Artist-in-Residence
Program
About the Program:
In 2021 the Sarah Isom Center and the Department of Music collaborated, along with Living Music Resource, to establish the Sarahfest Artist-in-Residence Program with the goal of providing UM students with the unique opportunity to learn from working professional artists. The program’s inaugural artists-in-residence were the singer Kelly Hogan and musician (and Decemberist member) Jenny Conlee. The two artists auditioned UM students and worked with the chosen cohort to form a band they collectively named “The Bored of Education.” Students rehearsed and practiced with the two artists, who served as their professional mentors. For Hogan and Conlee learning was a two-way street. Like their students, they learned new material too, which they performed with their bandmates in a stellar public concert.
In 2022 we welcomed visual artist Valerie George to campus for a residency focused on “The Art of Process in Creating” which gave a new cohort of students the invaluable opportunity to engage with visual art, sound, experimentation, and acts of collaboration in a truly integrated way.
The Fall 2023 Artist-in-Residence we welcomed Elizabeth Ito. She has been working as a creator, writer, director, and storyboard artist in the animation industry since 2004. She’s worked on TV, feature, and commercial projects.
The 2024 Artist-in-Residence is Dr. Caroline Young. Dr. Young is a poet and educator living in Athens, Georgia. A Lecturer in the University of Georgia English department, she also serves as Site Director for Common Good Atlanta’s higher education program at Whitworth Women’s Facility in Hartwell, Georgia.
Cohort Information:
A selected cohort of creative students, faculty, and staff will have the opportunity to work with Caroline Young in small group and individual sessions as they explore Opening Up: The Art of Social Engagement. This year’s residency theme is an opportunity to explore what it means to open up as an artist, to create art, and to engage with art as an act of community building and as a connective conduit.
Interested creatives should submit a sample of their creative work that they feel intersects with this year’s theme and would want to display their piece as part of the public art show. The submission sample can be a painting, sculpture, mixed media piece, photography, written or recorded spoken word or music, a short biography, and a brief artistic statement by Friday, September 27, 2024, using the website below. Participants must be available on Oct 27th, the afternoon/early evenings of Nov. 2, 3,
and noon on the 5th. Other events will be scheduled around classes and work schedules. Participants
will also be involved in the public art show and artist talk during Dr. Young’s residency. Applicants will be notified no later than October 9, 2024.
Selected student participants will receive a $150 stipend.
Tentative Schedule for 2024:
Oct. 27 (Sun) - Art instillation Gallery 130 - Meek Hall
October 28-November 5 Art Show
Nov. 2 (Sat) – Late afternoon or early evening - Caroline and Cohort meet & greet at Gallery
Nov. 3 (Sun) – Cohort Sessions. AM workshop. 2:30 Craft Talk at Meek. PM Guided debrief and Dinner..
Nov. 4 (Mon) – November 4 (M) AM/PM Individual sessions. 1 pm LMR Live
November 5 (T) Open sessions and FINAL group gathering with lunch. Art installations come down.
Bold events are open to the public.
Fall 2024 Artist-in-Residence: Caroline Young
The 2024 Artist-in-Residence is Dr. Caroline Young. Dr. Young is a poet and educator living in Athens, Georgia. A Lecturer in the University of Georgia English department, she also serves as Site Director for Common Good Atlanta’s higher education program at Whitworth Women’s Facility in Hartwell, Georgia.
Teaching in incarcerated spaces since 2017 has transformed her pedagogy: "It calls into service my full range of experience and skills, enforces my eagerness to keep learning, and affirms the necessity of creating safe spaces in any learning environment.” Dr. Young fosters ongoing conversation between her UGA and Whitworth student classrooms through community-facing writing and art collaborations.
Dr. Young is a 2024 Service-Learning Teaching Excellence Award recipient from the University of Georgia. In 2023 she received the prestigious Silver Medal Award from the Southeastern Museums Conference for her curated exhibit “Art is a Form of Freedom.” The exhibit was a collaborative effort between Dr. Young, the women of Wentworth Prison, the Department of Corrections, Alumni of the nonprofit Common Good Atlanta, and the Georgia Museum of Art.
Fall 2023 Student Cohort
-
Julia Kraus
Oral Historian
-
Angel Morgan
Lens-based Artist
-
Noreen Ocampo
Writer & Poet
-
Sandip Rai
Storyteller
-
Sela Ricketts
Visual Artist
-
Ira Sen
Acting & Writing
Previous Participants
The Sarahfest Artist in Residence Experience was truly a program I didn't know I needed but am so grateful for. Art is hard. Art is personal. And being an artist in the world we inhabit is both of these, double fold. Valerie George heard this struggle in all of us--from the undergraduate students finding their footing to the graduate students trying to break through disciplinary boundaries--and responded with empathy, radical vulnerability, and a desire to fold artistic passion into an artistic life that is both fulfilling and sustaining. Being a part of this experience is something I think about often, and it's something I'll carry along with me even after my time at UM. — Maggie Muhleman (‘22)
A short documentary on the inaugural artist-in-residence in 2021 and its band, Bored of Education.
Sponsors:
Short documentary from year two: The Art of the Process
