Arts Rescue Mission -Aid For Aging Artists
Four Programs / One Purpose / Aid to Aging Artists
1. Restore Program / Urgent Assistance After Illness or Accident
"We give broken Angles time to mend a wing. Recourses for the time it takes to heal, pay rent & bills, after sudden illness or accident"
Purpose: Provide rapid, short-term financial support so artists facing unexpected illness or injury can stabilize, cover essentials, and regain time for recovery.
How It Works:
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We activate ARM’s crowdsourced funding network — including retired contact lists from our affiliates — to help artists reach sympathetic friends, patrons, and supporters.
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We guide the artist through launching their own emergency crowdfunding request using our best-practice templates.
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We distribute verified requests to ARM subscribers, giving the community the choice to contribute.
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We host periodic informational events (e.g., Zoom seminars) to help artists and supporters understand how to efficiently and ethically use crowdfunding — especially as traditional institutional support declines.
Why It’s Important: When public, institutional, or governmental grants shrink, artists often have nowhere else to turn. Restore helps fill that critical gap.
Typical Timeline: Aid often begins arriving within 72 hours of a submitted, shared crowdfunding request.
Staffing Note:
ARM is seeking a part-time volunteer (16 hours/month) to help coordinate Restore Program submissions and communications. As funding grows, this position may evolve into a paid part-time role.
2. Shelter Program /Subsidized Storage Protecting A Lifetime Of Work
Subsidized Storage to Protect a Lifetime of Work
Purpose:
To help aging visual artists preserve their legacy by subsidizing the cost of safe, professional storage for artworks, archives, and lifetime collections, a growing need as artists face limited space, rising storage prices, and diminishing support from institutions traditionally funded to safeguard the arts.
Why Shelter Is Needed Now:
Institutional and governmental cutbacks have reduced the number of programs that once offered archiving, storage, and preservation assistance. Many senior visual artists are at risk of losing decades of work simply because they can no longer afford to store or protect it. ARM fills this gap.
How the Shelter Program Works:
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ARM raises dedicated storage funds through the annual ARMON Awards and year-round earmarked donations.
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These funds directly subsidize storage costs for selected visual artists who need help preserving their work and legacy.
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Artists are chosen through a democratic nomination and voting process, ensuring that those with real need and strong community support rise to the top.
How Artists Are Selected:
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Nominations come from ARM’s statewide Advisory Council, our goal by mid-2026 is more than 400 members strong.
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Additional nominations come through the ARM e-mail list and social media suggestions.
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ARM compiles the top nominees for the year.
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Final selection is determined by a vote of the Board of Governors and the Advisory Council.
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About the ARMON Awards:
Held annually, the ARMON Awards honor outstanding artists across the full spectrum of the creative disciplines — visual artists, musicians, songwriters, writers, chefs, and Substack authors. Proceeds from the evening directly support the Shelter Program.
Each year, ARM proudly remembers co-founder Gertrude Barnstone as part of this celebration.
Get Involved:
Join the ARM e-list and take part in the nomination and voting process.
Email: artsrescue2025@gmail.com
Funded through donations and our annual "ARMON AWARDS" dinner in April. Project Manager 16 hrs./ month More Info Here.
When We Preserve the Artist's Story , We Preserve the Artist
RESTORE - SHELTER - PROVIDE - PRESERVE
All Images on this site are from the ARM Community Archive And Intended for community use.
3. Provide Program /Renewed Opportunity / Book Projects / Videos / A Creative Second Act
Creating New Opportunities for Writers, Musicians, Composers, and Visual Artists, with Book and Film Initiatives
Purpose:
To support aging artists as they pursue creative projects they never had the time or resources to complete earlier in life providing visibility, opportunity, and renewed career momentum in their later years by producing books and films.
Why Provide Matters:
Many artists spent decades balancing work, family, and survival, leaving little time for the projects closest to their heart. As public arts funding shrinks and the cost of living rises, the need for structured support in later-life creativity has never been greater. ARM’s Provide Program aims to fill that gap.
What the Provide Program Does:
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Supports new creative work by aging writers, musicians, composers, performers, and visual artists.
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Develops opportunities for visibility — talks, readings, performances, catalog essays, interviews, and public presentations.
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Builds pathways for future recognition, including book projects, creative memoirs, catalogs, and career retrospectives that bridge past accomplishments with future celebration.
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Explores access to health-insurance options tailored for older creatives who often cannot secure traditional coverage due to freelance careers and limited employer-provided benefits.
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Connects artists to ARM’s Preservation Program, ensuring that new creative work is built on a foundation of properly archived materials.
How Provide Is Funded:
The Station Cabaret, ARM’s annual fall fundraising event — an evening of dinner, jazz, creative performances, and “All Saints Night” atmosphere — generates the core support for the Provide Program.
This event gives artists a chance to:
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Share their story
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Reclaim visibility
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Present new work to an engaged community
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Shine again at a time when many feel unseen
Goal:
To ensure that artists who have shaped their communities for decades are never forgotten, never isolated, and always supported as they continue to create.
4. Preserve Program / Ephemerals For Book And Video Projects / U of H Archive
Archiving a Lifetime of Artistic Work
Purpose:
To safeguard the documents, images, records, and materials that make up an artist’s full professional history ensuring a reliable archive for book and film initiatives, future appraisers, scholars, curators, and family members.
Why Preservation Matters:
While artwork is often saved by families, the essential paper trail articles, reviews, correspondence, exhibition paperwork, grant files, catalogs, and ephemera is frequently lost. Without these records, an artist’s life becomes difficult to reconstruct, their legacy becomes vulnerable, and their value in the historical record diminishes.
What the Preserve Program Does:
ARM assists aging artists by helping them secure and organize the materials needed to reconstruct a complete professional history. This is a detailed, multi-step process involving:
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Photography of artworks and archival materials
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Scanning documents, letters, articles, and records
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Tagging and metadata entry for every file and image
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Building chronological archives (often 1,000+ entries) using Excel or comparable systems
This is painstaking, essential work and it is often neglected because of cost, time, and the complexity of managing a lifetime’s worth of material.
How Preserve Is Funded:
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Supported through subscriptions specifically earmarked for Preservation initiatives.
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Includes a future Project Manager role (16 hrs./month) to oversee archiving tasks and coordinate with artists, as funding becomes available.
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Additional support comes from the Station Cabaret fundraising event each October.
Why Preserve Exists:
Because an artist’s legacy is more than their artwork — it is the complete story of a life lived in service to creativity. ARM ensures that story is not lost.
Funded through subscriptions to oversee PRESERVE initiatives. Project Manager 16 hrs./ month More Info Here.
Funded by the "STATION CABERET" dinner and jazz in October. / Project Manager 16 hrs./ month More Info Here.
