Mother's Milk Residency

Mother's Milk is a 2-6 week interdisciplinary residency designed to support three or four visual artists, sound artists, or creative writers pursuing innovative work in their field. The program provides individuals or collaborators with time and space to pursue creative projects alongside other residents whose different perspectives, backgrounds, and interests offer inspiration and interaction. Work that is more experimental in nature without regard to commercial viability is of special interest.

The residency is located on a renovated dairy farm at the edge of Newton, Kansas, situated between farm fields, a light industrial park, and a travel hub. The 7.6-acre grounds are heavily wooded in most areas with some historic farm machinery left in place. The grounds offer opportunities for installations (with prior discussion and approval) and may provide natural materials for projects.

Residents will be exceptional creative practitioners—including emerging, mid-career, and established artists—who desire time and space to work on their projects. Residencies are awarded based on excellence and merit of the project proposal and the applicant's interest in and ability to work independently. Applicants cannot be currently enrolled in an undergraduate degree program, must be at least 21 years old, and must reside on-site for the duration of the program. International applicants must show proof of English language skills and will be responsible for acquiring appropriate visas if accepted. Applications are due July 25, 2021 for April 3-October 30, 2022 residencies. Jury notification will be mid-September 2021. The $25 application fee accepts credit card and PayPal only. Each application requires a project proposal statement (not to exceed 500 words), a current CV, samples of recent work completed in the last two years, contact information for two professional references, preferred residency dates, and the application fee. Visual artists should submit 8-10 images or a combination of images, audio, and video files (no more than 5 media files per submission). Sound artists should submit 3-5 audio and/or video samples, no more than 2 minutes each. Creative writers should submit 5-10 pages of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction combined into one Word or PDF file. All submissions must follow CaFE formatting guidelines.