The Santa Fe Art Institute Thematic Residency Program supports dynamic creative practices that engage complex social issues, inspire individual transformation, and inform collective action. SFAI welcomes local, national, and international applicants of all backgrounds.

From the start, SFAI’s programming was developed and informed by artists, who worked to bring awareness to the shifting relationship between art and society, and to redefine and disrupt the traditional gatekeeping roles of art institutions, including outdated labels such as “master” artist.

While our programming, language, and focus has naturally shifted over the years, our mission has remained the same: to foster and explore the interconnections of contemporary art and society, to enliven public discourse on art, and to support and nurture artists at all phases of their careers.

Applications are accepted once a year for our annual theme, which includes our Family Residency Month in July.

ACRE’s Residency Program takes place every summer in the Driftless region of Wisconsin. Set on 1,000 acres of wetland, hills, and farmland, the residency hosts artists who live and work in a communal setting that includes expansive work spaces, kitchen serving three meals per day, performance stage, wood shop, art and tech facility, and sound, fiber, screenprinting, metalwork, and ceramics studios. Residents are encouraged to balance their time between producing work, contemplating their practice, and engaging with the community. The Visiting Artist program invites established artists to conduct studio visits and present lectures and other experimental programs. Studio staff also offer demos and in-depth workshops to residents. Each year ACRE welcomes approximately 60 emerging, often underrepresented, artists of all disciplines to attend one of three 14-day residency sessions. Residents are selected through a rigorous review process by respected panelists who work in the visual arts from Chicago and across the country.

ACRE practices a participatory leadership structure that enriches our operations and programs, by inviting participants to become key decision-makers for the organization, facilitating community-centered evaluation, soliciting feedback, and practicing a shared dedication to making iterative improvements. Every artist who has participated in the residency is invited to return as staff, serve on a committee, and ultimately direct the future of the organization.

The Good Hart Artist Residency offers 10-21 day residency stays to visual artists, writers, and composers at any stage of their career. Each artist is housed in a private residence with a detached studio and provided with a $500.00 stipend, a kitchen stocked with basic foods, a few home-cooked meals from local hosts, and a quiet setting along the shores of Lake Michigan. Tucked into the woods along the “Tunnel of Trees,” a Scenic Heritage Route, residents can walk into the village of Good Hart, enjoy Lake Michigan and the nearby sand dunes, and explore Northern Michigan’s inland lakes and wetlands. The Good Hart Artist residency generally hosts one resident at a time, offering each artist the time, space, and quiet to focus and create. 

Community is central to the mission of the Good Hart Artist Residency. Open Studio Saturdays offer visual artists an opportunity to share their work with local residents for one Saturday during their stay, and the annual Harbor Springs Festival of the Book connects resident writers to both local and literary communities. Each artist collaborates with a local nonprofit organization during their stay to lead an educational event, workshop, or exhibition. Please visit our local partnerships page for additional information about these collaborations. 

The Green Box Artist in Residency program offers artists of national and international stature, from diverse disciplines, and at any stage in their career the opportunity to develop, create, and/or present new works while living in and engaging with the community of Green Mountain Falls, a beautiful small mountain community located in Ute Pass, by the foothills of Pikes Peak. Launched in February 2020, the program has grown to sponsor artists annually, with as many as eight residencies offered each year. Past artists in residence include Chad Mount, Irby Pace, Denys Drozdyuk & Antonina Skobina, American Ballet Theatre, 600 Highwaymen, Sommer Browning, Emily McDaniel, Alexandra Lockhart, Matthew Jamal, Jessica Kahkoska, Michael Krondl, Summation Dance, the Nomadic Photo Ark, Molly Rideout, Stillhouse Junkies, Amir Amiri, brooke smiley, Paula Bohince, Arvin Ramgoolam, Nikki Pike, Edwin Ushiro, Bill Frisell, and Carole d'Inverno. 

Lodging is provided, and deliverables will be determined during the application process. During their stay, artists are expected to engage with local residents and other cultural organizations to enhance arts offerings in the region. 

Specific residency application requirements may change from year to year, but are released at the beginning of September. See current applications here.

The Steepletop Residency, inaugurated in 2021, is a partially-subsized one-month stay; intended for scholars and creatives with institutional or private funding, cost is $3000.

Steepletop residents are scheduled from April-November and are excluded from blind jury process; stays include groceries, chef-prepared communal suppers, private bedroom and studio, shared living/kitchen/dining, washer/dryer access, workstation w/printer, Nancy Graves Memorial Library, Alumni Collection and B&W darkroom. Our composer's suite has a Yamaha U-1 upright piano.

Our Core Residency program -- we will celebrate our 50th anniversary in July 2023 -- is one of the longest-running in country. Judged blindly by jurors who are practicing professionals and/or alumni, from April-November each year we welcome 6-7 multidisciplinary creators to come to Steepletop (the historic estate of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet/activist Edna St. Vincent Millay) for one month stays (June and September also have two-week session availabilities). We have a number of fellowships that come with stipends available. To date we have hosted over 3000 exceptional poets, nonfiction/fiction writers, screenwriters, playwrights, filmmakers, photographers, composers, visual and performance artists. Works made possible by a residency enrich lives and communities globally: our alumni are consistently recognized with international honors (MacArthur and National Book Awards; Pulitzer, Lambda Literary and Pen America prizes, Guggenheim Fellowships and others). Core residencies are fully-subsidized and free of charge; they include: groceries, chef-prepared communal dinners, private bedroom, private studio and shared living/kitchen/dining.

Members of the Oregon Coast Recorder Society have raised $103,000 to establish a recorder residency at Sitka, beginning in 2003.

To be eligible for the residency, applicants are required to earn part of their income from recorder performance or recorder instrument composition. This is to indicate that applicants should have a degree of professionalism, and people at the beginning of a career are as welcome as mature artists.

Residencies are 2 – 6 weeks in length, and living space and a studio are provided. Past residents have taught  workshops  and given concerts in the community. New in 2022: An anonymous donor is supporting a $500/week honorarium in support of this residency. The honorarium can be used in any way the resident chooses.

VCCA’s artist residency program at Mt. San Angelo in Amherst, Virginia, hosts up to 360 writers, visual artists, and composers each year in residencies of varying lengths with flexible scheduling (up to six weeks with no minimum length of stay). Applications are accepted three times a year for three distinct scheduling periods.

A residency at Mt. San Angelo includes a private bedroom with private en-suite bath, a private individual studio, three prepared meals each day, and access to a community of more than 20 other artists in residence at a time. Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Mt. San Angelo is surrounded by natural wonders and hiking trails. 

The solitary time artists receive at VCCA allows them to focus on their work without interruptions. Away from the constraints of “the real world” and in an accepting environment of talented peers, one can dream and create with the feeling that anything is possible. All opportunities to engage with other residents and the wider community through readings, open studios, etc., are entirely optional. 

Thanks to a grant from the Ford Family Foundation, the Sitka Center will be able to offer a special residency opportunity to practicing, mid-career, Oregon artists. This program is for 2-4 weeks based on the artists availability.  This residency includes a stipend of $500 per week. This stipend is designed to make taking the time for a residency more feasible. All visual artists who meet the guidelines below are welcome to apply.