiences, and stories. In this area, we acknowledge Level Ground has some work to do.
As we finalize our 2021-2023 strategic plan that will outline our vision for the community we hope to become, we’ve identified three long term priorities and six immediate action steps. For accountability and transparency, we will update this page every month with our progress and lessons learned.
First published July 6, 2020
Long Term Priorities
Decolonize and democratize our art, imaginations, and organizational practices.
Intentionally center Black artists, audiences, and stories.
Foster a cohesive and consistent audience.
Six Action Steps for 2020
Prioritize Black artists and audiences in this year’s issue of SKEW Magazine.
August Update: We’ve hired a team of guest curators who will be in charge of selecting and commissioning work in Level Ground’s annual magazine. You can read more about this year’s issue of SKEW here.
September Update: The curators put out an open call to Black artists of all mediums and we received 100+ submissions! We’re also reaching out to Black-run businesses and organizations to partner with SKEW. Finally, we’re SO excited to announce this year’s SKEW Designer, Nikki Pressley!
October Update: SKEW is in our designer’s hands and we’ll be launching pre-sales soon. As a reminder, this year’s magazine will be cooperatively owned by the curators, designer, and contributors so all proceeds will go directly to supporting 50+ Black artists.
November Update: If you haven’t ordered SKEW yet, what are you waiting for?
December Update: All 55 artists have received their contributor fee and the first payout of the SKEW profits. In total, the magazine has provided 55 Black artists with a total of $7,000 in funding. Once COVID restrictions are lifted in 2021, we hope to do some more programming partnerships and events with the SKEW community. SKEW helped one artist get a job for next year, and another artist sold the original piece included in the magazine through our Black Artist Directory.
Support the launch of a bipoc artist group within our collective.
August Update: Our 2018 residency alumni Rae Threat and Ruth Torres are spearheading this group. Next month they’ll start hosting monthly mental health check-ins with BIPOC Collective artists, creating a shared fund for artists to access money for cups of coffee, and launching a series of IG Live chats about topics that are important to the group.
September Update: Due to a death in the family, the BIPOC Collective group is on pause until later this month. However, we are offering partial scholarships for artists in the Collective to participate in an Artist’s Way group for BIPOC artists launching this month. Contact us for more details.
October Update: Because we are building our artist collective from the ground up, we are striving to do it in a way that is artist-led and feels authentic to what we value and how we want to operate in the world. We’re meeting this month to discuss the structure of the Collective and will be sharing outcomes and next steps from that meeting – including steps for supporting BIPOC artists – in November.
November Update: We’ll be launching a few community building opportunities exclusively for BIPOC artists in January. Stay tuned for details.
December Update: Level Ground is partnering with Collective artist and SKEW curator Karine Fleurima to support a new offering called The Artist’s Way REMIXED. It's a reimagining of Julia Cameron's seminal creative recovery workshop, modernized for the BIPOC/LGBTQ+ community. You can learn more by attending the info. session.
Introduce a Mutual Aid framework into the Collective.
August Update: As we imagine ways to support the sustainability and health of our community outside the systems of capitalism and the nonprofit industrial complex, we’re looking to build a robust Mutual Aid Network. We’re currently researching and learning from other mutual aid networks and communities that have existed before us in preparation for our first brainstorm meeting this month.
September Update: We will be launching a decentralized Level Ground mutual aid pod this month with the volunteer coordination support of 5 members of our community. This beta pod will include interested Level Ground Members, Collective artists, and friends. If you want to get involved, let us know.
October Update: This month we are reaching out to see who will be part of the first Level Ground Mutual Aid pod and will be launching it in November.
November Update: There are ~15 artists currently interested in forming a Level Ground pod. We’ve connected with other local (and global) artist collectives working to build mutual aid and time banking networks to build up a sustainable creative class. We’ll have more information to share in January!
