About Arbitrary Art Grants

2003 Arbitrary Art Grant
for Digital Graffiti

2002 Arbitrary Art Grant
for Creative Writing

2001 Arbitrary Art Grant for Film

2000 Arbitrary Art Grant for Music

2002 Arbitrary Art Grant for Creative Writing
Awarded on June 22, 2002

For the third annual Arbitrary Art Grant, we wanted to address the creative process of poster making and the importance of recognizing public art beyond that of a ten-ton bronze sculpture at the base of a skyscraper. The Creative Writing grant of $500.00 cash would go to one random person who created and distributed reward posters for a lost pet, fictitious animal or missing person, complete with photograph or drawing, description and contact number.

On June 22, we wandered the streets of downtown Seattle and at precisely 2:02 p.m., grabbed the nearest poster in sight. Once again, we were overwhelmed by the quality, quantity and creativity of the posters, but it wasn’t about picking the best, it was about picking one at random. With a cell phone in hand we called the winner, Bernd Paradies and asked him to come down to the gallery to collect his cash grant. The poster for SAKE, the lost Bonsai Kitten, was well deserving of the prize, but we raced around for an hour collecting as many posters as we could. Too many great entries to post, but we ended the afternoon with a very clever arsonal of fictitious wanted posters.