Overview

The Joshua Johnson Council (JJC) Artist in Residence (AIR) program is a collaboration between the JJC, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). The JJC AIR program seeks applications to select two (2) artists living and working in Baltimore City for the summer residency. Applicants are not required to be alumni of MICA. Artists of color are strongly encouraged to apply.

Supporting artists based in Baltimore City.

The JJC, an affiliate group of the BMA, was formed in 1987 to both provide educational outreach and support initiatives between the BMA and Baltimore’s Black community. Named for 18th-century African American portrait painter Joshua Johnson, the JJC is one of the nation’s oldest African American museum groups.

The JJC AIR program expands the impact of the JJC by creating platforms to support artists, encourage intergenerational learning, and grow collaborative relationships. The residency begins on June 3, 2024 and concludes on July 26, 2024, with artists working in studios in the Fred Lazarus IV Studio Center, located on MICA’s main campus in Baltimore.

The residency is designed to support artists and create meaningful connections and discourse with the JJC, the BMA, and MICA. It provides artists based in Baltimore City with access to resources and helps to build relationships that will allow each artist to explore and expand their practice within the community.

Artists selected for the residency program are offered studio space for eight (8) weeks, access to MICA facilities, a materials stipend of $2,500, and the opportunity work with low-residency MICA graduate students for critique and studio visits at the artist’s determination. After the residency, each artist will give a public presentation as part of the year’s JJC programming JJC Talks, with the potential for additional engagements with the MICA community.

If you have any questions about the process, please email Tracey Beale at opencall@artbma.org.

Please read the following carefully before uploading your materials.

Applicants will need to submit all of the following:

  • Letter of Intent: Not to exceed one (1) page, outlining the artist’s goals for the residency and approach to utilizing the community setting of the residency.
  • Current Resume: Not to exceed three (3) pages.
  • PDF Portfolio: Up to ten (10) relevant artworks into a single PDF: for each, include title, one (1) image of the completed work, creation date, complete materials, scale, duration (as applicable). A brief statement up to 200 words per artwork and one (1) additional image of each artwork’s installation may be incorporated.

Submit Here

Qualifications

  • The residency will support artists, both alumni of MICA and those previously unaffiliated with the institution.
  • Artists with object-based practices benefitting from studio space are encouraged to apply.
  • Artists of color are strongly encouraged to apply.
  • Artists must maintain a studio and/or residence in Baltimore City (MICA studio space is non-residential).
  • Artists currently affiliated with the BMA or MICA as employees, volunteers, docents, or contractors are not eligible to apply. (This includes all staff, Board members, volunteers, docents, contractors, and all others working with the institutions in any sort of their official capacity.)
  • Artists may not be a full or part-time student and are additionally required to be three or more years beyond any degree-granting program.

Selection Process

The goal of this Open Call is to select two (2) artists based on qualifications, artistic vision, and experience. The artists will be selected by a five-person jury, comprised of one representative from each partnering organization, the JJC, the BMA, and MICA, as well the two previous Artists-in-Residence from the summer 2023 Residency. In early April, the jury will convene to select awardees. The selected artists will be notified by early May and will begin their residency on June 3, 2024.

Timeline

  • March 12–April 17: Application period
  • April 17–May 6: Jury evaluation period
  • May 6–10: Selected artists notified
  • May 28–May 31: Artist onboarding with MICA, BMA, JJC
  • June 3–July 26: Residency dates
  • July 26, 2024: Residency closes; artists vacate MICA studios and return studios to original state
  • September–December 2024 (final date to be determined): Artists participate in a scheduled JJC Talks

Past Recipients

Nicoletta Daríta de la Brown

Nicoletta Daríta de la Brown (Panamanian-American, b. 1981, Baltimore, MD) is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist and curandero chamána (shamanic practitioner). Her artworks re-conceive the life of an artist as thriving, nourishing others during and through her art practice, while healing herself in public space as a Black-Latine woman. She is a 2022-23 Public Humanities Fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s Winston Tabb Special Collections Research Center and 2023 Artist-In-Residence at the National Aquarium; as well as a “Mindfulness in Art Practice” instructor at Baltimore School for the Arts. She has performed at The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; The Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; The Smithsonian Arts + Industries Building, Washington, DC; Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD; and Eubie Blake Cultural Center, Baltimore, MD. Exhibitions of Brown’s video artworks and installations have been presented at the Tribeca Film Festival, New York, NY; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; and numerous regional galleries. Her work is in the collections of The Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University and GLB Memorial Foundation Collection, among others.

Charles Mason III

Charles Mason III (b. 1990, Baltimore, MD) is an artist and curator who creates abstractions around identity politics and the “performative act of blackness” experienced and manifested through physical materials. Solo exhibitions of his work include Screaming in Silence, My Salvation is Love (The End) at Anna Zorina Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (2022); Goya Contemporary Gallery, Baltimore, MD (2021); and Spillway Collective, Philadelphia, PA, (2019). He has participated in group exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids, MI; and Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, IL; among others. He has work in the permanent collections of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art in Baltimore, Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. He is also a recipient of the Maurice Freed Memorial Prize from the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia. Mason received his BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and his Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.