INSPIRED BY ARTISTS 

MISSION

3Arts is a nonprofit organization that advocates for Chicago’s women artists, artists of color, and artists with disabilities who work in the performing, teaching, and visual arts. By providing cash awards, project funding, residency fellowships, and promotion, 3Arts helps artists take risks, experiment, and focus on their creative process.

VISION

3Arts recognizes that art is essential to the wellbeing and vibrancy of our lives. Art fuels, expands, and deepens our intellectual and emotional capacities while helping us envision and communicate new possibilities and paths. It has the power to bridge gaps between us, help us see the world in which we live from a fresh perspective, and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human—here and now. Behind every work of art that sets this in motion is an artist. 3Arts is dedicated to the artists whose work shapes, shifts, and touches our lives.

VALUES

Creativity—

Everything, from our planet’s survival to our everyday experience of life, is reliant upon creative solutions and visions. We are committed to fueling creativity in the artists who push the boundaries daily.

Diversity—

We believe that it is our duty to strive to rectify cultural inequity by supporting women artists, artists of color, and artists with disabilities whose work is not yet equitably supported in mainstream culture. Further, we believe that multiple and divergent perspectives must be recognized for a culture, a community, a city, or a country to claim that it is sound.

Community—

We believe that artists are essential to sustaining an inspiring community in which art is accessible to everyone.

Integrity—

We are committed to operating with a high standard of efficiency, responsiveness, effectiveness, and clarity of both purpose and process.