After a decades-long career as an artist, Rebecca Kautz is only recently beginning to create her own livelihood relying solely on her painting and technical knowledge.
To a large extent, she credits the $10,000 Forward Art Prize she received last summer that’s pushing her to make “a go at being a working artist,” she said.
Awarded annually through the Women’s Artist Forward Fund since 2019, the award goes to women artists in Dane County to help with their professional artistic pursuits, particularly those “visual artists who are deeply engaged in artistic practices that inspire new ways of thinking, new behaviors, or new ways of engaging communities,” according to its guidelines.
Or, as Kautz described it, the award is aimed at “amplifying women artists in Dane County and to highlight disparities in art.”
A Sun Prairie resident, Kautz holds a master’s of fine arts degree from UW-Madison and a bachelor’s degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Forward Art Prize is meant to propel women artists’ careers, and that’s been Kautz’s experience.
“For me, I’ve noticed an uptick in sales and interest from collectors seeking me out to collect for public places and also private collectors,” Kautz said, during an interview in her Sun Prairie studio. She pointed to one painting that had been sold.
Kautz has enjoyed teaching and lecturing throughout her career, but the Forward Art Prize has Kautz exploring a new avenue — teaching private lessons. It would be an entrepreneurial pursuit, a change from working as a lecturer at UW-Madison.
And the recognition is propelling her to try to involve other artists, as well, in bolstering arts events and opportunities in Sun Prairie, where her family has lived for the past 14 years, she said.
Kautz has been in conversations with the Loop, a flex space in Sun Prairie, to gauge whether the community has an interest in taking art classes.
“My hope is to offer a life drawing workshop,” she said. “It would be a ticketed event where an individual can register for a two-hour session working from a live model,” Kautz said.