I have learned through the wonderful The Seattle Review of Books about the wonderful Seattle organization Artist Trust and they are offering wonderful grants for artists, writers too (Jesus, that's "wonderful" used three times in a sentence, kill me), from $1,000 to $7,500 to $15,000. "Hey," I thought, "I should apply." I went to their office and read the winning entires' writer biographies and resumes and artist statements and got a bit spooked by the quality of writing samples and the amount of awards and prizes they won and the strength of their statements but you encouraged me to go ahead and apply and so I'm doing it (and if you're in Washington, I encourage you to do it too). 

Today I have written the Artist Statement they ask for. It should be 4,000 characters or less (including punctuation and spaces) and it should "include information about how the work developed and its underlying concepts and structures, the artist’s influences, approaches and philosophies, etc." It also says, "have a peer or colleague review the support materials before submission." So here you go, my peers and colleagues. Tell me what you think.