December Update: We’ve had our first Mutual Aid Pod meeting and it was full of so much energy and community care. The pod will be organized by 2 volunteer coordinators who serve for 2 months. We’re building a ticketing system to receive requests and have started a Signal thread to build community and share smaller, more immediate needs. Together, we’re hoping to meet each other’s needs related to: food and housing security, access to project funding and resources, childcare, grief care, skills sharing, job opportunities, debt repayment, and more!
commit to actively inviting black artists into our collective, actively hiring black creatives for studio projects, and actively supporting black-led projects in our production incubator.
August Update: We’re actively building a list of 100 Black artists we can reach out to, recommend for creative work, and support through our own resources and community.
September Update: Through our production incubator, Level Ground is supporting 3 new projects led by Black creators. None of these projects are funded yet, so if you’re interested in helping make them happen, let us know. We’ll share more specifics as we’re able to! For upcoming client work through our creative studio, we’re hiring 3 Black freelance artists. We will also be inviting the 100+ Black artists who submitted to SKEW to join the Level Ground Collective.
October Update: By the end of this month we will be sharing a directory of Black artists who are interested in receiving commissions and/or paid freelance work.
November Update: Here is our Black Artist Directory. Please use it to buy artwork and hire freelance artists!
December Update: We haven’t shared this yet (and is anyone even still reading this?) but next month Level Ground will be announcing that we received a $40,000 grant to launch a community storytelling project called Black America Is… Details coming soon, but we’ll be hiring some of our SKEW collaborators to work on this project, and have several other Black-led projects and collaborators that we’re excited to share in 2021.
Include Collective artists in every stage of our long-term strategic planning and decision making.
August Update: Over the next two months we’re hosting a series of conversations facilitated by leaders in our artist Collective to creatively and experimentally address "the problems of organizing an artist collective.” These conversations will inform the very foundation of our strategic plan which we will share, in full, at the end of the year.
September Update: We’ve hosted 2 Collective calls and have one more scheduled this month. These calls are designed and facilitated by Collective leaders and are focused on exploring how we get to know one another, how we communicate, how we collaborate, and how we make decisions as a community.
October Update: We are continuing to host Collective calls and will be sharing the next steps of this artist-led process next month.
November Update: We conducted a comprehensive Collective survey and will be hosting our first ever all-hands-on-deck Collective meeting in January to finalize the leadership structure, goals, and timelines for the 2021 Collective!
December Update: During our “all-hands-on-deck” Collective Meeting (on Jan 12) we’ll be discussing financing and funding, leadership, community agreements, project collaborations, and more – with all Collective artists. We’re currently raising money (through our 100 Prints campaign) that will go directly to Collective project funding and will be distributed according to the Collective’s discretion. We’ll be sharing our 2020 Annual Report and 2021-2023 Strategic Plan in early 2021.
Commit time and resources to develop space for BIPOC artists to become leaders within Level Ground.
August Update: We’re building a resource list for ongoing study and conversation between our board, staff, and Collective leaders. This fall we’ll be trying out a new idea (tentatively) called the Level Ground Syllabus and we’ll have more details to share next month! We’re also re-examining roles, titles, and pay to ensure equity across staff and other leaders. We will share this information as it’s collected to ensure transparency.
September Update: The Level Ground Syllabus will launch in November in conjunction with SKEW Magazine. More details coming next month! We’ve also standardized pay for all full and part-time staff and everyone is making between $20-$25/hour depending on their role. We are looking for 2-3 part-time people to help with copy writing, social media, community management, production support, and office administration. We’re encouraging emerging BIPOC artists looking to grow their skills and networks to reach out and learn more.
October Update: We are so excited to announce that we’ve hired Reneice Charles as our Community Manager! We will be launching the Syllabus Project led by Turay and Lola Rose Eros for the community of staff, board members, donors, and Collective artists this month. We’re also inviting 3-4 BIPOC artists to join the board in 2021.
November Update: Check out The Syllabus Project here.
December Update: We are expanding our board of directors from 3 members to 7 in 2021. This will mean that our board is over 70% BIPOC (including 40% Black). We’ll be announcing our new board members in January.
Last updated December 17, 2020.