Artist Support Pledge Brevard

In partnership with the Heart of Brevard and the Transylvania Community Arts Council, artist Kristen Necessary of Starfangled Press invites artists and patrons to form a local network of The Artist Support Pledge #artistsupportpledge, a movement to support artists and makers during Covid-19, by using the hashtag #artistsupportpledgeBrevard. This program offers a simple and tangible way to help support local artists suffering from closed galleries and canceled exhibitions, classes, and private lessons. 

Originally founded by artist Matthew Burrows in the UK, the idea for The Artist Support Pledge is simple.  Artists who commit to the pledge will post images online of their work that is for sale for no more than $200, and each time their sales reach $1,000 they promise to buy another artist’s work in the network for $200. It is a pay-it-forward system based on trust where everyone, at every level can contribute to supporting artists and makers. 

Since the launch of Burrows’ UK campaign on March 20th, 2020 The Artist Support Pledge has inspired over 100,000 posts and generated over £20 million globally.  Within this global campaign, many smaller networks have developed through efforts of artists such as Mark Bettis who brought the campaign to the River Arts District of Asheville using the #artistsupportpledgeRAD. Current RAD artist and former Brevard Middle School Art Teacher Erin Keane joined the pledge after seeing the efforts of Bettis. As Keane explains in her personal experience, “The Artist Support Pledge has helped us pay the bills, keep up morale, and have the means to adapt our businesses to this new world” and “ thanks to the tremendous generosity of my friends, family, students, and collectors, I've been able to pay-it-forward five times and am on my way to my sixth goal. That has put $1000 back into the artist community.” 

Participation is open to all local artists and collectors. The primary way to participate in the program is to post and search for work on the social media platforms Instagram or Facebook using the hashtag #artistsupportpledgeBrevard. However, as Erin Kean explained in our recent conversation “every artist is doing it differently”. For Kean, this includes “sending email newsletters to my contact list, listed work on my website, and posting daily on Facebook.” 

For artists who want to join the program, be creative in how you get your work out there, but please refer back to the  #artistsupportpledgeBrevard so we can keep the local support network going strong. For collectors, if you don’t see work from a local artist that you are interested in, please invite them to join in The Artist Support Pledge! 

For more information, visit:

Artist Support Pledge http://www.matthewburrows.org/artist-support-pledge 

Heart of Brevard https://www.brevardnc.org/

Starfangled Press https://www.starfangledpress.com