Cultural Manager Residency at TSKW
IT’S NOT A JOB, IT’S A CREATIVE ISLAND ADVENTURE
The Studios of Key West, an emerging creative community at America’s Southernmost Point, seeks cultural managers and innovative arts administrators for 1 to 2 week residencies in our Mango Tree House. This residency requires no work, no problem solving, no meetings or presentations, and no reporting of any kind. Directors, program officers, and Alliance of Artists Communities’ leaders: Tell us your dates, plan your travel, and think Zen.
A SHORT TROPICAL RETREAT FOR ARTS ADMINISTRATORS
As a companion to our longer-term Artist-in-Residence program, this short-term stay in Key West’s Old Town can include project research, program planning, networking and collaborating; or it can simply be a retreat-like hermitage on a warm and libertarian island, away from the usual workaday environment. TSKW is currently considering the short-term residency needs of academics, cultural managers, critics, instituional officers, museum professionals, and other professional people involved in forging high, low, popular, and obscure culture.
Time and space in Key West will provide new influences and fresh experiences, and an appreciation for life here in the Conch Republic, 30 leagues North of Havana, America’s Mile Marker 0, Cayo Hueso.
CHARMING OLD TOWN COTTAGES
Our Mango Tree House is a renovated 2-floor townhouse with a lush native garden, bedroom and bath upstairs, kitchen, bath, and lounge downstairs, and a studio room that can be used as a work space, office, rehearsal room, or 2nd bedroom. It is furnished, and comes with two beach cruiser bicycles, a laptop computer, mobile phone, and other good stuff. TSKWalso has three additional furnished cottages in Old Town, managed in partnership with their owners and and also available for vistiing cultural managers.
AN ISLAND SETTING RICH IN HERITAGE
The surrounding island community is small, 2 x 4 miles, and most people get around on bicycle or foot. There are Cuban groceries, sandwiches, and cafe con leche on every other corner. It is 80 degrees in the winter, and a beach is never far away. Flowers bloom year-round, fruit trees proliferate, and lizards and geckos rum rampant.
Long a home to artists and creative people, the ghosts of Hemingway, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Elizabeth Bishop, Tennessee Williams, Mario Sanchez, and Shel Silverstein still haunt our Old Town neighborhood. And on any given day, it’s not unusual to run into modern-day creative people, such as Judy Blume, Billy Collins, Jimmy Buffett, Meg Cabot, Seward Johnson, and Annie Dillard. Our winter season, November to April, is rich in cultural events, salon and social gatherings, and interesting small-scale creative projects. There is a ubiquitous population of chickens scattered about the island, as well as cruise ship tourists by day, Bacchic revelers and lively bar scene by night, fishermen, divers, native Conchs, outlaws, divorcees, beach-goers, and free-spirited libertines.
The Studios of Key West is proud to offer a handful of 1 to 2 week residencies for America’s Cultural Managers and Arts Administrators each year. If you have time off to travel to the Southernmost Point, and are interested in a singular retreat opportunity, please contact us for details on how to proceed.
IS THIS A VACATION?
Yes, but it’s also a new form of professional development, in a place that will welcome and honor your presence, at a new kind of creative community. Learn about us herewww.tskw.org, then contact Eric Vaughn Holowacz Executive Director at eric@tskw.org
THE FINE PRINT
Cultural managers, arts administrators, artistic directors and producers, program officers and curators who can get away from their busy roles for a week or two are welcome to express interest in the TSKW Cultural Manager Residency. Participants must be able to cover travel to and from Key West, as well as some living expenses while on the island.
ABOUT THE STUDIOS OF KEY WEST
TSKW is a new kind of creative community, based in a quiet neighborhood at America’s Southernmost Point. Formally established in June 2006, we’ve been developing facilities, programming, residencies, and partnerships ever since.
Our current campus is headquartered at the island’s Historic Armory, and comprises a dozen artist studios, an outdoor sculpture garden, a main hall exhibition and workshop space, four affordable housing apartments for local artists, and the Mango Tree House for visiting artists-in-residence, lecturers and workshop instructors, and cultural managers. Off-site, we are involved in the redevelopment of Key West’s Old City Hall, and have partnerships with the owners of three other Old Town cottages.
Over the coming years we hope to expand the mandate of the artist colony, forge innovative cultural partnerships around the world, and enhance the remarkable heritage of Key West. We invite you, loaded with ideas and a sense of adventure, to join us.