For many artists starting their careers or going in new directions, support comes in grants, whether the modest $500 career development grants from the Alaska State Council on the Arts or major $25,000 distinguished artist grants from the Rasmuson Foundation. The state and federally funded ASCA and privately funded Rasmuson Foundation have given out hundreds of grants to Alaska artists, many of them from the lower Kenai Peninsula.

Along with project-specific career development grants, ASCA also awards $2,500 Connie Boochever artist fellowships. Since 2004, the Rasmuson Foundation has awarded more than $1 million to 144 Alaskan artists. Some have been project specific, like a $5,000 grant to artist Asia Freeman to install an exhibit. Alaska State Writer Nancy Lord received a $12,000 fellowship to finish several nonfiction books. Rasmuson awards money to emerging artists, mid-career artists and distinguished artists.

Many artists say the grants have had a profound influence in their careers.

Ron Senungetuk, a retired University of Alaska Fairbanks professor now living in Homer, last spring received a Rasmuson Foundation $25,000 distinguished artist award. It's only the latest in a lifetime of awards for the Inupiaq artist and founder of the Alaska Fairbanks Native Arts Center. But the grant that really made a difference was a Fulbright Fellowship he received after graduating with a bachelor of fine arts from the School for American Craftsmen at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

"That was a substantial boost in my life," Senungetuk said. "It was like giving me license to do whatever I want to do."

Senungetuk studied in Oslo, Norway, at the Statens Handverks og Kunstindustri Skole. That international viewpoint gave him a new perspective, too.

"It really broadened my world view," Senungetuk said. "When you look back 20, 30 years after everything happened, you realize, wow, I was so timid."

To apply for grants, artists write a personal statement, prepare a portfolio and describe the specific project they want to get funded. That has value in itself, grant managers and artists both say.

"The process of doing that has helped them, and just helped them focus," said Helen Howarth, Rasmuson program officer of the artists' applications.

"It's a very good exercise working through step-by-step these different guidelines," said Muller. "It makes you get really, really clear on what it is you're proposing to do."

For that past five years, Muller has coordinated the construction of large baskets built on the Homer Spit beach and then burned in a community ceremony.

"It really forces you to become clear about what you want to make," said Kevin Co, a Homer videographer who got a $5,000 Rasmuson grant to make a documentary film about the salmon of Bristol Bay.

Co used that project to help him develop an application for a larger project he sought funding for through the Alaska Humanities Forum. He didn't get the grant, but the process still had value.

"That grant is still alive," he said of the idea. "It's a seed, to help you plant a seed."

"It's disappointing not to be selected, yet the experience itself is the reward," Muller said.

Photo by Michael Armstrong Mavis Muller works on the 2007 Burning Basket last Friday at Mariner Park.

"They were leading you into an understanding of your own art and why you create art -- not only why, but how you do your own art," she said.

Grants not only help develop careers or make specific projects happen, but they can lead to more grant opportunities -- or commercial opportunities.

Co said in making his Bristol Bay film, he met people who needed video work done.

"I was called back the next year to do a commercial video in Naknek," he said.

The application process also gives artists exposure. The Rasmuson Foundation brings in national and international artists to sit on grant review committees.

"They're getting feedback from nationally recognized people," Howarth said. "You at least know as an artist you've been nationally vetted. You're impressing people outside the state."

Perhaps the greatest value in getting grants is validation.

"It opened so many doors," Co said.

"That kind of feeling is like the little pat on the back, the recognition that, hey, you're doing good work," Muller said. "That is worth more than a dollar figure you can put on it. It's like saying, you're on the right path."

The next round of the Rasmuson Foundation Individual Artist Awards will be made next spring. The postmark deadline is March 1. For application information, visit www.rasmuson.org or call (877) 366-2700. For Alaska State Council on the Arts information, visit www.eed.state.ak.us/aksca or call (888) 278-7424.

"We want to support artists living and working in Alaska," Howarth said. "Artists make our communities better."

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.