Kentucky Foundation for Women Announces Fall 2022/Spring 2023 Loretto Artist Residents, Open Applications for Summer/Fall 2023  

KFW is excited to announce the recipients of the fall 2022 /spring 2023 Loretto Artist Residency Program, a partnership between Sisters of Loretto and KFW. Residencies span one to three weeks at the Loretto Motherhouse in Nerinx, Kentucky. Residents are provided with housing, a food stipend, and the option of studio space. 

Residencies are for artists who have demonstrated achievement in creating work high in artistic merit that is based on social justice issues/concerns. KFW partnered with the Sisters of Loretto, whose mission centers on working for justice and acting for peace.  

The Loretto Residency program is open to feminist social change artists and writers who reside in Kentucky. Artists with varied backgrounds, worldviews, cultural heritages, and sexual orientations were encouraged to apply. KFW is committed to making the residency program accessible to a wide range of women, trans and nonbinary people regardless of age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, educational level, economic condition, or geographic origin. 

“The Sisters of Loretto share our vision of a more equitable, peaceful world. The Artist Residency program offers a unique opportunity for feminist artists to create new work, advance their artistic development, and build community. Nurtured by the peace and contemplation of Loretto, residents will share ideas, exchange work, and make connections that will offer new ways of being in the world,” said Sharon LaRue, executive director of the Kentucky Foundation for Women.  

Participants for the fall 2022/spring 2023 cycle include:  

Constance Alexander (Murray), a literary artist, plans to complete final revisions of her novel, “There’s Something I Need to Tell You,” which reveals the secrets of generations of one family from the 1930s to the present. The family is Catholic on the surface but struggling with issues of alcoholism, sexual abuse by a priest, cutting, cancer, the women’s movement, and more. 

Kimberly Crum (Louisville), a literary artist, plans to work on completing a long form personal essay about female spirituality in late life.  She intends to weave this in as an anchor piece for a collection of essays currently titled, “Slouching toward Self-Actualization.”  Her work addresses themes of spirituality, culture, family, motherhood, and personal transformations. 

Joanna Englert (Louisville), a literary artist, writes poetry and fiction that examines or plays with the roles of power, environmentalism, and creative accessibility within feminism. During the residency, she plans to complete edits on her poetry manuscript, “Godsnack,” and to work on the first draft of her novel, “The Overwhelm.” These two works examine family histories and female trail-blazers who occupy realms traditionally dominated by men, and the intersections of feminism, godliness, and pop culture.  

Ceirra Evans (Louisville), a visual artist, creates oil paintings to illustrate scenes, people and places from her early life in the foothills of Eastern Kentucky that discuss the effects that poverty, family dynamics and rural queerness have on relationships within Appalachia. During the residency, she plans to work on two large scale paintings. She wants her work to create a validation for the Appalachian experience, making Appalachia a contemporary subject through contemporary painting. 

Jessica Farquhar (Louisville), a literary artist, creates poetic works that deal with the whole experience of womanhood, including mothering and aging. Her work addresses social justice concerns by bringing an awareness to the complexity of women, a voice often silenced in our patriarchal world. She plans to revise her current manuscript, including individual poem revisions, as well as ordering the poems into a cohesive collection so that it is ready to submit to presses by the end of the residency. 

Lacy Hale (Ermine), a painter and printmaker, plans to use the residency as a safe space to process her experiences and loss from the trauma of the recent floods in Eastern Kentucky, and to create artwork around these events and emotions. She says, “I really just need space and time to think, be me, process, and make work that can fail.”  She plans to experiment in an artistic way in a safe space about this life altering event. 

Cory Lockhart (Louisville), a literary and visual artist and teacher/facilitator of nonviolent communication creates work focused on connection and curiosity. During the residency, she plans to work on the images and words for a card deck encouraging self-connection, self-compassion, and self-care called Cards for Remembering. The cards will include invitations for practice, questions for further reflection with the intent to rebuild connection and trust within and between people, and to work to change dysfunctional systems. 

Amy Richardson (Olive Hill), a literary and visual artist, creates art centered on nature and agroforestry, small sustainable farming, and the often-unrecognized work of women in Appalachia. During the residency, she plans to begin a collection of poetry paired with watercolor and ink mixed media pieces commenting on the ways humans use land for agriculture, highlighting farms focused on sustainability to create positive changes for local communities in food access and the environment. 

Roberta Schultz (Wilder), a poet and songwriter, creates poems that address the ongoing and sometimes subversive power women wield in society, and how women have always sought ways to work both on the front lines of social justice as well as under the radar. During this residency, she plans to sift through the hundreds of poems she has written in the past year and to select and organize them into a cohesive collection that examines the ongoing struggle for equal rights in the United States.   

Bryn Silverman (Louisville), a film and television screenwriter, editor and producer, creates films that examine women’s stories in American history through a modern and complex lens. During the residency, she plans to work on her personal essay film A Thyroid Story, and to complete a rough cut of the film. The goal of the film is to bring awareness to the intricacies and hardships that come with a thyroid disease diagnosis, and that the lack of research into thyroid disease speaks to the value of women’s bodies today.  

Vicki Wenz (Mt. Sterling), a visual artist, creates plein air artwork in oils. During the residency, she plans to create two oil portraits telling the story of women’s leadership and highlighting the role women have played in the struggle for justice in Appalachia. She intends to exhibit the portraits in galleries and churches throughout the state and specifically in the Appalachian region. 

Chaney Williams (Louisville), a literary and fiber artist, plans to develop and revise pieces in their collection about her family history to Loretto, Kentucky, and the intersections of her identities as someone fat, biracial, queer, and nonbinary. They also plan to complete a quilt-in-progress that is a visual representation of her written collection. With their collection, she hopes to bring awareness, peace, and reconciliation for racial justice. 

Artists can visit https://www.kfw.org/feminist-blog/applications-open-for-loretto-artist-residency-2/ to apply for the Loretto Artist Residency Summer-Fall 2023. Residencies can range from one to three weeks during the period May 14-Dec 3 (Blackout dates of June 1-15 and October 1-10). Artists working in any discipline can apply. Applications are due April 10th.