Planning for a Cross-America Painting Trip - Part One (3) America, nomad, painting, roadtrip2015

The Hustle

This week. I decided to step up the hustle and began writing a proposal for the roadtrip.

After a few iterations, the budget quickly grew to the sum of S$25,254. My feeling is that I am still missing items here,  I also have in mind publishing my own book after the trip. Self publication will cost me about $9000, Altogether, I will need a total S$34,254 to accomplish my goal.

Lets consider the options available for the hustle :

1) National Art Councils of Singapore offers Art grants for creation, production and presentation.
2) I have also heard that a few notable Foundations in Singapore offer grants to Artists.
3) Notable Charitable Foundation overseas that gives out grant.( The Pollock-Kranser Foundation)
4) Writing to related businesses for sponsorship. (Airlines/ Travel Agencies/ Art Suppliers and etc)
5) Crowd sourcing for the require amount. Think kickstarter or Indiegogo

US Dollar against SGD. The next big problem that I foresee  is the inflation of American Dollars against Sing Dollars.

Here are some issues to consider with the hustle.

1) The NAC states that its grants are peg to 50% of total require amount. Being fairly unknown to the council, my odds of getting the grant is frankly very weak. I started the application but may be too late to receive the grant with my proposed date ( Aug-Oct 2015). The grant cycle starts from Oct 2015.

Chairman of Lee Foundation. Top Philanthropist. Real Hero   

2) The only one that came to my mind is the Lee Foundation. They funded just about every Art show in town... Interestingly, the foundation does not maintain a website. After much digging around, I found their mailing address:


Dr Lee Seng Gee Chairman
Lee Foundation 

65 Chulia Street
#44-01 OCBC Centre
Singapore 049513

3) The Pollock Kranser Foundation states that it won't fund personal travels. I wonder if En Plein-air paintings can be an exception. I will try

4) It may be foolish to invest in the hustle for sponsorship because time spent writing to businesses may never be justified. Experiences have taught me that businesses are usually the least prospective. Think about it, businesses evaluate potential gain for a living. Unless you are a mega celebrity (because of visibility), there is little reason for them to give you anything.  I will still try but I won't invest too much time here. Here are some companies that I will write into:
Airlines, Car Rental and the biggest hotel chain in the United States. Unless I can miraculously get onto the Ellen DeGeneres show. This method of hustle is most futile.

5) A quick look up kickstarter.
Most Artists fail in raising funds on crowd funding platform. More so on indiegogo it seems.
Those successfully funded also seem to raised fairly insignificant amount. (usually below USD$3,000) Having successfully raised money on kickstarter, I personally know how hard it will be to gather support for the Arts. It is also significantly harder if you are not rewarding something tangible. Technically speaking, I can offer paintings as reward. However, considering the time and effort needed to produce them versus the potential buyers and payout? I am also concerned that my supporter may suffer from fatigue if I keep asking them for help. It will be an intense uphill battle. None the less, crowd sourcing is a viable outlet to raise this fund and I will have to consider it as well.