There are places – hundreds of them, in fact – where artists of all disciplines can go to work on their art: painters and playwrights, filmmakers and fiction writers, composers, choreographers, printmakers and poets, sculptors, scholars, and songwriters.

Artists’ communities are not about retreat; they are about advancement. Advancing creativity. Advancing human progress. Advancing the way we examine the world. In short, they are research-and-development labs for the arts. 

While there are many ways to support and experience the arts – books and paintings, performances and poetry, movies, museums, and music – artists’ communities support individuals in the creation of new art and ideas.

Field at a Glance

• 250 artists’ communities in the US and 800 worldwide
• 15,000 artists are in residence each year
• residencies provide $40 million in support to artists annually
• 65% are multidisciplinary, serving visual artists, writers, composers, filmmakers, choreographers, and others
• 60% are in rural areas and small towns, while 40% are in urban areas
• 75% are engaged in eco-stewardship – including historic preservation, land conservation, and sustainable living practices
• 90% have public programs that engage the local community

You may not have heard of artists’ communities, but you’ve most likely heard of the artists they have served, and some of the works that have been created there: Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Gregory MacGuire’s Wicked; Ruth Reichl’s Comfort Me With Apples, Tender At the Bone, and Garlic and Sapphires; Thornton Wilder’s Our Town; Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; Allen Ginsberg, David Sedaris, Marcel Duchamp, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Robert Rauschenberg, James Baldwin, John Lennon, Truman Capote, Bill T. Jones, Spalding Gray, Leonard Bernstein, Edward Albee, Langston Hughes, Liz Lerman, Sylvia Plath, Gwendolyn Brooks, Bob Dylan, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, and many, many more.