The Alliance of Artists Communities is the service organization for the field of artists’ communities and residencies – places that provide artists of any discpline with dedicated time and space for the creation of new work.

The Alliance is a collective voice on behalf of artists’ residency programs, leveraging support for the field as a whole, promoting successful practices in the field, and advocating for creative environments that support the work of today’s artists. 

Believing that the cultivation of new art and ideas is essential to human progress, the Alliance’s mission is to advocate for and support artists’ communities, in order to advance the endeavors of artists. 

The Alliance includes more than 250 members from across the U.S. and in more than a dozen countries worldwide.

For more information, visit:
www.artistcommunities.org

The James Irvine Foundation is a private, nonprofit grantmaking foundation dedicated to expanding opportunity for the people of California to participate in a vibrant, inclusive, and successful society.

The Foundation’s grantmaking is organized around three program areas: Arts, Youth, and California Democracy, which focuses on increasing public understanding of critical issues facing the state.

James Irvine, a California agricultural pioneer, established the Irvine Foundation in 1937 to benefit the people of California. Since then, the Foundation has met the objectives of its founder by providing over $1 billion in grants to more than 3,000 nonprofit organizations.

For more information, visit:
www.irvine.org

The Project

Six artist residency programs, organized by the Alliance of Artists Communities and supported by The James Irvine Foundation, set out to describe a changing California through the lens of its artists, and to answer the questions: What does California look like to its artists? How can the organizations that support today’s artists nurture and sustain diverse visions?

Visions from the New California celebrates, supports and promotes the work of outstanding California visual artists from diverse communities—artists whose work may as yet be unfamiliar but whose compelling visions will define California in its next decades. The project also aims to introduce the artists and their communities to the opportunities for support available through artist residency programs.

The Process

Selecting six artists a year from across the state of California has been no small challenge. In an effort to identify a broad range of under-recognized artists doing outstanding work, we have annually invited hundreds of artists and arts professionals to nominate qualified California visual artists whom we then invite to apply for fellowships. “We are searching for artists who are committed to their careers but who are working outside the art establishment or under the art network ‘radar screen,’ ” we tell the nominators. “We wish to find artists who may not be familiar with the opportunities and benefits of artist residency programs, but who would benefit greatly from the experience.” In 2008, we expanded the process to include an open application, in addition to inviting nominated artists to apply.

Each year's selection panel is comprised of distinguished artists and arts professionals with strong ties to diverse communities in the state. Together the panelists identify a group of semi-finalists who exhibited the highest quality of work and who represent a diversity of artistic methods, geographic regions within the state, ethnic backgrounds, ages and experiences. From this short list, six artists are selected by the participating residency programs to be awarded The James Irvine Visions from the New California award and fellowship: a one-month residency at one of the six participating programs and a $4,000 stipend to be used at the artist’s discretion – no strings attached.

At the completion of each award year, the Alliance of Artists Communities has published a book featuring the artists, sites, and stories of Visions from the New California.
[2005 publication] [2007 publication] [2008 publication]

Thanks to the renewed support of The James Irvine Foundation, the Alliance of Artists Communities will continue Visions from the New California through 2012.

Alliance of Artists Communities © 2009
255 South Main Street | Providence, Rhode Island 02903
www.artistcommunities.org