Carrizozo Artists-In-Residence

Carrizozo, NM

What began as a month-long collaborative residency in the high desert plains of New Mexico evolved into an extended meditation on artistic practice and program development. The initial April 2022 residency, which came by invitation from artist Soleil Corazón-Libre, opened an unexpected opportunity when two of the Carrizozo AIR founders invited us to return during the residency’s off-season period. This second cycle in 2023 became an incubation space for expansive residency structures, ultimately catalyzing the development of the So-LAR Residency program.

Year:

  • First Cycle: 2022

  • Second Cycle: 2023

Location: Historic 12th Street

Collaborator: Soleil Corazón-Libre (First cycle)

Set in a historic railroad town (pop. 976) in the Tularosa Basin, surrounded by mountains and volcanic fields in a high desert environment, Carrizozo AIR is a venerated artist residency started by artists Joan Malkerson and Paula Wilson. The residency offers private living quarters on top of a large studio space on the quaint, famous 12th Street in Carrizozo, NM. The mission of the program is to provide space and time to focus on chosen projects in the arts, and has hosted nearly 100 artists since its inception.

My experience unfolded across two distinct chapters. The first cycle created conditions for honest revelation: about artistic needs, about the nature of creative practice, about what becomes possible when we voice our deepest aspirations. What began as a month-long stay in April 2022 evolved into an unprecedented six-month container during the program's off-season, April - September 2023.

This extended invitation gave me the space, time and resources for self-guided research that allowed for the development of my own approach to artist residency frameworks. The very qualities that made the summer months challenging for traditional residency programming - the intense heat, slower pace, and emptier streets - created perfect conditions for deeper investigation into how creative practice responds to prolonged engagement with place. The 6-month residency demonstrated how creative practice, when given time to truly root itself in place, could expand beyond individual artistic development to become a framework for collective transformation.