Places in Houston for creative professional to learn how to sustain their creativity and inventive skills
The MacArthur Foundation described Project Row Houses as “a visionary amalgam of arts venue, community support center, and historic preservation initiative” when they awarded co-founder Rick Lowe a ‘genius grant’ in 2014. PRH now provides youth art education, residencies for working artists, and housing for single mothers. The restored shotgun houses anchor an arts district of ten blocks, and PRH has been a model for Lowe’s social-practice art projects in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Dallas.
Photographer Geoffrey Winningham practices radical observation, seeing more than most of us. More notably, as a Rice University professor he teaches this skill to others. He’s famous for his books of photographs, including A Place of Dreams celebrating Houston. From 2011 to 2016, he collaborated with Houston school children for In the Eyes of Our Children. Below a snapshot of his recent Changing Houston exhibit.
Since 2007, 42 artists have enjoyed a 9-month studio residency at Lawndale Art Center in the Museum District of Houston. They also receive $3000 cash and $5000 in direct support of their work toward public exhibition. Applications are available to artists working on the Texas Gulf Coast, and past participants include Hillberbrand + Magsamen and David Politzer.
Fresh Arts is a nonprofit for educating and supporting Houston artists in finding success. As the managing partner of the Arts District, it plans events by and for artists of all disciplines in a commercial and residential neighborhood that boasts the highest concentration of working artists in Texas. Resources include grants and training.
Understanding Houston is a project from the Greater Houston Community Foundation, in partnership with Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, compiling vital statistics about the Houston metro area. Their web site has an entire section devoted to Houston’s creative economy, including salary statistics.
The Glassell School of Art is the teaching institute of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Its Core Residency Program has educated 224 art professionals since 1982.
The Core Program awards residencies to exceptional, highly motivated visual artists and critical writers who have completed their undergraduate or graduate training and are working to develop a sustainable practice. Artist residencies encourage intensive and innovative studio practice, and critical-studies residences enable writers to pursue independent curatorial and writing projects. The term runs September to May and is renewable for a second year—much longer than most residencies. It allows them to really settle in and become part of the community.
Pete Gershon, program coordinator, in A Sneak Peek Inside the Core Residency Program
Well-known artists who’ve enjoyed a Core Residency include
Creative Houston, PBC 