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Indigo Arts Alliance Artists in Residence @ Hewnoaks

Since 2022, the Indigo Arts Alliance Artists in Residence @ Hewnoaks partnership has created space where Black and Brown artists can build lasting relationships, experiment, and grow within Hewnoaks’ singular creative environment. 

This opportunity, offered exclusively to IAA alumni Artists-in-Residence (AiR), invites them into weeklong or 10-day residencies alongside residents selected through Hewnoaks’ annual juried application process.

Your donation supports:

  • Residency time for Indigo Arts Alliance alumni artists, offered at no cost and without creative pressure
  • Modest artist stipends that help remove financial barriers to participation
  • On-site operations at Hewnoaks, including housing, refreshments and group meal, and care of the property + facilities
  • Program coordination and administrative support by Hewnoaks and Indigo Arts Alliance

Angel Opportunity

With a gift of $1,333, you can help fully fund a third AiR in 2026,
or expand the program to support a fourth artist.

Prefer to give by mail? Checks may be sent to PO Box 15052, Portland, ME 04112. Please indicate “IAA Partnership” in the memo line. To donate stock, please email info@hewnoaks.org for our brokerage details.

Indigo Arts Alliance embodies a multiracial approach to the rich intersections of citizenship, community-building, and creativity. Our work is in service to shifting historical injustices as a vital component of achieving equity for Black and Brown artists. We believe that artists are instrumental to doing the work of social justice in ways that are deeply grounded in lived experience and community.

At the heart of Indigo Arts Alliance’s mission are our Artist in Residency programs, which provide Black and Brown artists an environment for the production of artwork in all media across various disciplines. Our Residency aims to connect Black and Brown artists from across the globe to local artists of African descent. We activate our mission by creating opportunities for critical feedback, relationship building and increased awareness of creative opportunities and resources.

Indigo Arts Alliance is located in the Bayside Neighborhood of Portland, Maine. 

Hewnoaks provides emerging and mid-career artists across all disciplines with unencumbered time and space to think, work, and experiment. Through short-term residencies on our historic lakeside property in Lovell, we create a supportive environment that nurtures reflection, risk-taking, and the growth and development of artists and their practice. The Hewnoaks Residency is the core embodiment of our mission, providing artists with the invaluable gift of unrestricted time and space during critical phases of art production.

Established in 2012 by artists and community members, Hewnoaks Artist Residency builds on the site’s historic roots as a creative retreat. In 2013, we launched our first rigorous, merit-based jury process that focuses on artistic excellence, clarity of intent, and the potential impact of dedicated creative time. To date, 485 artists – over 70% from Maine – have participated in the core residency program, most of whom describe their stays as deeply meaningful and transformative. Hundreds more have participated in other workshops and public events.

Hewnoaks Artist Residency is located on Kezar Lake in Lovell, Maine.

"The partnership braids cultural stewardship with protected time/space. Hewnoaks offered quiet, land-held focus; IAA offered an opportunity and community that may not have been sought without their insights and my positionality within the field, and my newness to the state at the time. Together, they created the exact conditions needed to embody my ideas."
— Brian J. EvansHewnoaks & Indigo Arts Alliance Partnership Residency Alum ’23
"The IAA + Hewnoaks partnership brings BIPOC creatives into nature. I reconnected with my ancestral ties to land and water while at the residency, despite being from a different part of the country. The ability to be in the water every day and have solitude with the wildlife was grounding and resetting. This partnership gives BIPOC artists a space to be all of who they are, which is rare in our everyday lives. I continue to bring that grounded feeling into my practice and teaching."
— Liz RhaneyHewnoaks & Indigo Arts Alliance Partnership Residency Alum ’25
"At IAA we realize that there's strength in community and in numbers. By leading the importance of diverse work with partnering Maine-based art and cultural organizations, like Hewnoaks, who are committed to prioritizing inclusive strategic plans; will only ensure that the wellbeing of our Black and Brown ecosystems in our state can survive."
— Jordia BenjaminIndigo Arts Alliance Executive Director
"As arts funding contracts and cultural institutions face pressure to retreat from equity commitments, partnerships like ours send a message of constancy and resolve. When Hewnoaks and IAA collaborate -- a historically white nonprofit and a Black-led; Black and Brown centered organization -- we demonstrate what becomes possible when institutions come together across differences and coalesce around shared ideals."
— Marc MewshawFormer Hewnoaks Executive Director 2020-2025