RAAC’s Artist Relief Fund supports local craftspeople, artisans, musicians
The Rappahannock Association for Arts and Community launched its Artist Relief Fund in July, and since then the fund has provided financial aid to 17 local artists, craftsmen and musicians who have lost jobs or gigs due to COVID-19.
When the novel coronavirus reached Rappahannock in the spring, Nik Rustic was already wearing a mask. “I wear one every flu season anyway,” he said. “And I live in a pretty isolationist manner. I go to town voluntarily maybe once or twice a month. … Even if it’s for work, I wait until I can go to town for three jobs instead of just one.”
Rustic, who has made his living in the county as a traditional stone mason, craftsman and handyman, is used to doing things himself. The Sperryville native has three children at home and has been helping his aunt take care of his mother, who lives just up the hill. And his fiance, [Jess], is an aesthetician and permanent medical makeup artist. “She does eyeliner and lips but she also does scars and areola repigmentation for cancer patients,” Rustic explained.
But in March, when the governor of Virginia called a State of Emergency, Rustic and [Jess] saw their incomes plummet. “A lot of my clients are older and have just decided to wait until things calm down before getting work done inside their homes,” Rustic said. “And [Jess] was legally required to close her business.”
The utility bills started piling up. The last time Rustic had asked for financial assistance was during the recession of 2008, and he recognized that he might need help for the second time in his life. “I never really considered myself an artist,” Rustic said. “But my fiance urged me to apply for RAAC’s program anyway.”
Rustic was awarded funding right away.
“We’re trying to use our money in ways that help us support a broader number of people in the art community as well as the community itself,” said Artist Relief Fund Coordinator Ralph Bates, who championed the idea of starting a program to help artists through the pandemic.
“The folks who have applied are clearly the folks who have documentable need because they’ve had lost income,” Bates continued. “It’s a fairly diverse [ group of recipients]. We’ve had photographers, visual artists, musicians and some artesans.”
Musicians, Bates added, have been especially impacted by the
“We’re trying to use our money in ways that help us support a broader number of people in the art community as well as the community itself,” said Artist Relief Fund Coordinator Ralph Bates, who championed the idea of starting a program to help artists through the pandemic.
pandemic because so many gigs have been canceled.
More than anything else, painter and jazz musician Linda Heimstra misses being around people. “Sometimes it’s just too much,” she said. “Sometimes I just have to have a conversation with myself and remind myself it’s not going to last forever.”
Heimstra lives just over the county line in Nethers and has her art studio in her home. A few years ago she started The Nethers Hot Club, a jazz band that (in ordinary times) plays at local wineries and private functions. For the most part, gigs have been canceled this year.
“We keep working on material to keep ourselves sane,” Heimstra said. The band gets together to rehearse outdoors or in the bass player’s large studio. “I’ve been getting some gigs somehow and mainly it’s because we booked them a year ago,” she added.
RAAC has helped Heimstra work on other projects, like a “cranky,” a hand- cranked movie projector for the Dulcimer museum. “You have a box with a scroll of paper that runs across the front with designs on it. And you’d crank it from one side to the next and the images would go by,” Heimstra explained. The scroll Heimstra is working on is a whopping 50 feet long.
Like Heimstra, musician and mixed media artist Ben Mason is making the most of the situation. Living alone in his Castleton home adjacent to the Thornton River, this time of “silence and peace” has opened a wellspring of creativity for him. “This place produces so much inspiration for me,” he added.
“I have spent a lot of time at the river over the past few months,” Mason said. “I swim in the river every day.” Mason has finished some art pieces, worked on his forthcoming debut novel, and written a few new songs.
But also like Heimstra, Ben Mason said that he has lost gigs because of the pandemic. Many of the house parties he had lined up were postponed, so RAAC helped Mason recover some of his lost income.
“Given RAAC's mission to support the arts and community, it made sense to offer emergency aid to artists, including musicians, who were in need,” said RAAC President Matthew Black.