Hewnoaks Artist Residency

2024 Application Process Update:

We haved decided to temporarily pause our usual jury process this year due to an unprecedented volume of applications in 2023. Instead, we plan to extend invitations to waitlisted artists from our 2023 jury process whom we could not accommodate due to space constraints.

We hope this approach will allow us to more fully recognize and celebrate the breadth of artistic excellence represented in last year’s applicant pool, though we know many of you had planned to apply this season. We sincerely regret any disappointment this decision will cause, and encourage you to consider applying again when we resume our standard open application process in 2025. 

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Situated on the eastern shore of Kezar Lake in Lovell, Maine, Hewnoaks offers an extraordinary setting of inspiration and beauty.  We encourage applications from emerging and mid-career artists and curators in all disciplines, especially for people with no or little residency experience. Maine artists are given preference, but anyone is welcome to apply.

Hewnoaks invites participants for one- to two-week sessions from mid-June until early October each year and offers self-catered accommodation in rustic cabins complete with basic kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms.

Although we can’t offer dedicated studio space in the traditional sense, our participants have found ways to make use of the property to advance their practice, whether it be experimenting with new work, finishing projects already in progress, or conducting research for future endeavors. We ask our applicants to tell us how the time spent will be helpful to their work, and we’re less concerned with what’s produced during the period of the residency (although we like to learn about that, too).

Our participants largely arrive with an interest in focusing on their own work for the bulk of their residency, with some social time mixed in. We are not prescriptive about how each cohort decides to interact; some gather in the evenings for drinks or shared meals, some conduct studio visits or show-and-tell sessions, some go on hikes or canoe adventures together, and some decide to have very little interaction at all.

One evening each session we host a gathering of the participants, to which we invite our board, donors, community members and arts colleagues to come learn about Hewnoaks and meet the artists.

After completing the residency, we hope that our participants stay in touch and keep us informed about how they are sharing their work in the world, through performance, exhibition, publishing, screenings, or other means, so that we can celebrate this work and share it with our communities.