artist residency

Spend focused, supported time deepening your artistic practice and creating work at CAFAC.

 
 
Residency Gallery
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Photo of art gallery with work hanging on the wall and a sculpture on a pedestal. There is sand on the floor in a spiral.
Photo of artist applying enamel to metal.
Photo of artist kneeling on the ground using an angle grinder on metal.

Applications for 2024 Studio and Creative Exhibition residencies are closed.
We anticipate opening the application for 2025 residencies in late October 2024 - please check back here to stay updated about future opportunities.

 
 

Residency Structure and Goals

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.

2024 Residency Structure

CAFAC Residencies coincide with our education program schedule to allow residents to take a class if they choose. We currently offer two residency tracks:

  • Creative Exhibition Residency

    • Four months, March - June  

    • We accept one artist or a pair of artists (only one stipend is provided)

    • Application opens in November

  • Studio Residency

    • Four months, July - October

    • We accept two artists for Studio Residency

    • Application opens in November

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 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.

  • For the Studio Residency, you can describe your vision for a project, body of work, or specific skills you’d like to develop during a residency.

  • For the Creative Exhibition Residency, you can describe your vision for an exhibition and related events and activities that can transform the CAFAC gallery.

  • 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.

Creative Exhibition Residency Details

CAFAC is home to a small gallery known as the Nokomis, which also provides artist consignment opportunities and community events. For the Creative Exhibition residency, your primary medium is the gallery itself, and you're encouraged to push beyond traditional exhibition practices, to engage community with events or activities, and to fully activate the space in ways that express your imagination. The exhibition should include primarily existing work, but there may be some opportunities to produce fixturing pieces and/or limited new work in support of the exhibition concept. While your exhibit may include work in mediums not supported by CAFAC, the intention is for it to encompass fire art forms.

The residency provides added opportunities such as:

  • Participation in discounted classes, one-on-one training, and/or studio access program at CAFAC in order to produce work for the show.

  • Additional community events, led by you, beyond our regular exhibition opening and closing. These may be revenue-generating events and you may choose to bring in additional collaborators.

  • More extensive redesign or transformation of the gallery space to create an immersive experience of your vision.

  • Hands-on involvement in curatorial and exhibition mounting activities.

Creative Exhibition Residency Artist Benefits

  • Private 8’ x 8’ studio for storage.

  • Artist stipend of $1500 during residency period.

  • Materials and training stipend of $1200, for project supplies and 1-on-1 training by CAFAC teaching artists. CAFAC will manage this stipend initially, to provide connections to our vendors and resources, and turn over any balance to the resident at an agreed-upon point in the residency.

  • Weekly one-hour check-ins with CAFAC’s Gallery Coordinator and informal feedback from other studio artists and teaching artists.

  • Opportunity for formal peer critiques.

  • Opportunity for gallery exhibition and public opening at the end of the residency, including marketing and support from CAFAC’s Gallery Coordinator. Should residents choose to sell work in CAFAC’s gallery, sales are split 70/30 between the artist and CAFAC’s scholarship fund.

  • A scholarship of up to $400 for classes taken at CAFAC during the residency period.

Studio Residency Details

Studio Residency applicants will choose to focus on one of these areas: 

  • Enameling: Also called vitreous or porcelain enameling, this art form is an ancient process of fusing pigmented glass powder to a metal substrate at very high temperature, resulting in an extremely durable finish. CAFAC is home to a unique resource nationally: a public art scale enameling facility, offering artists whose practice is in 2D visual art forms the opportunity to translate their work into enamel and create permanent, impervious surfaces. 

  • 3D sculptural work: Artists with backgrounds in 3D sculptural work will be able to work in welding, blacksmithing, cast metal, jewelry/small sculpture, lampworking, stained glass, and/or neon.

Residents will have access to CAFAC during all open hours (at least 50 hours per week) with the expectation that they will work in the facility about 15 hours per week. Residents working in areas that require scheduled or intensive resources, such as casting or enameling furnaces, may be asked to coordinate their work with our class schedules. 

Prior to beginning project work, residents will participate in a two-week training period that introduces them to our safety and equipment usage protocols so that they are able to work independently. 

Studio Resident Benefits

In addition to four months of access to a well-equipped and maintained shop based in a dynamic learning environment, residents at CAFAC also receive:

  • Private 8’ x 8’ studio for storage (shared between two residents).

  • Artist stipend of $1500 during residency period.

  • Materials and training stipend of $1200, for project supplies and 1-on-1 training by CAFAC teaching artists. CAFAC will manage this stipend initially, to provide connections to our vendors and resources, and turn over any balance to the resident at an agreed-upon point in the residency.

  • Weekly one-hour check-ins with CAFAC’s Artistic Director and informal feedback from other studio artists and teaching artists.

  • Opportunity for formal peer critiques.

  • Opportunity for gallery exhibition and public opening at the end of the residency, including marketing and support from CAFAC’s Gallery Coordinator. Should residents choose to sell work in CAFAC’s gallery, sales are split 70/30 between the artist and CAFAC’s scholarship fund.

  • A scholarship of up to $400 for classes taken at CAFAC during the residency period.

 

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

Timeline

November 13: application opens

December 6: Q & A session in person with option for Zoom, 6-7pm

Deadline extended to January 10: application closes

January 12 - 25: applications reviewed

January 26: selected residents notified

Creative Exhibition Residency:

  • Late February: spring classes open for resident registration; 1-2 preparatory meetings with CAFAC staff (in person or Zoom).

  • March 4: In-studio residency starts with 2-week training period 

  • June 28: Residency ends

Studio Residency:

  • Late May: summer classes open for resident registration

  • Late June: 1-2 preparatory meetings with CAFAC staff (in person or Zoom)

  • July 8: In-studio residency starts with 2-week training period 

  • November 1: Residency ends

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.

In person/Online Q&A Session

We hosted a Q&A session on December 6th from 6-7pm, which was recorded on Zoom. Available below and on YouTube.

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.