The Ford Family Foundation today selected four additional internationally acclaimed artist residency programs to partner with in 2016 and 2017. The programs join two other ongoing residency opportunities supported by the Foundation. The new programs will provide month-long opportunities for established Oregon visual artists to explore, conceptualize, and develop future work.
The four new partners are The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, N.H.; the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation’s program on Captiva Island, Fla; Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vt.; and The Corporation of Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. These programs join two programs already supported by the Foundation: Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, Wyo., and Djerassi in Woodside, Calif.
All are respected for the environments they have created for visual, performing and literary artists to incubate new ideas and advance creative practices.
The Foundation-supported residencies are in addition to applications these organizations already accept from Oregon artists, but they assure additional visual artists will have opportunities. Through these partnerships, the Foundation hopes to deliver new experiences for Oregon visual artists who have demonstrated excellence in their prior work and significant potential for future accomplishments. Artist selection is not conditioned on, but may result in, production of new bodies of work.
“Our goal is to help artists take their work to a new level, responding specifically to what they say they need most: uninterrupted time to reflect, to explore, and in some cases, to produce new work,” said Anne Kubisch, president of The Ford Family Foundation.
The Foundation will support the following number of opportunities at three of the residency programs over the two-year period (hyperlinks provided below).
• The MacDowell Colony: seven residencies; deadlines: January 15, April 15, September 15
• Vermont Studio Center: four residencies; deadlines: application open year-round; Fellowship (additional assistance) deadlines: February 15, June 15, October 1
• Yaddo: six residencies; deadlines: January 1, August 1
These three institutions will use their existing jury process and the following criteria to select residency candidates:
• Quality of their work: Artistic excellence/exemplary talent and depth of sophisticated exploration evidenced in past work;
• Evolution of their work: whether or not the individual is at a critical juncture in his or her practice and the use to which a residency would aid in that pursuit; and
• Basic credentials: participants are full-time residents of Oregon, established, actively practicing visual artists, 30 years of age or older and who have evidenced viability of their work through past exhibitions and other professional documentation.
The Rauschenberg Foundation will host two residencies in 2017 and will be by nomination only. Information specific to these residencies will be available in 2016.
For more information about the ongoing programs visit their websites:
• Djerassi Resident Artists Program
• Ucross Foundation Resident Artists program
The Ford Family Foundation Visual Arts Program will evaluate all of its residency programs in mid-2017.
The Ford Family Foundation was established in 1957 by Kenneth W. and Hallie E. Ford. Its Mission is “successful citizens and vital rural communities” in Oregon and Siskiyou County, Calif. The Foundation is located in Roseburg, Oregon, with a Scholarship office in Eugene.
http://www.tfff.org/