I took a break from, well, everything this week in order to apply for the Artist in Residence Program that our City is is hosting this summer… is it bad of me to not have any idea if they’ve done this before?  I don’t think they have because they have been doing all kinds of “Culture” research–surveys, public meetings, etc. to allow residents to have a say in what they want as far as culture is concerned.

I will tell you this… I’m glad the application process is over!  If you ever decide to take the opportunity, give yourself plenty of time!  I found out about this less than two weeks ago.  Then I carried the papers around with me for another five days or so before I finally found the time to read them.  Then I discovered I needed two letters of reference!  I also had to write a proposal (obviously) and an Artist’s Statement and a Work Plan.  Now, to me, I would have thought that the proposal and the work plan would have gone hand in hand and I actually ended up writing the work plan first so that I could work backwards!

So… here are my tips if you find out about an Artist Residency that you want to apply for:

1. Give yourself as much time as possible!
2. Email twice as many people as the number of reference letters you need because there could be delays that cause you to leave someone’s letter behind.
3. Start with your Work Plan or whatever this might be called.  I did “Beginning”, “Middle” and “End” because there is a month of planning time when I can pull out a calendar and plan week by week.
4. Writing an Artist’s Statement is harder than it looks depending on how long it’s to be (mine could only be half a page… YIKES!!).
5. Don’t waste time trying to search the internet to find samples of Proposals… it’s a nightmarish waste of time!
6. Same applies to Work Plans though I did find one that did little more than help me with the “Beginning”, “Middle” and “End” part which I did use.

So that’s what I have to offer!  I am crossing my fingers on this.  I grew up church and I think of myself as more spiritual than religious but when I quit that horrible part-time job, I couldn’t help think of the line in Sound of Music when Maria says “When God closes a door, he always opens a window”.  I would really like if this Residency would be that open window!

I will keep you posted but cross your fingers for me!  And now I will carry on editing and pick up where I left off a week ago!