Artist in Your Own Residence

 ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish’ Proverbs 29:18 KJV

Seeds Creatives has run a ‘different kind of workshop’ successfully since October 2014. Our Artist in Your Own Residence scheme, which runs for 12 months every year, gives artists the chance to make time to realise their own creative dreams, with help from our in-house team and allocated ‘soul friend’ advocates and mentors. We define the word artist broadly, as anyone persuing a creative project for the marketplace: this definition includes scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs, as well as media, arts and entertainment practitioners. Here’s an outline of how Artist in Your Own Residence has worked so far:

  • Who? Artists use the framework of the scheme to work individually and/or collaboratively at the same time, but in different places. People can join the scheme at any time during the period it runs.
  • What? Artists are free to choose their own creative projects, using their own ideas, themes, plans and materials.
  • Where? The scheme allows participating artists to work at their own speed wherever they like, often in their own homes.
  • When? The scheme runs between successive Twelfth Nights, the traditional time when ‘fools become wise’. On the nearest Saturday to Twelfth Night, a community gathering is organised and hosted where participating artists from the preceding year showcase their completed/work-in-progress projects and commit to continuing in the scheme in the new year (should they wish to do so). The in-house team and ‘soul friend’ buddies give participating artists the occasional ‘prod’ during the year (i.e. successive Januarys), to encourage participants to persevere with their work.
  • Why? The scheme allows artists to take their own work and artistic development seriously. The community encourages artists, by drawing on years of experience and expertise in providing pastoral, spiritual and technical support. The chance to work on creative project in their own time and at their own pace provides participants with the chance to learn about being an artist in today’s climate.
  • How? Artists enter the scheme by emailing their name, contact details and project outline to contact@seedscreatives.org. Each artist also fills out a short artist questionnaire, which describes:

(a) their discipline, way of working and nature of project;
(b) their current phase in the Making pearls chart (seven stages in the life-cycle of creativity;
(c) their desired requirements with respect to prospective advocate/mentors
(d) their preferences for the frequency and types of contact (e.g. email; telephone; one-to-one meetings)

Participants can also sign up to become a buddy for another artist in the scheme. So, artists can also be buddies (and vice versa).

Here are links to the artist and buddy questionnaires (estimated completion times in brackets):
Artist (5 minutes) | Buddy (3 minutes)

The Seeds Creatives team then assigns each participant a buddy (often a fellow artist), to get in touch (as mutually agreed) to provide support and to share news periodically about how the work is progressing.

The Artist in Your Own Residence scheme gives creatives a long-term opportunity to incubate work as individuals or in groups with the support of a family of artists.

The desire for collaboration

 

In order to reach its full potential, Artist in Your Own Residence is growing organically in partnership with others. Having run the scheme successfully since 2014, the concept is proven.

Seeds Creatives invites all like-minded groups and organisations to join us in expanding the scheme to combined networks in a spirit of pre-evangelism, to include Christians and non-Christians alike. The Artist in Your Own Residence scheme reaches any creative artist, innovator and/or entrepreneur willing to sign up to the process.

The scheme can grow in many directions: e.g. artistic collaborations can work in ‘pods’, building on work done by the ‘Theology Through the Arts’ team, led by Jeremy Begbie, to mark the turning of the millennium

Christopher Norris (Chairman, Seeds Creatives) is in conversation with many networks to expand the reach and influence of the Artist in Your Own Residence scheme. These organisations include:

Please consider making financial contributions to Seeds Creatives via our Stewardship account and/or our Artist in Your Own Residence crowdfunding campaigns.
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