My Project Description for the SAFTA Residency

An outline that is both brief and comprehensive

I’ve just come back from a week at the Sundress Academy for the Arts Residency at Firefly Farms on the outskirts of Knoxville, Tennessee. It’s been the most productive of my three residencies. It has also been the most emotionally trying. I’m still parsing out why this experience felt like an interior boot camp—through no fault of the organizers or the space. The house was wonderful, the staff was responsive. I’ll share more about it in a future newsletter. Sometimes wonderful opportunities come during a turbulent period and there’s not much you can do than accept that you can’t flee from yourself. But hopefully, you make good art while you ride it out.

For now, though, let’s turn our attention to my application. Much like Wedding Cake, SAFTA did not ask for an artist statement but a project description instead. This time around, I gave them exactly that. This is the most detailed description of the essay collection I have in my head.

I am sharing my project description under the same conditions I always do:

1. Don’t ever tell me if you find a typo, EVER. It clearly wasn’t bad enough for the jury/committee/reader/editor, etc. to reject me and it will only serve to haunt me until my dying days.

2. Do not plagiarize my silly little sentences. It’s not cool and I’ll know you’ll have done it. Especially if you copy+paste it with the typos I do NOT want brought to my attention.