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TAC AIR combines studio access with a rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum, regular critical dialogue and mentorship, providing residents an opportunity to learn and explore the textile medium, and an alternative to traditional higher education programs. The residency culminates in a group exhibition produced and hosted by TAC. Since 2010, TAC AIR has graduated over eighty artists and designers whose work continues to further textile art within the fashion, fine arts, design and art education fields.

Program Details

Program Activities
Faculty
Facilities & Benefits
Tuition & Scholarships
Application & Selection Process
FAQ

Over the course of 9 months, TAC AIR residents delve into a full curriculum of technical classes, textile history and conservation and professional development. Ongoing critical dialogue, allows residents to gain a greater awareness of their practices and contextualize their work within contemporary and historical textile art.

October–December: Play

The first 3 months are a time for play and exploration, learning new techniques and getting acquainted with a studio practice in this particular setting. Curriculum will include technical development workshops, such as weaving, machine knitting, natural dyeing and surface design treatments, as well as professional development topics such as social media, marketing and photography. These workshops are designed to expose residents to a variety of materials and serve as an introduction to the TAC studio.

January–March: Research & Concept

Starting the New Year, residents dive into research and development of their final project for the exhibition. Curriculum will include seminars in textile history, conservation, and contemporary craft theory. At this time, residents are introduced to their personal mentor, with whom they will work one-on-one to help guide the development and completion of their personal project. At the end of this period, residents are expected to present formal project proposals for the final exhibition.

April–June: Project Creation

The last portion of the program is dedicated to project creation and professional development. Seminars are based in writing workshops, grant writing, art law, and material sourcing. Each cycle culminates in a formal critique, where it is expected that residents present matured concepts and work for the final exhibition.

Studio Facilities

  • 24/7 access to personal 8’ x 8’, well-lit space. Each space has 3 full walls, including shelving, as well as a “tack” wall.
  • 24/7 access to TAC studio and equipment (includes floor looms; home and industrial sewing machines; knitting machines; drying rack; utility sink; dye lab for natural and synthetic dyes; dryer; steamer; screen printing facilities which include 3 yardage tables, large exposure unit and washout booth

 

Additional Benefits

  • Access to resources and fiber arts community
  • Exposure through TAC marketing and social media
  • $1,000 worth of free classes at Textile Arts Center, followed by 30% off all additional classes taken

Tuition

The tuition of Textile Arts Center’s Artist in Residence Program is $11,000 per resident, split into the following payment plans:

$1200 upon acceptance (due June 2023)
$9800 due on the first week of October 2023

OR

$1200 upon acceptance (due June 2023)
$2200 due on the first week of October 2023
$760 monthly from October 15, 2023 through July 15, 2024 (10 payments)

Scholarship

The Textile Arts Center is committed to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in all its programs. The TAC Artist In Residence Scholarship Fund will support one artist or designer who identifies as part of a historically marginalized identity or community in the Arts,( i.e class, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, sexuality, age, education) and state the need for financial assistance to participate in the program and advance their artistic practice. Applications for the scholarship are submitted along with the program application.

TAC AIR Scholarship is made possible from donations of TAC AIR and WIP alumni and instructors’ work, WIP workshops and by TAC.

Eligibility

We are looking for artists and designers at all career stages, working in textile/fiber media or looking to explore and develop a new body of work in this medium. Eligible applicants must be 21+ years old and have good English proficiency. We encourage international artists to apply, but applicants are responsible for all necessary VISA arrangements and fees.

Application

Application fee: $25 (Early Bird, application submitted by March 1); $35 (applications submitted by March 31)

All applications must be submitted digitally through Slideroom by March 31, 2023

Selection Process

The selection process is led by a committee of Textile Arts Center’s staff, as well as professionals working in different fields of textile arts.

Selection criteria include:

  • Quality of work
  • Clear plan on work to be created during time of residence
  • Desire to work within a strong community

Selected applicants will be asked to come in for an interview.

Application Calendar

Application Dates for Cycle 15:
February 6 – March 31, 2023

Interviews:
Mid-April 2023

Notification of Acceptance:
End of May 2023

Next Cycle Dates:
Cycle 15: October 2023-June 2024

What is the TAC AIR application process?

