The Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (AHCMC) invites Montgomery County-based artists and creative practitioners to submit qualifications for a year-long Artist Residency in partnership with three Regional Service Areas (RSA) in Montgomery County, MD: Mid-County, Upcounty and East County. The Artists-in-Residence will undertake a year-long residency project with the goal of supporting civic dialogue within their Regional Service Areas. Through a series of artistic engagements and community convenings, the Artists-in-Residence will identify shared concerns, priorities, and focal issues within their community.

AHCMC seeks three individual artists who will each partner with one of three Regional Service Areas as part of a year-long artist residency. Artists-in-Residence will be provided stipends and administrative support to gather and connect with their neighbors and communities regularly through the lens of a creative practice in collaboration with their Regional Service Director. During their residency, the artists will be tasked with facilitating community conversations around topics that the community identifies as particularly important – such as community identity; resilience; vitality; economic development and financial security; housing; transportation; healthcare and food access; education; and more. These conversations can occur in many ways, but should involve creative engagement activities such art-making workshops, performances, public art activations, research-based exhibitions, or other endeavors aligned with the artists’ own practices. These activities may optionally culminate in community-based public art project.

Application Deadline: Wednesday, May 22, 2024 at 5pm

For full RFQ, eligibility requirements, and timelines CLICK HERE.

Throughout their residency, artists will receive mentorship from an experienced Consulting Artist who will support their planning processes, provide guidance for cultivating relationships with community members and stakeholders, and offer professional development training.

The selected artists will work alongside their Regional Service Director, AHCMC staff, Consulting Artist, project partners, and community stakeholders in a collaborative process to develop, strategize, promote and implement engagement activities.

Each Artist-in-Residence will receive an all-inclusive artist fee of $58,000, to include costs related to artists’ fees, materials, production costs, travel, insurance, and all other project-related expenses. Selected artists-in-residence will be required to carry general liability insurance for the duration of the residency.

Resources for Applicants

• The Creative Independent: How to Write an Artist Statement
• Fractured Atlas: Your Artist Statement
• Lower Manhattan Cultural Council: Work Sample Selection
• MICA: How to Document Your Work at Home with Jill Fannon
• New York Foundation for the Arts: How to Write a Strong Application
• New York Foundation for the Arts: How to Create an Artist Resume

Consulting Artist: Kenya Miles

Kenya is a multidisciplinary artist, educator & the alchemist behind Traveling Miles Studio. A one woman textile and fine art studio utilizing sustainable materials from earth pigments to natural dyes. Kenya’s work honors ancient practices while harmoniously drawing on a distinctive contemporary voice. From the valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico to the red clay roads of Ntonso, Ghana, Kenya’s process is a ledger of years of wandering and apprenticing around the globe. Kenya has facilitated workshops at the Berkeley Art Museum, Headlands Center for the Arts, the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden and MICA. She was a guest artist at Berkeley Art Musuem’s “The Possible” and in 2019 had a solo exhibition “The Central Sun” at Baana Gallery in San Francisco. From 2019-2020 Kenya was an Artist-in-Residence and farmer in the Baltimore Natural Dye Initiative. In January 2020, Kenya founded Blue Light Junction, a natural dye studio, alternative color lab, retail space, dye garden & educational facility in central Baltimore. Blue Light Junction focuses on growing, processing, and preserving the history of natural dyes and their artistic, practical, and commercial applications. In 2022-23, Kenya was a Civic Media Fellow, through the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. She is currently a 2023-24 Braiding Seeds Fellow. Kenya is an avid traveler, gardener, and above all else Indigo’s mother (her son).

Equity & Inclusion

With the acknowledgement and understanding that access to resources has been historically limited for certain groups of people, AHCMC is committed to cultural equity within all funding activities and to serving communities that have been traditionally underrepresented in mainstream funding, discourse, leadership, and resource allocation including, but not limited to, Black, Indigenous, Native American, Latinx, Chicanx, Arab, MENASA (Middle Eastern, North African, South Asian), Asian, Pacific Islander, and other communities of color, socio-economically disadvantaged communities, differently abled individuals and/or people with disabilities, and Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual constituents. Artists in these communities are highly encouraged to apply.