Friday, October 26, 2012

Hey Residency Programs: Support Artists with Kids!


The excellent Sustainable Arts Foundation has just announced a new initiative: The Sustainable Arts Foundation Residency Grant Program. This is a two-year pilot program designed to encourage artist and writer residency programs to make their residencies accessible to artists and writers with children.

in the past, the SAF's primary focus has been an award program for individual artists and writers, offering small unrestricted cash awards to artists and writers with at least one dependent child under the age of 18. These individual grants will continue to be offered as well.

The SAF stated in a recent press release, "We expect that the funding awarded through these new residency grants will not only support the organizations that receive them, but that the ideas they generate can be shared and their effects multiplied...We hope that individuals will benefit from them down the road as artist and writer residencies improve their programs to become more available to parents."

The Vermont Studio Center is already using SAF funding to offer a $1,000 - $2,000 fellowship so that parents-in-residence can afford to cover costs related to taking time away from the family (childcare, lost income, travel, etc). Nice start, but what we'd like to see is an opportunity to live with/near family while still having productive studio time. A workstudy childcare program, perhaps? Or a family-friendly living space that allows for spouse and/or grandparents to come and help out during the day? There's plenty of room for improvement here.

For more details on this program, please visit The Sustainable Arts Foundation Website.

2 comments:

  1. http://www.rair.org/ the Roswell Residency program in New Mexico gives houses to artists and their families for a year, and often beyond...

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  2. True - and now the Santa Fe Art Institute has just instituted an official family residency as well (more info on that soon, I hope). For now, more residency info and options on the Cultural Reproducers Resources page.

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