Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Mission: The Creatives Project (TCP) is a nonprofit arts organization headquartered at The Goat Farm Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. It is our mission to enrich and strengthen local communities through quality arts-based education and outreach, while celebrating and elevating the city’s visual and performing artists. Through our Community Arts Program (CAP) and our Creative Community Housing Project (CCHP) we provide educational programs enabling artists to give back through youth and community outreach; provide a mentor program partnering artists with youth to nurture the city’s creative future; provide living, studio, and exhibition space through our Artist-in-Residency program; support artists’ exposure and access to new audiences nationwide.Through uniting the arts, education, community, and commerce we build strong foundations and partnerships further enabling arts eco-systems to flourish.
CCHP is the Artist-In-Residency program of The Creatives Project (TCP). We are dedicated to supporting the day-to-day lives of creative individuals. Understanding the financial stresses associated with pursuing a career in the arts, it is our mission to offer creatives various levels of support while nurturing the arts eco-system through arts education service.
Cost: Provides six visual artists with free long term studio spaces and exhibition opportunities. In exchange, each of the selected artists will complete youth arts outreach with. The studios and exhibition space are located at The Goat Farm Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. In order to accommodate more applicants, two artists will be assigned to each studio.
Application Fee: n/a
Number of Artists: Up to 6 visual artists
Accommodations: The Goat Farm Arts Center has established itself as one of Atlanta’s largest performing & visual arts centers. Located in the West Side Arts District of Atlanta, the Center has multiple performance and exhibition halls and hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theater performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library/cafe and an education center. Also newly added, a cafe/library, an on-site organic farm, an education center, a 5000 square foot sprung floor for contemporary dance and newly built creative studios now occupied by more than 300 artists.
Two local artists will be selected to share a three-bedroom Earth Craft-renovated home located in the historic west Atlanta neighborhood of Adair Park. The residency will allow each artist an extremely affordable live/work environment while engaging their creative skills for the greater good. Each recipient will complete arts-based youth outreach through TCP’s Community Arts Program (CAP) whose beneficiaries include VSA Arts of Georgia, Jacob’s Ladder, and One Love Generation. While in the program residents will also receive promotional support, exhibition opportunities and professional development.
Length of Stay: Long-Term Studio Spaces (2 years)
Demographic/Medium: National/Local-Based Artists, Mixed Media
Benefits: n/a
Deadline: TBA (Summer 2014/2015)
Rate My Artist Residency 
The Creatives Project (TCP) is one of the most unprofessional arts organizations I have ever encountered.
The “studio” you will be awarded is a small space (approximately 10×12 feet) that you will have to share with another resident. The studios are built into an old warehouse at the Goatfarm, and the studio will have no ceiling, no heat, and no natural light. Don’t be deceived by the pictures posted in this entry: You will not be working in a beautiful big space, and what you will be given will not be clean.
I was unable to bring my photo equipment to my studio because everything at The Goatfarm is covered in dust. With no ceiling to the studios, you have no protection from the dust left by the sculptors around you. Seriously, DUST WILL COVER EVERYTHING IN YOUR STUDIO. Residents have to go out and buy special containers for their tools and their work. You cannot leave anything uncovered in your studio or it will be ruined by the dust. Vacuuming and sweeping does little to help the situation.
Don’t plan on working much in your studio–it’s not very fun. My studio was extremely dark (no natural light), and I only had one overhead fluorescent light for my space. After about 2 hours in my studio, I would start coughing so bad that I had to leave. Several days I went to my studio and the temperature was so cold, that I had to leave. The last time I went, my studio was literally freezing at 32 degrees. Again, with no ceiling to the studio, a space heater is minimally useful.
The folks who run The Creatives Project will pressure you into attending events to represent TCP that will largely be a waste of your time. I was sent to events that had no pertinence to my career, and it was clear that TCP wants to use their residents as a form of advertising. Before I even moved into my studio, I was asked to sell tickets and fund raise for TCP for one of their events. This residency is not about your career and your work as an artist, it’s about what you can do to advertise for TCP.
Finally, you will be required to complete weekly community outreach as part of your residency. Community outreach consists of teaching local, underprivileged students arts. The folks who run TCP will insist that you NOT “think objectively or critically” about the lesson plans for your students. Rather than make lessons geared towards teaching students real artistic skills to make a piece of art, TCP wants you to give the students “experiences”. In planning meetings, you will be asked to think how you can “facilitate students’ minds” so they can “think in the round.” Essentially, TCP has no clue what they are doing when they go into classrooms.
The Creatives Project is run by unprofessional people who don’t have their act together. They are more concerned about themselves than their artists, and they are here to play arts administrator because they have nothing better to do.
Don’t bother applying.