A Message from The
Residency Director

Thank you for taking the time to consider this residency.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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Jen
Founder & Director, An Ecology of Exchange