Residency Advisors

A Selection of Our Latest Projects

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JEN YEUROUKIS

Founder & Director,

An Ecology of Exchange

Thank you for taking the time to consider this residency.

I created this space to offer something I once had access to as an artist myself — time, proximity, and the presence of others whose practice differs from my own. Across three decades of movement and collaboration, the moments that changed me most were never solitary ones. They were exchanges.

As a resident of Joshua Tree, I've also come to see how much this landscape needs that same kind of exchange — not just between artists, but between the artists who come here and the community that calls this place home.

Too often, visiting artists pass through without ever really meeting the people who live here, and the town, in turn, rarely gets to see what draws artists to this place at all.

I built the community engagement piece of this residency because I believe that gap is worth closing — real access and real dialogue, in both directions.

I believe this kind of exchange does more than shape the artist. It shapes the work. And the work, in turn, shapes everyone who encounters it — the audience, the community, the world beyond the studio.

I don't think that's a small thing. I think art, made this way, has the capacity to change how people see. And through that, to change the world for the better.

I'm glad you're here, considering this. I hope you'll join us.

Jen

RAY BELDNER

https://www.raybeldner.com/

is a sculptor and mixed media artist whose work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and can be found in many public and private collections including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the Federal Reserve Board, Washington D.C., 21c Museum, Kentucky, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Oakland Museum of California, and the San Jose Museum of Art, among others.

Born in San Francisco, Beldner received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Mills College. He has received numerous awards and fellowships including a California Arts Council Fellowship in New Genres, a Creative Work Fund Grant from the Haas Foundations, and a Potrero Nuevo environmental art grant. He has taught sculpture, interdisciplinary studies, and professional practices at the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, San Francisco State University, and University of California, Santa Cruz.

His work has been reviewed in publications including Art in America, Arte, Art On Paper, Artweek, Wired, Playboy, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice, the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. A profile of him and his work can be found in the book: Epicenter, San Francisco Bay Area Art Now, by Chronicle Books.