Applications for Cycle 15 of AIR opens on February 6, 2023. All applications must be submitted electronically through the online platform by the deadline, March 31, 2023.

You will need to write about your work, interests and experience, and —most importantly—your desire for participating in the program. Additionally, you’ll be required to submit a portfolio of 5-10 high-resolution images of your best work that most relates to what you hope to accomplish during the program.

If you experience any issues with the online application platform, please contact artistprograms@textileartscenter.com by March 14 in order to answer your questions in time. Please do not wait until the last minute.

Is there an application fee?

For AIR Cycle 15, there is an application fee of $25 for application submitted  by March 1, 2022; and a fee of $35 for applications submitted by March 31, 2022.

Do you accept international applicants?

Yes! In the past we’ve had several international artists move to NYC for the duration of the program. TAC can offer some guidance and support for your VISA application, but residents are responsible for all VISA arrangements and fees.

Is there any degree requirement to apply?

There is no degree requirement to apply to TAC AIR and we encourage applicants from all backgrounds.

What’s the selection process?

All applications will be reviewed by a jury committee made of TAC staff, and professionals working in different fields of fiber arts. After the first round, selected applicants will be contacted for an interview. Interviews will be held during the month of April. Candidates will be contacted by end of May with their acceptance status.

What are interviews like? Who conducts them?

Interviews are typically about 30-40 minutes, and are conducted by Kelly Valletta, TAC Executive Director, and Artist Programs Manager. Applicants should be ready to discuss their work, their reasons for wanting to participate in the program, and what they hope to accomplish creatively and professionally.

What if I am not in NY and get invited for an interview?

We strongly prefer that candidates be able to have an in-person interview, but definitely understand that this is not always possible. In these cases, we will schedule a video call interview. We do not hold phone interviews in order to be able interact with you in some way and get to know you.

If I’m accepted for TAC AIR, what is needed upon acceptance?

Accepted applicants must notify TAC of their official acceptance to be part of TAC AIR no later than June 1st. At this time, you will be required to sign the AIR Contract and submit a tuition deposit of $1200.

Are there any financial aid options available?

The Textile Arts Center is committed to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in all its programs. The TAC Artist In Residence Scholarship will support one artist or designer per cycle who demonstrates commitment to their art practice, identifies with a historically underrepresented community in the arts and/or states the need for financial assistance to participate in the program and advance their artistic practice. TAC AIR Scholarship is made possible from donations of TAC AIR and WIP alumni and instructors’ work, WIP workshops and by TAC.

Since only one artist per cycle will recieve the Residence Scholarship, we encourage applicants to begin researching third-party funding by the time of application, including artist grants, loans, credit, or others.

Here is a brief list of some places to look for grants and resources:

Additionally, we encourage and support residents to organize their own crowdfunding campaigns.

What kind of time commitment is the AIR program?

We expect that accepted residents make the program a priority for the full cycle. It is an intensive professional development program that will take a lot of focus, work, and time. We believe the investment in you and your work makes it worth this level of effort and attention.

However, we do know life goes on and NYC is a tough place to survive and be creative. We want this program to work for artists and designers as a complement to their lives – not remove, isolate, or bring them down. We absolutely accept candidates that have full or part time jobs.

Critiques and class times are twice per week, generally totalling to about 6 hours per week. Monday evenings are critique nights, while class evenings are usually on Thursday evenings or weekends. This can vary throughout the cycle based on instructor availability. Residents are updated on dates far in advance, and given a calendar to work around.

We expect and recommend that residents spend about 15-20 additional hours per week in their studio on their work. Residents have 24/7 access to their studios, so weekends and late nights are okay.

Have a question for an AIR alum about their experience?

Here’s a few you should feel free to contact:

If you still have questions, feel free to email Artist Programs Manager.

Applications for TAC AIR Cycle 16 open January 2024.

