Visual Arts & Craft Maker Awards 2026/27 (VACMA)

The Visual Artist and Craft Maker Awards (VACMA) is a programme of small grant schemes delivered in partnership with a range of local authorities and art organisations across Scotland.

VACMA offers fixed bursaries of £500 and £1,000. The purpose of these bursaries is to support visual artists and craft makers in their creative and professional development.

Artists should apply for the level of bursary (£500 or £1,000) that best suits your proposed activity, regardless of your career stage. For further information on funding criteria, please refer to p.6 of the VACMA Guidance document below.

The funding can be used for a wide range of activities, including:

• Training and learning
• Mentoring and skills development
• Exploring new ideas
• Research and development
• Sustainable practices
• Residencies
• Essential equipment
• Creating new work

Whether your medium is paint, clay, ink, metal, textiles, film, glass or something else entirely, and whatever stage in your career you’re at, if you think we can help you advance your creative and professional skills within visual art and craft, we’d like to hear from you.

Application forms and further guidance for applicants are available in the downloads section below.

Applications are assessed by a panel comprising a Creative Scotland representative, Shetland Arts managers and local freelance artists.

For more information, guidance and advice visit the Creative Scotland website.

Downloads

Download forms and guidance below:

• VACMA Application Form 2026-27
• VACMA Guidance 2026-27
• VACMA Artist Checklist 2026-27
• VACMA Equalities Monitoring Form 2026-27

Plain Text, Easy Read, BSL and Gaelic versions of the guidelines are also available on Creative Scotland’s website.

Support

Meet with our Creative Project Manager

Our Creative Project Manager, Sanne Brock, manages Shetland Arts’ VACMA.

Sanne is in conversation with partners and Creative Scotland reguarly about the awards and can give guidance to applicants as to what is fundable/not fundable. She organises Shetland’s VACMA panel and chairs the meeting, but is not involved in the decision making.

Sanne is available for meetings about VACMA with artists – if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact her via email: [email protected].

E-learning

This e-learning provides advice and guidance on applying for opportunities and filling in application forms: Creative Opportunities for Practitioners.

Quick advice

Here’s some of the advice and feedback we regularly give applicants:

• Applying for VACMA isn’t difficult but it will take time to write the application and gather the supporting documents.
• The award is to support your creative development (it’s not a businesses development award, but we realise the two may be linked). We want to hear about what inspires your work, and what areas you’d like to explore and experiment with in the future.
• Read the guidelines (available in the downloads section) before you start filling in the form.
• Don’t be put off by unfamiliar or arty/academic language.
• You don’t have to write pages and pages of text, just write however much you need to get your point across.