Hewnoaks invites participants for one- to two-week sessions from 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.