Hey everyone! Hope you’re all okay out there! I know many of you are feeling stressed about work (or the potential lack of work) and all the sudden changes that suggest there are tough times ahead. The team and I have been brainstorming ways we can use our platform to help and we came up with a few ideas that we’re excited to put into motion. The first thing we’re going to do is make our private Slack Community FREE for everyone for the foreseeable future!
For the past couple years the Booooooom Slack has been a place for our paying members to ask for advice, share things that are inspiring them, and get feedback on work. We’ve used it to host some amazing live AMA interviews, and people have made new friends—some have even met up in real life (I loved finally meeting a bunch of you in person when we had our art show at Thinkspace in LA). I want more of you out there to experience this side of Booooooom! This is where the real connecting happens and this is what I think we need now more than ever. I would love it if all of this “self quarantining” and “social distancing” ended up being the catalyst for an explosion of vibrant creative communities and support networks online. I really believe it will be.
Here’s the link to join our Slack for free.
If you know of some people who are looking to connect with other creatives please share this link with them as well!
OK, next thing! I spent the last day or so rounding up a bunch of helpful links for all you creative people working from home and/or looking for work, grants, resources, and trying to stay healthy doing it. We’ll be adding to this list and announcing other initiatives to help support creatives so if you want to be kept in the loop, sign up for our email newsletter.
Let’s all do everything we can to really slow down this virus! It is SERIOUS and we all have to be responsible. See ya on Slack! Stay safe.
—Jeff
WORLDWIDE
- COVID-19 & Freelance Artists — FREE resources, opportunities, advocacy & legal info, financial relief options for artists of all disciplines.
- Creatives Unite — Covid-19 resource platform, focused on Europe and International
- Inside Journal — a communal journaling project promoting mental health during Covid-19
- Resources for Remote Work — Job listings and job related resources
- How to Embrace Remote Work: The Ultimate Guide — Great article for adjusting to working remotely
- CaFÉ (Call for Entry) — shows, residencies, exhibitions, you can filter this database by ‘international’
- Women in the Arts and Media Coalition — big list of funding/resources and a variety of disciplines
- Women Photograph Grants — grants open to women and nonbinary documentary photographers of any nationality
- Women Street Photographers — you can submit a free photo entry (deadline April 6)
- Black Girl Magik COVID-19 Global Resource Guide — self-care links and mental health related apps etc
- Something Positive — a site which features only positive news related to the Coronavirus
- Lifeboat — gallery of photo prints with direct links to contact and buy directly from each photographer
- United Nations Open Brief — UN as put out a call to creatives to help spread important messages related to COVID-19
USA
- 3Arts Emergency Resources for Artists — lots of great resources for those based in US and specifically in Chicago
- Artist Trust – artist-specific resources for Americans and also specific links for Seattle
- 50 State Guide to Unemployment & Paid Leave in the Time of Coronavirus — Information updated as each state releases policies related to paid unemployment, paid leave, etc.
- Coronavirus Map: U.S. Cases — New York Times keeping updated map of all cases in the United States
- Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts — free and low fee legal services for art community
- Rauschenberg Emergency Grants — program provides one-time grants of up to $5,000 for unexpected medical emergencies
- CERF+ Emergency Relief Fund — artists who experience career threatening illness can apply
- Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants — If you are seeking relief for a canceled performance or exhibition due to COVID-19 you can apply for support from our COVID-19 Relief Fund
- NYFA Emergency Resources — a lifeline for artists experiencing both unexpected and long-term, chronic challenges
- Boston Artist Relief Funds — grants of $500 and $1000 for artists who live in Boston
- Resources for Undocumented Californians — helpful links for undocumented people in California
CANADA
- Resources for Canadian artists, writers and media workers — resources for emergency funding, grants, advocacy, mental health, temporary/remote job opportunities
- Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan — latest info on financial support opportunities for Canadians
- Canada Council for the Arts Grants — info about upcoming grants as well as resources for how to successfully get a grant
- Continuing Everyday — Beautiful updated list of initiatives to help keep Vancouver creatives connected
- Vancouver Artist + Arts Directory: COVID 19 — shared Googledoc where creative people can add themselves to the directory
- Canadian Low Income Artist/Musician Relief Fund — Currently supporting artists in Greater Montreal and Greater Toronto regions
- Free Lynda Tutorials (Vancouver) — All Lynda tutorials are free to access with a Vancouver Public Library Card via VPL website
- Artscape — Greater Toronto area opportunities for artists, $100,000 of paid opportunities
INSPIRATION & EDUCATION & JUST FOR FUN
- Audible Stories — Audible is offering free audio books for kids and teens while schools are closed (six languages)
- Google Arts & Culture Online Collections — 2,500 museums are accessible online thanks to Google
- Oh You Pretty Things — Filmmaker Gary Hustwit is streaming his docs for free during this crisis. March 17-24 you can watch the feature-length doc about typography, Helvetica
- Class Central — free online courses courtesy of Harvard, Yale, Princeton and other Ivy League universities
- 200+ modern art books in PDF form — courtesy of The Guggenheim Museum via the Internet Archive
- Netflix Party — a Chrome extension for watching Netflix remotely with friends or a virtual hangout or date, synchronizes video playback and adds group chat
- All Kids Network — free crafts, worksheets, mazes, dot to dot, resources for parents and teachers
- Giant list of ideas for being home with kids — Googledoc with helpful ideas
- 123Homeschool4me — free worksheets for grades 1-8
- Mac’s Book — a free colouring book featuring drawings by grown ups based on ideas from a 4 year old (download and print it)
FREEBIES + SPECIAL DEALS FOR ARTISTS
- Ableton Live 10 – extended free trial, can now use for 3 months
- Shopify is now offering an extended 90-day Free trial using this link.
- Adobe subscribers: Call Adobe directly or use their support chat to request 3 months free (verified by many of our readers), not sure how long they will be doing this for people. They are also giving free temporary “at-home” access for students and educators granted through May 31, 2020, learn more here.
- Master animator Aaron Blaise has made his “Fundamentals of Animation” course completely FREE, go here. See his twitter post here.
- Unity has made Unity Learn Premium FREE for 3 months, so if you’ve been wanting to learn how to build 2d/3d games, or experiment with VR/AR, now’s your chance.
- Affiinity is offering 90-day free trials of their creative software here (have not personally used their products so cannot speak to their quality)
- For creatives who want to explore music-making while they are stuck at home Korg’s Kaossilator app is now free (normally $19.99) get it for iOS and Android while you can (was really fun to mess around with)
- Moog’s Minimoog Model D iOS app is also free now (normally $4.99 which is not a huge deal but might as well grab it too)
- 2 Months of Skillshare Premium for Free, go here. This link does not make us money (none of the links here do) and it’s not a deal specific to the Coronavirus but including it here in case you wanted to try some classes.
If you come across any other special deals to help creatives survive these tough times let me know! There’s gotta be more!
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