Have you ever wanted to get away from your everyday life and just create for a week? I did that in January when I held an artist residency for a week in Hollywood, Florida. The Fort Lauderdale Art & Design Week offered residencies for artists in Fort Lauderdale area boutique hotels. For the past few years, they’ve offered art shows and events for one week in January. This year, because of social distancing, they had to cancel their biggest events and make many others virtual. They wanted to add a new event, and they came up with the Artist Residency. Artists were invited to apply to stay at one of three boutique hotels to make art all week. Our requirements were to present a piece of art to the hotel at the end, and make at least three social media posts per day while you were there. They chose three artists who stayed at three different properties.
I stayed at The Desoto Oceanview Inn in Hollywood, Florida. The Desoto is a two minute walk to the beach. In front of the rooms, they have a beautiful garden courtyard. I set up on an outdoor table to paint. The hotel rooms are like apartments, so I had a couch and coffee table, kitchen and kitchen table. It was a great place to stay for a week, especially during a pandemic when I wasn’t going to eat in restaurants. The hotel also had bikes to use, and I biked down the beach trail to the Hollywood boardwalk.
I also painted two 12″x12″ paintings while I was there. One of them I sold!
At the end of the week, each property hosted a small reception. We kept it small due to social distancing.
This was a fantastic week, and I’ll definitely apply for other artist residencies. I found this through #callforentry. Residencies are all lengths of time: 1 day to 1 year and everything in between. It’s a great way to travel and experience a new place. Some residencies are with other artists and some are solo. This was a wonderful experience and opportunity to be near the beach and paint.
