Making Art That Enriches Us All
Our culture is an extremely commodified space. The arts are seen as valuable if they make money – which usually means advertising something. Artists are pressured to make what sells, not what will feed and enrich us.
The church, too, has often seen art and creativity as useful inasmuch as they serve the purposes of worship, evangelism or doctrine. If artists are encouraged beyond this, it's assumed that commercial success would be their goal. As a consequence, artists often abandon either their church or their art.
We fund projects and exhibitions to help artists escape the pressures of the profit motive, freeing them to create art that enriches us all.
"We need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. The profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art."
— Ursula K LeGuin