Ask #ArtistHotline | Cultivating Community through Residencies + Opportunities Round-Up

Residencies can be a time to retreat, but also a time to connect and build lasting relationships. Find advice below, as well as opportunities from NYFA Source.

The August installment of #ArtistHotline, our monthly Artist Professional Development Day on Twitter, included a “Residencies 101″ Guest Chat. We were joined by sound artist Maria Chávez, Residency Program Manager at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Holly Kranker, and poet Sally Wen Mao as panelists. 

We covered a range of topics during that month’s #ArtistHotline Guest Chat. The conversation, which you can read in full via Storify, touched on topics like how to select the right residency, and strategies for applying and re-applying to residencies. We also talked about how to manage your time during a residency itself. The consensus was that the ideal schedule would be determined, in large part, by your goals and needs for that residency, whether you want to recharge, experiment, be open to the unexpected, or dive head on in to creating new work.

While some artists may desire an entirely solitary residency experience, others may want to devote some of their time to engaging with the work and interests of the residents around them. For someone looking to connect and even collaborate, how should they go about it?

We asked our guest tweeters:

Fall can be a great time for an artist to start planning for the next year, and to take advantage of open calls from a wide range of institutions. In that spirit, we’re revisiting the answers given by Chávez, Kranker, and Mao. Additionally, we’ve rounded up residencies that are currently taking applications below.

New Place, New Faces

Some residencies host structured events for residents, which may or may not be required. Kranker suggested that resident artists take advantage of those events.

Residents will also most likely come together casually, like during mealtimes. In Mao’s view, artists can begin getting to know other residents organically in these settings.

Alternately, Chávez encouraged artists who are looking to collaborate to be open and deliberate about it.

The environment of a residency can provide the chance to reach across disciplines and bring about collaborations that you may have not considered previously. For example:

Staying In Touch

The collaborative process certainly doesn’t need to come to an end when residents return home.

Our guest tweeters gave a few tips for staying in touch and keeping the community alive online.

You can also support the work of your fellow residents by welcoming them into your community.

Find Residencies on NYFA Source

Ready to build your own community of fellow artists-in-residence? Try searching for open calls on NYFA Source, the nation’s largest arts database. To start using NYFA Source, you can take the tutorial on How to Use NYFA Source, or you can jump right in with the NYFA Source Search page. Find residencies by selecting “Artist Communities/Artist-in-Residence Programs” in “awards,” which you can also filter by discipline, location, and other qualifications. 

Selected Residencies

• Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts: Artist-in-Residence Program
• Deadline: December 15, 2017
• Location: Omaha, NE
• Provides artists from around the world dedicated time, space, and resources to conduct research and to create new work.
• City University of New York: CUNY Dance Initiative Residency
• Deadline: November 1, 2017
• New York City
• Provides local choreographers and companies with rehearsal and performance space on 13 CUNY campuses across the five boroughs of New York City.
• Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC): Open Call Residency Program
• Deadline: Rolling
• Troy, NY
• EMPAC encourages applications for a wide range of projects, especially those that utilize “high-tech tools,” from a diversity of artists, composers, directors, choreographers, and performers of different cultural and geographic backgrounds.
• Fine Arts Work Center: Fellowship Residency
• Deadline: December 1, 2017; February 1, 2018
• Location: Provincetown, MA
• Offers a residency for writers and visual artists in the crucial early stages of their careers. 
• Jack Straw Productions: New Media Gallery Program
• Deadline: November 1, 2017
• Seattle, WA
• Artists from various disciplines can present works in which sound is an integral or exclusive element. This program enables artists to experiment with audio and other technology.
• Lassen Volcanic National Park: Artist-in-Residence Program
• Deadline: October 31, 2017
• Mineral, CA
• Offers amateur and professional artists an opportunity to pursue their particular art form in the park’s inspiring environment. 
• The Lighthouse Works: Fellowship Program
• Deadline: October 15, 2017; February 15, 2018
• Fishers Island, NY
• The program accepts artists working in a wide range of disciplines, but is best able to accommodate visual artists and writers.
• McColl Center for Visual Art: Artist-in-Residence Program
  
• Deadline: November 15, 2017
• Charlotte, NC
• The program is open to artists working in architecture, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, new media, design, music, theatre, social practice, community organizing, urban agriculture, culinary arts, or interdisciplinary practices. 
• Omi International Arts Center: Art Omi International Artists Residency
• Deadline: October 31, 2017
• Ghent, NY
• Artists working in visual arts, sound art, performance, and social practice are invited to apply.
• Omi International Arts Center: Writers Omi at Ledig House International Residency
• Deadline: October 20, 2017
• Ghent, NY
• The program welcomes published writers and translators of every type of literature. 
• Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts: Juried Residencies
• Deadline: January 2, 2018
• Ithica, NY
• Offers residencies to New York State artists and writers working in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, photography, filmmaking, painting, sculpture, and visual arts.
• Ucross Foundation: Residency Program
• Deadline: March 1, 2018; October 1, 2018
• Clearmont, WY
• Offers time and space to competitively selected individuals working in all artistic disciplines.

Artists Supporting Artists: Join the Next #ArtistHotline

In addition to the community forged through residencies, artists everywhere can join the online #ArtistHotline community. Read the article Participate in #ArtistHotline: Tips to take best advantage of the day, and then tweet your own questions about any arts career topic to #ArtistHotline on the third Wednesday each month.

– Mirielle Clifford, Program Officer, Online Resources

Inspired by the NYFA Source Hotline, #ArtistHotline is dedicated to creating an ongoing online conversation around the professional side of artistic practice. #ArtistHotline occurs on the third Wednesday of each month on Twitter. Our goal is to help artists discover the resources needed, online and off, to develop sustainable careers. This initiative is supported by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.

Image: Kimia Ferdowsi Kline (Basil Alkazzi Artist in Residence), Sun Land, 2015