Layers of the LapDance Scholarship

The LapDance Scholarship was founded in December 2010 by Hailey Jude Minder, a self-proclaimed vaginally-funded experience artist. As an artist, Hailey has always been interested in, and often troubled by, the sources of fine arts funding. Having become somewhat disenchanted with the whole search for funding and the sources of such funds, Hailey set out to make her own. Moonlighting as a stripper twice a week, Hailey is bringing funding for the arts into the trenches. She has funded her own art in this manner and now wishes to help her fellow artists achieve their goals. Administered by Emily Moran Barwick, part of the scholarship's inspiration was the idea of funding something as decidedly ¿highbrow¿ as fine art with something as decidedly ¿lowbrow¿ as lap dancing. In its three years, the project involved thousands of hours of labor and funded ten artistic endeavors with both local and international applications. In this text, Emily explored the greater underlying implications, themes & issues surrounding money, the sex trade, fine art funding, and educated employment struggles, while also offering some candid insight into the life of a fine arts stripper.