Become a Student Member

Apply for Student Membership

The ARC Scholarship program is designed to introduce students to the cooperative gallery structure available to women artists in Chicago. This scholarship provides an incentive for participation in career development within the arts community. ARC’s Scholarship program grants a one year membership (valued at $1140) to the chosen candidate. With the aid of a mentor, the scholarship member will develop a relationship with ARC that will be mutually beneficial. This is a competitive scholarship and will be selected based on the candidate’s quality of artwork and her ability and interest in learning to work within a cooperative gallery.

Requirements

Applicant must be a student in good standing, currently enrolled in a degree-seeking program (undergraduate or graduate)

ARC’s Duties and Responsibilities

The scholarship member will function as a member of ARC Gallery, receiving full benefits and voting rights, while sharing in the duties and responsibilities of running the gallery.

Duties include

  • Gallery sitting one day a month (occasionally twice as needed)

  • Assisting on installation day (one weekend day a month)

  • Attending membership meetings (once a month)

  • Attending and staffing opening receptions (usually first Friday of every month)

  • Working on one major gallery project with mentor

Benefits Include

  • Membership in one of the oldest and most respected women’s cooperative galleries in the nation

  • Inclusion in the Annual Members Exhibition and any travelling and/or exchange shows scheduled for that year

  • Hands-on involvement in learning how a gallery runs (including working with curating, installing, contracts, press releases, grants, fundraising, scheduling, organizing, long-range planning, meetings)

  • Opportunities to meet and work with artists, media, arts organizations, arts patrons, the public, etc.

Application Procedure

  1. Submit your application below. First upload your images. Second, complete your application form. You’ll receive an email confirmation after each step.

  2. Images submitted must be in .JPG or .JPEG format, no other format will be accepted.

  3. Upload a folder containing all your images OR upload a .Zip all your images into a single file. You may also create a PDF containing all your images in a single file.

  4. Name Your Images with these 5 elements in the file name: (a) artist last name, (b) item number, (c) title of the work (d) dimension of the work, height x width x depth (e) year the work was produced. 

    • Separate each element with a dash in this format “SURNAME-NUMBER-TITLE-HEIGHT-WIDTH-DEPTH-YEAR.jpg”. 

    • Example, “SMITH-1-JARGON-5x10x20inches-2023”

  5. In a separate document file (.DOCX or PDF), identify your name, address, phone number and email address. In the same document, provide an itemized list of (a) item number; (b) titles, (c) dimensions including height x width x depth, (d) mediums / materials, (e) date produced, (f) short description of each image, and (g) price of each work. Make sure you itemize your list to correlate to your image numbers above.

  6. Petitioning artist must also submit a full résumé, artist statement, and letter of intent detailing interests and personal goals.

  7. The Membership Chair will review applications and will then contact the applicant to set up a studio visit. This visit is meant to offer the applicant a chance to talk about their work, meet members, and ask any questions—and it is meant for gallery members to assess the seriousness of the applicant.

  8. Membership in ARC is based on excellence of work and personal commitment to the goals and mission of this alternative gallery and its cooperative structure.

Other Membership Opportunities