5 Steps to Enhance Your Residency

Here are some helpful tips that you can apply to seed, water & nurture an Artist Residency:

1. Define your vision

Yes, tackle the most important part first. Refine while defining your fundamentals. Your vision will act as your thesis throughout the process, so sketch it with your clarity-specs on! Think of all the possible questions anyone may have about your residency and craft a thoughtful answer. Connect the dots and let them mold your vision. Know and truly understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how you plan to achieve it.

2. Instead of competing, find a niche where you bloom

As Einstein himself pointed out,

“Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

If something works for residency x, it doesn’t necessarily needs to work for yours. So embrace what’s different about it and nurture it’s uniqueness. This one’s all about perspective, about how you see your castle that you are putting effort into building. If everyone’s building it closer to the water, where the sand is more moist and supporting; build yours at a different spot and make the most of the twigs & shells as your resources.

3. Make your brand persona your alter-ego

Design and build every element of your residency with its persona in mind. Personify it, give it a character and introduce its name to all the people you meet. Think of the basic elements that link it all together. Think along the lines of this: if your residency were a person, would it drink tea or coffee? Would it spend its weekend cleaning or doing outdoorsy activities? With this “persona” approach, you’ll give your artists something to relate to and would in-turn attract artists that would be the right fit for your residency and vice-versa.

4. Trial & error

Inevitably, visions change and you may discover something different to incorporate into your residency’s persona. This is completely fine- just be open about it. Change only teaches us, right?

5. Every criticism has a silver lining

For every criticism you may receive, transform the input into positive energy by taking from it to make your residency better! There’s always room for growth, so let the comments motivate you! Heed to them, yes, but with the right attitude. All in all, keep your residency’s persona in mind, and cater to the situations you face with grace.

Hopefully these tips will help you, just as they help us fuel our Starry Night Residency!