Current TAC AIR Cycle 15 Artists

Audrey Cibel

Audrey Cibel is a self taught craft and textile artist with a degree in photography and image making mediums from New York University. She exists in the space between the physical and digital realms, often merging the two to fabricate a new form of interaction with an image. By pushing the boundaries of rug making she makes her digital designs and memories tangible. Her fabric of handmade rug material is manipulated into various forms of soft sculpture and wearable art pieces that possess themes of queer Latinx identity, biomorphism, and a connection to the women craft artists in her own lineage. From the expertise she gained being her own teacher and employer of her commission based rug business, she has transitioned into teaching rug introduction courses and other fiber art courses. Sharing her skills for this niche craft has become an art practice in itself, and a new direction towards curating spaces for creative expression. Audrey is currently working as an Artist in Residence at the Textile Arts Center where she will be progressing as an artist, curator, and educator.

Carter Shocket

My fiber work explores the rhizomes of connection among the trans and queer community, our relationship to the earth, and our relationships throughout time, including history, futurism and myth. I use recycling and found materials, collected natural dyes, and objects with personal history to deconstruct histories and create new meaning. Through weaving, quilting, and sewing materials together, I compost utility and combine material to create new meaning and experiences. I am currently working on a woven world of trans myths born from storytelling and mixed with present documentation of queer and trans community.

Hera Ford

Hera Ford is a multimedia artist, textile designer, and dancer. She’s a 2020 graduate of Rhode Island School of Design where she majored in Textiles. Her work is influenced by her relationship to the Black American South, her ancestral land, and heirloom dances of Black Americans and the African Diaspora.

Jimmy Zhao

Jimmy is a second-generation Fujianese American whose work grapples with family lineage, neglected cultural traditions, and value placement within the American-Western hegemony. He achieves this by reimagining aesthetic systems that interpret value outside the Western capitalist notion of scarcity and permanence. He looks to his familial roots and diasporic heritage, building a lexicon from aspects of his parent's takeout and Fujianese culinary traditions. His most recent works explore these relationships through animal fat, glutinous rice, and monosodium glutamate. Working within an ephemeral image-object practice, his work embraces each material’s innate qualities and their natural process of entropy, repositioning our focus to the odyssey of creation.
Jimmy understands meaning to be derived from a work’s interconnections, the web of consciousness that forms through various lifespans and reincarnations. His understanding draws from the Daoist principle of Wu-Wei, nondual action that works in harmony with nature, and Indra’s Net, the belief that the cosmos is a construction of infinite linkages, all inherently conjoined to one another; both cosmological philosophies understand the universe to be a reflection of its correspondence. Working within this framework, he rejects the notion of “mastery,” as he is skeptical of art that gains value through its separation from the mundane. His work aims to extend the knowledge systems embodying materials, the language of said materials, and their connected methodologies-- those that the dominant culture has undervalued.

Julie Clapton

Julie Clapton is a fiber based artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. After attending Rhode Island School of Design for Textiles, Julie will continue her practice within the Textile Arts Center’s Residency program. Committing herself with care and intention to blur the confines of disciplines, coalescing them to in turn create new growth and understanding about the realms in which textiles can live. Experimenting and pushing the terminology of functionality, adornment, and tradition through unconventional techniques such as staining to gather multiple narratives and interweave new visual languages.

Lovisa Axén

With a strong background in traditional textile craft techniques, Lovisa explores contemporary challenges through a lens that combines humor and familiarity. Her creative process typically begins with illustrations and paintings, which she then transforms into sculptures and larger figurative images.

During her residency at TAC, she plans to delve into the intriguing question of why certain objects or experiences linger in our collective memory. Whether it's a house, a piece of furniture, a painting, a place, an advertisement, or even a food package, she's curious about what makes them stay with us. Lovisa's goal is to pluck these elements from their original contexts and incorporate them into her textile art. Through her work, she hopes to craft a kind of tribute that tells individual stories within the context of our shared experiences.

Lovisa graduated from Konstfack in 2021 and has since exhibited her art in various locations in Sweden, Greece, and Iceland.

