Thank you Colorado Creative Industries: Career Advancement Grant

In October 2019, Grace Noel Art (GNArt) applied for the Colorado Creative Industries (CCI) Career Advancement Grant and was awarded funding to move forward with the grant proposal. GNArt, proposed to Trademark, Copyright, and build an Amazon store with the funding from CCI. Now, why go through with all of this? Amazon will not allow GNArt to sell apparel or home decor without first being Trademarked. The Career Advancement Grant is a matching fund grant provided by the state of Colorado. The funds are dispersed after the project has been completed and paid for by the recipient. As a matching grant, the recipient receives half of the amount spent from Colorado Creative Industries.

In January 2020, GNArt hired Shirin Chahal of Daniel T Goodwin to consult with Trademark registration. GNArt learned that it takes 9 -12 months to complete Trademark registration. Due to the grant timeline, where the proposal needed to be fulfilled by July 2020, GNArt was not able to launch an Amazon store. However artworks from the Sunshine Collection, Chinese Zodiac 4 Elements Series, Dragons from the 11th Dimension Series, and Rainbow Kaiju Series have all been copyrighted! Also GNArt has been successfully Trademarked and awaiting the registration to come in the mail.

In gratitude for CCI’s generosity and encouragement, GNArt made the first announcement, per GNArt’s newsletter (subscribe now!), in Jan 2020 of the changes made to the GNArt logo to follow guidelines for Trademarking. A second announcement came in May 2020 via newsletter and social media (follow Grace Noel Art on Instagram and Facebook!). For the month of June, Grace Noel Art launched a Gratitude for CCI campaign with a video on YouTube (subscribe now!), social media posts, newsletter announcement, and website promotional banner. The YouTube video was part of Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe’s virtual First Friday as well! Now in July, GNArt should receive a check in the mail from CCI per the reporting GNArt submitted in early July (to meet a 7/31 deadline). This blog post is being published as one of the final aspects of the Gratitude for CCI campaign. Big steps for Grace Noel Art happened in 2020 and CCI’s Career Advancement Grant brough GNArt to the next level of formality and professionalism.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more exciting updates from Grace Noel Art!