Crossroads & Catalysts: Four Artist Calls Shaping What Comes Next

Art careers rarely grow in straight lines. They bend at the moments you take a risk—when you pitch a new medium, step into a residency outside your usual context, or finally write the proposal you’ve been postponing. The right opportunity doesn’t just add a line to your CV; it alters your practice, your network, and your sense of what’s possible. This week’s column brings together four credible, time-sensitive calls that meet artists where they are—and move them forward.

In New York, a storied institution invites visual artists to anchor a yearlong fellowship within a house that has welcomed generations of culture-makers. In Savannah, a street-front studio turns process into public encounter, asking artists to meet a community where it lives. A travel fellowship helps transform research ambitions into itineraries that actually happen. And in rural Maine, a legendary nine-week summer program gathers artists from around the world for an intensive, peer-driven season that can reshape a practice for years.

Across these calls you’ll find different kinds of support: cash, time, space, visibility, guidance. What unites them is clarity of purpose and real pathways for artists to develop work—and audiences—to meet it. Read closely, note deadlines, and choose the one that challenges you to stretch.

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1. National Arts Club – Artist Fellowship

Location: New York, NY

Application Deadline: October 31, 2025

The National Arts Club (NAC) Artist Fellowship is a year-long appointment that centers your work within an historic Gramercy Park institution known for convening artists, thinkers, and patrons across disciplines. Fellows typically engage the Club’s public through talks, programs, or presentations, while gaining access to a cross-generational community and a platform that can lift emerging practices into broader view. The call is open to artists based in the United States; proposals are evaluated on the strength of your portfolio and the clarity of how you’ll engage audiences through NAC’s programmatic avenues. If you’ve been looking for a way to root your practice in New York’s cultural conversation—without surrendering authorship—this fellowship is structured to help you do precisely that. Expect a competitive pool and plan a focused application that explains not only what you make, but how you will activate it in a public context at the Club.

Apply here

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2. Dorothy Antoinette LaSelle Travel Fellowship

Location: United States (travel anywhere; administered from Texas)

Application Deadline: September 30, 2025

Founded to honor painter and educator Dorothy Antoinette LaSelle, this travel fellowship supports artists in advancing their work through meaningful research or studio development outside their usual environment. Awards are made to individual artists (and select students under specific conditions) to underwrite purposeful travel—domestic or international—that is integral to a proposed project. Strong applications articulate a clear connection between the itinerary and the artistic outcomes: Why this place? Why now? What will change in your work as a result? The foundation outlines eligibility, project scope, and submission mechanics in plain language—helpful for first-time grant seekers. If your next step requires fieldwork, archives, site-specific study, or time embedded in a community, this fellowship is designed to turn that necessity into a fundable plan. Treat the proposal like a road map: concise goals, realistic timelines, and tangible deliverables.

Apply here

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3. Skowhegan Summer Art Program

Location: Skowhegan, Maine (rural campus)

Application Deadline:October 17, 2025 (11:59 PM EST)

Skowhegan is an intensive nine-week summer program that has, for over eight decades, been a catalyst for experimental, peer-to-peer learning. The 2026 session runs June 6–August 8, 2026, bringing a global cohort of emerging and mid-career artists to a 350-acre campus in rural Maine. There are no formal classes; instead, participants immerse in studio time, collective inquiry, and dialogue with an international faculty of resident and visiting artists. The emphasis is on process and risk—on trying new methods, testing ideas, and letting the work evolve in conversation with others.

Applicants can work in any visual medium; the program’s culture values curiosity, rigor, and generosity over polish. Expect a packed season of studio visits, lectures, critiques, and impromptu collaborations alongside long, focused hours in the studio. Skowhegan is highly competitive and internationally renowned for good reason: alumni frequently cite it as an inflection point—where scale, ambition, and community expanded at once. Financial support is a core commitment: scholarship funds are available, and the school states that no accepted artist will be turned away for financial reasons. If you’re ready for a demanding, communal summer that can permanently sharpen your practice, this is the leap. Applications open September 1; prepare a concise portfolio and statement that make a clear case for what you’ll pursue during the nine weeks—and why Skowhegan is the right context for it now.

Apply here

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4. ARTS Southeast – ON::View Artist Residency

Location: Savannah, GA

Application Deadline: September 21, 2025 (11:59 PM)

Part studio, part storefront, ON::View turns your process into public programming. The residency provides a free, street-level studio with large windows on Bull Street in Savannah’s Starland District, making your work visible to passersby day and night. Residents also receive access to a nearby apartment (“5th Dimension”) for housing during the stay—removing a common barrier for out-of-town artists. The program welcomes all media and asks each resident to design some form of public engagement (talks, workshops, performances), plus a studio presence during open hours. Selection takes place in two rounds, with interviews in October and final notifications mid-October. This is a strong fit if you’re eager to develop new work while building relationships with a local audience and institutions (the residency partners with regional museums and organizations). Budget for your materials; the application fee can be waived in cases of need. Be specific in your proposal about what you’ll make, how the storefront format will shape it, and what you’ll offer the community.

Apply here

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Each of these calls opens a different door. A fellowship can embed you in a civic and cultural hub, where your ideas meet audiences ready to engage. A travel grant can ground your practice in the places, archives, and conversations it needs to grow. A storefront residency can transform process into dialogue, inviting the public into the work’s becoming. And an intensive summer in Maine can compress years of growth into nine weeks of concentrated work and community.

The application work is part of the practice. It clarifies your questions, sharpens your aims, and tests your commitment to the next phase. Read criteria slowly; mirror your proposal to what each program actually supports; pick strong, recent work; ask a peer to review your draft. Most importantly, choose the call that asks something real of you—the one that makes you a little nervous and a lot curious. That’s often where the breakthrough lives.