Ten Ridgewood visual artists will each get $3,000, with no strings on how they spend it, and the window to apply closes Thursday, October 29, at 10 pm. The grants come from the Tallichet Freedman Foundation, a small nonprofit that works out of a former synagogue on Cornelia Street, and this is its fourth round of awards to artists in the neighborhood.

Who can apply

The grants are open to individual visual artists who live or work in the 11385 ZIP code, which takes in Ridgewood. The foundation reads visual art broadly: painting, drawing, sculpture, craft, collage, printmaking, photography, murals, installation and multimedia all qualify.

A few groups are left out. Collectives and groups cannot apply, and neither can students currently enrolled in a visual arts degree program or anyone who received one of the foundation's grants in the past five years.

Applying costs nothing. Applications opened September 24 and close at 10 pm on October 29, and winners will hear back starting in January 2027.

What the money comes with

Each of the ten grants is $3,000, for $30,000 in all, and the money is unrestricted: artists decide how to use it. An independent panel of at least three artists, curators and scholars chooses the recipients, and the foundation does not publish the panelists' names.

This year's winners also get a filmed studio interview, which the foundation will share on its website, its social channels and YouTube.

A grant built on one artist's way of working

The artist Jude Tallichet started the foundation in 2023. It is named for her late partner, the artist Matt Freedman, who died in 2020, and for her parents, Leon and Betty Tallichet. The decision to give small, direct grants comes from Freedman's grassroots, do-it-yourself approach to making art. The foundation is funded by the Tallichet family and by outside donors, and its home at 1618 Cornelia Street, a former synagogue, serves as a studio and creative space.

The foundation has made grants three times before, in fall 2024, spring 2025 and fall 2025. Last fall's recipients included the photographer Ricardo Aca, the painter Bambi Alder and the fiber artist Courtney Childress.

How to apply

The application, eligibility rules and a list of frequently asked questions are on the foundation's micro-grants page. Submit by 10 pm on Thursday, October 29.

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