Nana YaaSerwaah Akuoku

Nana YaaSerwaah Akuoku is a NYC based WearableArt Designer and Visual Artist of Ghanaian heritage and American nationality. Akuoku is an Alumna of the Fashion Institute of Technology and is recognized for her conceptual wearables that obscure boundaries between “traditional” art, fashion and technology.
The uniqueness in Akuoku's practice is in conceptualizing innovative methodologies of approaching fashion design by removing preconceived notions of what objects and their uses are and in doing so, reshaping their context to express narratives related to identity, introspection and culture. She often refers to concepts in science, technology and contemporary art within her fashion-based practice. Akuoku is recipient of the Wassaic Project's Winter 2019
Teaching Fellowship. Her works have been on view at NORDSTORM NYC as part of the Fashion film installation presented by artist Diane Smith. Past installations include Afrochella festival, the Ghana Tech Summit and The Black Gala at the Accra Science and Technology Museum. Her designers have been highlighted by publications such as Allure, Essence, and New York Times Style. Recently, Her work "Rapunzel"; was worn by the opening performer of the prestigious “Wearable-Art-Gala”; Headed by philanthropist and Beyoncé’s mother; Ms.Tina Knowles-Lawson.

Shawna Tang

Shawna Tang is a fiber artist and sculptor based in Queens, NY originally from San Jose, California. Shawna also owns a jewelry and home decor brand, Cookie Smut, with designs that are colorful, kitschy, and yes sometimes smutty.

TAC AIR Alumni

Cycle 14 2022/23
Cynthia Chang
Hekima Hapa
Jasmine Murrell
Kat Sours
Madhura Nayak
Manal Shoukair
Martina Cox
Mary Evangeline Guadalupe Rubi
Paola de la Calle
Cycle 13 2021/22
Adriana Gramly
Emma Safir
Jia Sung
Linda Sok
Lucas Montenegro
Melika Abikenari
Tashiana St Aude
Tinglan Huang
Cycle 12 2020/21
Clare Hu
Elaine Shen
Elizabeth Tolson
Emily Small
Francisco (Echo) Eraso
Jeanne F. Jalandoni
Jessica Elena Aquino
Ryan Scails
Cycle 11 2019/20
Anthony Shimek
Aomi Kikuchi
Cong-Tam Nguyen
Marta Nowak
Melissa Joseph
Rowan Renee
Yidan Zeng
Zuhoor Al Sayegh
Cycle 10 2018/19
Dance Doyle
Erin Palumbo
Familien Iglesias (Bo, Lisa, Janelle)
Noah Pica
Romina Chuls
Shihui Zhou
Tiantian Lou
Winnie van der Rijn
Cycle 09 2017/18
Chang Yuchen
Cory Siegler
Hannah Whelan
Jamie Boyle
Junyu Li
Lily Moebes
Meghan O'Sullivan
Rhonda Khalifeh
Cycle 08 2016/17
Andrew Boos
Isabella Amstrup
Martha Skou
Mia Daniels
Rebekah Bassen
Sarah Finkle
Vien Le Wood
Cycle 07 2015/16
Alex Goldberg
Collette Aliman
Fanny Gentle
Ignacia Murtagh
Jamie Israelow
Maeve Myfawnwy
Victoria Manganiello
Yunjung Kang
Cycle 06 2014/15
Aimee McLaughlin
Alayna Rasile
Anne-Marie Lavigne
Christi Johnson
Emelie Röndahl
Hannah Schultz
Iris Plaitakis
Yoshiyuki Minami
Cycle 05 2013/14
Amanda Hu
Chi Nguyen
Joey Korein
Kaelyn Garcia
Sarah Abarbanel
Yto Barrada
Cycle 04 2012/13
Eleanor Anderson
Kate Parvenski
Kelly Valletta
Kristin Morrison
Lucia Cuba
Mandy Kordal
Cycle 03 2011/12
Josefina Concha
Katie King
Melissa Dadourian
Natalie Moore
Stacie Baek
Veronica Fuentes
Cycle 02 2010/11
Annie Coggan
Candice Thompson
Julia Ramsey
Katie Minford
Stacie Baek
Whitney Crutchfield
Cycle 01 2009/10
Astrid Lewis Reedy
Denise Maroney
Jill Magi
Julia Ramsey
Tali Weinberg
Whitney Crutchfield
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