Applications for summer 2010 AIR in

So, I believe I have received the last of the applications for the summer artist residence, which will take place in July and August. I have emailed everyone whose application I have received, so that means that if you sent in an application, but haven’t received a confirmation of receipt from me, there are only two possible reasons:

• a. I haven’t received your application or
• b. my email didn’t get to you.

Either way, you should get in touch with me.

I must admit the decision will not be an easy one. There are many great artists who make really interesting work with very compelling reasons for wanting to come to Bialystok. Alas, a decision must be made, and 6 artists will be invited to come to Bialystok for the summer. Soon the committee will confer and I will inform ALL applicants of whatever decision is made by February 15, and then with the permission of the chosen artists, I will post who will be coming in July.

Receiving applications

I have been receiving applications all week, and I’m writing to everyone whose application I have received. If you haven’t received an email from me, that means I haven’t received your application yet.

The committee will meet at the beginning of February and I will email everyone informing of the decision in the first half of February. I will also post the accepted artists on here. There are many really interesting proposals, so the decision will not be an easy one.

I also hope to hear about a grant I applied for sometime in February. Hopefully that means that I will be informing the accepted artists that the residence cost is lower than they had expected.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Soon I will post about Leon Tarasewicz, a painter from Podlasie, and Sarakina, a band from Bialystok.

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Leon Tarasewicz with one of his paintings.

Only 3 days left

Just a reminder that there only 3 more days left to apply for the Art Factory Bialystok residence this summer. The deadline is a postmark deadline, which means you must mail the application by Jan. 16. If for some reason you cannot make it by that deadline, but you really, really want to apply, please email me. I will probably give you a few more days.

Two more things:

1. I am in the process for applying for a grant that I hope will help lower the costs for artists this year. Please keep your fingers crossed.

2. I’ve decided to nix the trip to Biebrza National Park, and instead we will go to Warsaw for three days. We will visit museums and hopefully meet some interesting people in the Polish art world. I think this will be much more useful and educational.

Soon I will feature some contemporary Polish artists.

Happy New Year 2010!

Wow! I can’t believe that it’s already 2010. I can still remember when we were waiting for 2000 unsure how computers around the world will react. Here we are 10 years later and not much has changed – except that we’re older, of course 😉

I just wanted to mention that I am still accepting applications for the summer residencies.

Deadlines are:

• Jan. 16 (application must be mailed by this date) for the summer artist residence, which will take place in July and August. See the Summer 2010 page for more information.
• Feb. 1 for the June writer’s residence. This is an email application. See the Writer’s Residence page for more information.

If there is any information that is not covered on these pages, please feel free to email me your questions. Please be patient though, I’m pretty busy and I get behind on emails. I will try to update here fairly often and try to answer common questions on here, so check back or subscribe.

For those interested, the above mentioned residencies are most likely the only ones that will occur this year. I hope more and more residencies will take place each year.

Hope this new year is productive and brings lots of creativity.

Warsaw

I was in Warsaw on Tuesday. Originally, I had planned to go to the Retooling Residencies Res Artis conference, but I also had to take care of some things at the U.S. Consulate and only had one day in Warsaw – actually, more like a few hours. I have a 5 month old son, so everything, including going to Warsaw, is a bit more complicated. The plan was that we (my husband, son and I) would go to the embassy, take care of what needed to be taken care of – Consular Report of Birth, Passport and Social Security card applications for my son and myself (renewal) – and then I would go to the conference while my husband took care of my son. Easy enough in theory, but in practice it turned out that everything took a whole lot longer than we had anticipated. On top of that my son’s been teething (but no teeth yet), so he’s been a bit cranky. Going to the conference would have been impossible and a bit selfish.

One thing that always hits me when I am in Warsaw is how different it feels from Białystok. Warsaw is like any big capital in the sense that it has this feeling of people rushing and a fast pace of life. It seems like there is almost no place to breathe there. Białystok is definitely a much slower, more lazy city, which is exactly what I love it for. For most of  my life, I lived in Chicago, and now I realize why my life since moving here feels like I live in a completely different world, because in many ways it is.

This is exactly why having an artist residence in Białystok makes sense – artists and writers can come here and take a breather from their worlds.

Hello!

Welcome to the Art Factory Białystok International Artist Residence program blog. This will serve as the space for information about our residency programs until we get a website up. After that, it may still function as a blog with periodic updates on what we’re doing.

So far we have had one residence take place – in summer 2008. This is a very young program! The next residence is coming up in summer 2010. A writer’s residence program is in the works. This blog will serve as a documentation of development of the residency program. The aim is a year-round program. There are many hurdles to overcome, and it may take some time, but I believe it can be done. Art Factory Białystok has been a dream of mine, and it is slowly but surely materializing.

And who am I? My name is Urszula Humienik-Dworakowska, and I am the residence founder and project coordinator. I do basically anything and everything to get this thing together and get the right people to help out, etc. My husband, Pawel, helps out with many of the aspects – I don’t think I could do it all completely on my own. To find out more about me, find me on facebook.

Urszula Humienik-Dworakowska

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