The Work In Progress residency is an opportunity for textile artists and designers to engage in a dialogue with the public, while providing an inside look into an artist’s studio and practice. WIP residents have access to a studio in TAC Manhattan’s store-front window for one month and (re)create an active studio of their work.
This is an ideal program for artists looking for an opportunity to display and promote their work, and who are excited about speaking about their creative process to the public. WIP residents will maintain “Open Studio Hours” where they can interact with the community and discuss their processes and techniques. The artist will also leave behind a clear visual narrative so the public can get a glimpse of “work in progress” even when the artist isn’t present.
TAC WIP studio is roughly 10 x 5 feet and is equipped with a table, chair, pin board wall + shelving. Artists have the potential to be provided with equipment depending on availability, but all artists will be expected to bring their own materials outside of normal studio equipment.
Selected artist will commit to at least one weekly shift of public hours (Saturdays 2-6PM). Artists are encouraged to keep other hours at WIP for more opportunities to engage the public.
Selected artist will commit to host one free workshop, lecture, or performance open to to the public.
Work in Progress cycles start on the first of every month and run for the full month. Selected artist will be notified at least 60 days before the beginning of their cycle. Install must take place between the 1-3 and deinstall must take place on the 28-31.
Applications open: TBA
Final Selections: TBA
Applications must submitted electronically. Application form includes artist statement, detailed proposal for the time at WIP and 5 images of recent artwork.
Hannah Bennett is a mixed fibers artist based in Madison, Wisconsin, working between papermaking, embroidery, card weaving, sewing and natural dyes. Conceptually her work is inspired by her first career in organic farming, supported by her ongoing research in ethnobotany. Hannah's studio spaces usually look like a combination between a natural history museum and a bower bird nest.
Kayla Thompson's work splits between playfully functional and indulgently designed, fiber forms and clay objects, electric tools and hand crafted techniques. She studied at Kendall College of Art and Design and then the University of Oregon to receive her BFA and then MFA.
Timothy Westbrook creates clothing from post-consumer materials and fabrics destined for landfills. He transforms these found materials using non-electric sewing machines and floor looms, leaving zero environmental impact, and creating work that exists at the intersection of high fashion and performance art. Inspired by fairytales, mythology, and folklore, Timothy allows his found objects’ stories to inform their transformation. The most notable example is his line of handmade raincoats made entirely from umbrellas rescued from the streets of New York City.
Emily Oliveira is an interdisciplinary artist who utilizes textiles, video, installation, and performance to explore the relationships between craft, labor, and queer futurity. She challenges capitalist constraints on the human imagination, and frames labor as a tool to access the divine. Her recent work is based around intertwining narratives in a queer, sci-fi universe; these works are portals, veils, thin membranes between our word and the world as it might be. Emily Oliveira is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, and is an MFA candidate at Yale.
alyssa denay carter (she/her/hers) is an artist and birth worker. Her care work and creative practice are interrelated in their interrogation of life cycles and uphold modes of self-preservation and interdependency. alyssa’s work examines embodiment and performance of intersecting identities using weaving, fiber arts & integrated printmaking techniques. She weaves skins to be worn, exploring the concept of bodies rooted in spaces and places rooted in bodies—inherited cultural memory—joy, resilience, means of self-preservation, ancestral strength and knowledge. She is in conversation with her own, and others’, identity and the natural and human-made world around her.
