How to follow your research curiosities

Let's talk about those threads of curiosity!

Header illustration by Ludi Leiva.

It’s August, somehow! Whoever decided that needs to relax. Time is flying by, at least for me.

The news cycle feels even more chaotic in the time between sending last month’s newsletter and sitting down to write this one. I hope you’re taking care of yourself, whatever that means for you.

Keep scrolling for 20+ opportunities and this month’s letter. Thanks for reading!

~~~

🍁 August Deadlines

🎨 Rolling deadline: Farm, Flock and Fiber Artist in Resident Program

🎨 Due 8/23: Vashon Artist Residency

🎨 Due 8/26: CCI Artistic Innovation grants (Bay Area artists)

✍🏼 Due 8/31: Storyknife Writers Retreat

✍🏼 Due 8/31: Corning Museum of Glass BIPOC Artist Residency

🎨 Due 8/31: Liu Shiming Artist Grants

✍🏼 Due 8/31: Gemini Magazine Flash Fiction Contest

✍🏼 Due 8/31: 2024 University of New Orleans Press Publishing Lab Prize

✍🏼 Due 8/31: Gulf Coast magazine 2024 Barthelme Prize for Short Prose

🌲 September Deadlines

🎶✍🏼🎨 Due 9/1: Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts Artist Residency (reply to this email if you’re interested, I just finished a residency here)

🎨 Due 9/4: CCI Tools & Equipment grant (Bay Area artists)

✍🏼 Due 9/5: Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry 2025 literary prizes

🎨✍🏼 Due 9/10: Princeton University Hodder Fellowship

🎨 Due 9/12: Harvard University Radcliffe Fellowship (humanities, social sciences, and creative arts)

🎨✍🏼 Due 9/15: Monson Arts Residency

💭 Due 9/21: Visiting Senior Fellowships at National Gallery of Art

🎨 Due 9/27: Submissions: Annual Cup Show at The Worcester Center for Crafts

✍🏼 Due 9/30: Texas Review Press George Garrett Fiction Prize

🎨✍🏼 Due 9/30: Acadia National Park Artist-in-Residence

✍🏼 Due 9/30: Texas Review Press X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize

✍🏼 Due 9/30: University of Massachusetts Press Juniper Prize for Creative Non-Fiction

In the near future:

🎨 Application opens in October: The Bray Foundation Artist Residencies

🎨✍🏼🎼 Due 10/1: Millay Arts Residency

✍🏼 Due 10/1: Washington Square New Voices Award (nonfiction)

🎨 Due 11/1: Museum of Glass 2025 Visiting Artist

🎨 Due 11/7: Clay Studio of Missoula “It’s the Little Things” Juried Show

🎨 Due 11/15: Women’s Studio Workshop Artist’s Book Residency Grant

✍🏼 Due 11/30: Red Hen Press Quill (Queer) Prose Award

---

What do you do with those threads of curiosity that weave themselves into your practice?

I’m certainly not the most expert researcher out there, but a decade of writing (and many years of reading) has certainly helped me work those muscles. When I say “expert researcher,” what I usually think of is a PhD scholar, a Doctor of some expertise, or an academic of many, many years. But there’s one thing that doesn’t require a degree or tons of experience: curiosity.

I tend to save artworks and artists that pique my interest in my Notion folder under “idea threads.” I also dump essay and story notes in there, but I mostly use it to save visual artists and artworks that don’t fit into any assignments I’m working on at the moment, but that I’d love to pursue in the future. Maybe, if I find time. Maybe, if I can find more info.

mfaboston

A post shared by @mfaboston

Then, I go back to tug on the thread when I get a minute or two.

But sometimes, the thread finds me. And it wraps itself a little tighter around my brain, so that I can’t help but WANT to find out more.

This happened when I first learned about the work of Toshiko Takaezu, an artist known primarily for her ceramic work.