2020-784-E Arts Commission-Renzo Ortega arts support relief grant

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Have you experienced a decrease in TOTAL HOUSEHOLD income of 30% or more? Yes Please explain how your general livelihood has been impacted by COVID- 19. For a little more than three years, I worked part-time at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro as a house manager and art instructor giv ing art classes to adults and young people. Because of North Carolina's Cov id-19 regulations and lockdown in March 2020, part of the staff got laid off. To a certain extent, this situation facilitates me access to unemployment benefits. Apart from my regular part-time job at The ArtsCenter, my other income forms were selling artwork, giv ing lectures about painting, and dev eloping art projects with non-profit organizations. W hen the Cov id crisis started, I had sev eral scheduled art workshops, art lectures, and exhibitions that hav e been canceled and postponed. That means that I can not count on the art stipends I would get for my work and participation in those art projects. During this pandemic, my spouse works full time from home, the pre- school that my son attends is closed, and we do not hav e access to child care. For these reasons, I hav e dedicated myself full-time to my son's care, helping him with pre-school online activ ities and cooking meals for our family. Luckily, my art studio is a walking distance from home, and I hav e been artistically productiv e. I can work on my studio practice weekdays at nights and Saturdays all day, a schedule that I follow consistently. Something positiv e that I can say about the pandemic: in a certain way, is that the "confinement" allowed me to concentrate on my studio practice in a therapeutic way and be able to continue dev eloping my v isual art proposal. Also, I was able to attend a fully- funded scheduled Artist-in-Residence program in W est Palm Beach by the New W av e Art W KND organization. I was in Florida for six weeks, during the pick of the pandemic, immersed working on a v ideo-painting project called Mar Brav o and painting a community mural. In January 2021, I will hav e a solo exhibition featuring artworks made during the pandemic at LUMP Project Space in Raleigh. The title of the show will be "Art W ill Sav e Us Again". This project is the main reason why I am applying for The Orange County Arts Support Fund. The grant will allow me to cov er the production costs and personal expenses during my exhibition's preparatory weeks. Have you applied for unemployment benefits? Yes DocuSign Envelope ID: 306C0105-3946-45D8-A2E5-3515951C3D74