STAR: State Teacher/Artist Residency

A cooperative program of the Florida Alliance for Arts Education and The Hermitage Artist Retreat

2024 Timeline

• Application opens: February

• Deadline for submission: April 11

• Announce Recipients: mid-May

• STAR Residency: July 2-14

• General Public Event with the STARS TBD

The State of Florida is filled with talented, dedicated artists who are also talented and dedicated, certified full time public school teachers.  Their lives are spent trying to balance the challenge of expressing their artistic selves while pursuing their profession as a public school educator.

The STAR program is designed to honor and nourish the artist in the educator by providing five public school educators from Florida with the opportunity to pursue their artistic work in the inspiring environment of the prestigious Hermitage Artist Retreat.

A Hermitage residency is a gift of time and space for artists to attend to their work.  There is no requirement to produce.  It is intensely personal time for concentration AND a community of artists from different disciplines with which to share and learn.  Artists invited seize the opportunity and find themselves more productive than at any other time in their creative lives.

Selection criteria:

• Full-time arts teacher in Florida Public School (e.g. creative writing, dance, music, theatre, visual art) Note: charter schools only eligible if managed by school district (eg having control over curriculum and admissions).

• Artistic quality of work

Residency FAQ:

• What is expected? While there is no requirement to produce completed works during the residency,  resident artists are encouraged to use this gift of time to work on current works or new bodies of work. At the conclusion of the residency, resident artists will collaboratively produce a one-hour event open to the public, in which each artist will explain and/or demonstrate their work (may include performances or open studio tours, etc.).

• What is provided? A suite with a bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette; a work area or studio space; beach access; wireless internet and printer access; a keyboard or piano for composers

• What is NOT provided? Meals (except a welcome dinner); travel support; art supplies/equipment; smoking facilities (this is a no-smoking campus indoor & outdoors); accommodation for spouses/family/guests/pets (this is a solo residency)

The Hermitage Artist Retreat:

The Hermitage Artist Retreat is a not-for-profit artist community on 8.5 beachfront acres on Manasota Key in Englewood, FL.  Its five historic buildings have been lovingly and expertly restored and adapted into living space and studio space for writers, painters, poets, playwrights, sculptors, composers, and other primary creators.  In five short years, the Hermitage has become one of the premiere artist communities in America.  Our artists are Pulitzer winners, MacArthur winners, Guggenheim winners and NEA winners.  They are among America’s more influential and creative artists.