artist residency

Applications are now closed for the 2025 Studio Residency!

Information for the next round will be shared in the summer. Please check back later!

Residency Overview

Program Goals

• To provide the space, training, resources, and nurturing environment for artists to deepen and expand their artistic practice, and for them to provide inspiration and a path for others to follow.

• To provide artists the opportunity to create independent work, enhancing their economic opportunities and furthering CAFAC’s commitment to help artists earn a living.  

• To increase representation of diverse artists in the art forms that CAFAC supports.

• To respect traditional processes and techniques while encouraging innovative exploration and creative problem solving.

Residency Structure

Residency at CAFAC is four to six months, depending on the track. Residencies coincide with our education program schedule to allow residents to take a class if they choose.

All residencies will have a culminating project, depending on the track. The project could be an exhibit in our gallery, delivery of a workshop, installation of a public artwork, or another goal the artist wishes to achieve.

Residency Tracks

We offer three residency tracks annually: The Studio Residency, Work of Public Art, and a Creative Exhibition residency. Applications are open now for the 2025 Studio Residency! See details about the program below.

Candidate Qualifications

The intent of a focused, supported time at CAFAC is to move you forward in your artistic practice and career. CAFAC’s residency doesn’t have minimum qualifications or absolute requirements for you to apply, but we think you’ll be a successful resident if:

• You don’t necessarily have a fire arts background, but you do have sculptural experience, or a 2D background that provides a good foundation to expand into the art forms CAFAC specializes in.

• You’re at a point in your artistic career where you have time to focus on your professional development for a period of four months.

• You identify as Black, Brown, Indigenous, or POC, as a woman or as transgender/gender-expansive/non-binary, because those identities are under-represented in the industrial art forms CAFAC supports.

How to apply

The residency application will ask for:

Basic information:

• Your name & contact info

• Birthdate

• Gender, racial/ethnic, and other identities

Residency project information:

• Residency track

• Artist statement

• Project/work description (via written or video response)

Attachments:

• 2-4 images of the proposed work (sketches, renderings, etc)

• 2-6 photos of past works with labels and explanations

• Resume / CV

• References

Review process

A panel of three professionals (artists, curators, arts administrators) will review your application and images independently. Then, they will come together for an in-person review and deliberation to select the residents.

QUESTIONS? Get in touch!

Send an email to info@cafac.org or
call 612-294-0400.