We’re pleased to announce the structure of our 2024-25 resident artist program.
For the coming year (September 2024- August 2025) we’re focusing the work of our resident artists in advancing key arts-based neighborhood development strategies. In a way this will feel like the work we’ve been doing, but there are also brand new components, such as artists providing instruction in key artforms and techniques and the organization of neighborhood based events.
With resources from the National Endowment for the Arts, the City of Roanoke, and the City’s Percent for Art Fund, we are organizing for a successful year of neighborhood support and energetic arts activity bettering our lives in Roanoke.
Our organizing structure this year is fueled by three major initiatives:
– Daisy Art Neighborhood Activations
– Arts Connect Neighbors Catalog
– City of Roanoke Public Art Program.
Our focus neighborhoods include:
– Melrose Plaza
– 11th Street NW
– West End
– Gainsboro
– 9th Street SE
Meet Our Artists
Cory Greer – Chief Communicator and Network Builder
Cory Greer is a native of Franklin County, who moved to Roanoke to explore its vibrant creative landscape, initially through his involvement in local bands. He pursued his education in Business and Computer Science at ECPI.
A self-described, heavy hobbier, Cory’s diverse skill includes writing, illustration, graphic design, video production and editing, sculpture, prop building, mold making, resin casting, and latex mask creation. Since 2023, he has embraced the privilege and responsibility of working with the Roanoke Arts Commission, focusing on Newsletter and Outreach Strategy.
Cory finds great fulfillment in his role with the Roanoke Arts Commission, where he helps celebrate the city’s rich history while addressing the challenges and tragedies faced by our diverse community. He believes in learning from the past to build a stronger future. A significant part of his outreach efforts is dedicated to empowering individuals and groups, fostering intellectual, creative, and problem-solving skills to enhance community engagement in Roanoke.
Cory also illustrates the RAC newsletter, so be sure to check in weekly for community events and check out the illustrations in the header for regular updates on the adventures of the Artmouse and their trusty sidekick Hoppy! (Hoppy says the sidekick title is up for debate!)
Jon Murrill – Muralist in Residence and Public Art Ambassador
Jon is a professional muralist and portrait artist located in Roanoke, Virginia. He obtained his Master’s of Fine Art degree from Radford University with a concentration in both painting and drawing. He has exhibited his portraits in juried exhibitions, solo exhibitions and group shows across the United States.
Murrill also has taught a variety of studio courses as the collegiate and high school level here in Roanoke. His roots in education have led him to explore community engagement projects within his own public work. While Murrill’s murals may be seen all across Southwest Virginia he also leads community based projects in the region.
As an artist in residence for the Roanoke Arts Commission Jon is now continuing his community based approach on a broader scale. While Murrill still continues his own community painting sessions, he now advises and mentors a variety of muralists in the Roanoke area. His passion for inviting and educating others within public art has grown into a role that advocates and supports experienced and young muralists alike.
This past year Jon has put together public art projects at the Gainsboro YMCA, Labsports SE, and the West End Center. His initiative to mentor, assist and facilitate projects such as these, amongst the many neighborhoods in Roanoke, will continue into this next year. Murrill hopes his efforts bring public art to the forefront of the ever budding culture for the here arts in Roanoke City.
Katie Stueckle – Communicating and Documenting Artist
Katie Stueckle has lived in Roanoke since 2016, when she first arrived at Hollins University. After graduating with a degree in English and Theatre, she began searching for ways to build community in the city, first getting involved with No Justice No Peace and the SWVA LGBTQ+ History Project. She is the Vice President of the Board of Ursula’s Cafe, runs Second Friday monthly events as a founding member and organizer, and performs as local drag king Bromeo. In addition to these pursuits, she also works as an administrative professional.
In 2023, Katie joined the Daisy Art Parade team to assist in managing the event, and in 2024 increased her commitment to the arts in Roanoke by joining the Artist in Residence cohort. As a Communicating and Documenting Artist, she focuses her efforts on serving the larger vision through building a strong foundation of organization and connection. She will be doing significant logistical work this year to assist Roanoke artists in preparing for the Daisy Art Parade, creating a strong communication network, and building community through the Neighborhood and Teaching Artists’ various plans.
Jane Gabrielle – Artist in Residence
Jane Gabrielle is of Czech-Irish-Appalachian descent and resides in Roanoke, Virginia on Tutelo and Monacan lands. Gabrielle first answered the call of socially-engaged art through protest and folk music with her critically-acclaimed band, Radar Rose.
Jane works now as a community arts specialist and activist through her business, One World Arts. She is a certified Singing Tree™ Facilitator, sculptor, writer, children’s book illustrator and award-winning songwriter and recording artist. Presently, she serves a third term as artist-in-residence for the City of Roanoke, this year in the Gainsboro neighborhood.
She served on the leadership team of Heat2Hope.org, a STEM, arts and spirituality study in trauma-informed urban planning and heat resilience by Virginia Tech funded by the National Science Foundation. The project included a community mural funded, in part, by the Spirit of Goddard Alumni Grant.
Jane is a 2022 graduate of Goddard College with a BFA in Socially Engaged Art. Recent work include “The Empathy Project” , “HeartApples for Homeless Students” and illustrations for “Larry the Logperch” children’s book published by The Kiwanis Club. https://roanokearts.org/the-singing-tree/
Gabrielle’s work inspects the intersectionality of inward-focused creative practice, informed by ancestry and spirituality, and outer-focused visionary activism in stewardship of the Earth that engages socially with public art that encourages sustainability in the environment and personal commitment to spiritual and cultural transformation. She strives to create work that encourages care of the Earth and all of its inhabitants in a socially, economically and environmentally just “beloved community” as envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Hannah Patrick – Artist in Residence – Neighborhood Artist
Hannah graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in International Relations and Anthropology. Her studies inspired her to reflect on the culture of resource use in her own country, and the disconnection of consumers from the production of vital resources such as food. After graduating, Hannah travelled and worked on farms, for food system nonprofits, and small landscaping companies.
In 2021, Hannah started Luddite Farmer LLC as a small mixed vegetable and flower farm out of the Catawba Sustainability Center’s incubator farm program in Salem, VA. While farming and growing food are deeply satisfying work, Hannah is drawn to the artistic expression of gardening for beauty and joy as well as production. Out of a desire to connect with the community and share the beauty of food producing spaces, Hannah took on the role of Community Gardens Manager for Local Environmental Agriculture Project (LEAP) from 2022-2023. While Hannah still grows food and flowers for her friends and neighbors, her business Luddite Farmer LLC has evolved into edible landscaping and contracted farming work in the Roanoke Valley. She is currently the contracted farmer at Morningside Urban Farm, a Carilion Community Health and Outreach initiative that provides hands-on gardening guidance and free fresh produce for community members.
Hannah hopes to blur the distinction between “work” as manual labor and “art” as creation of beauty, and celebrate the ways in which all members of this community function as artists when they give their care, love, and talents to benefit others.
Lauren Gaunt – Teaching Artist
Lauren Gaunt is a Teaching Artist in Residence for the City of Roanoke. She will be working with neighborhood artists to create collaborative community art projects throughout 2024 and 2025. She also works as a freelance painter and teacher. Her personal work explores chronic illness and medical history.
Ryan Balbach – Artist in Residence
My name is Ryan Balbach. My bio is just that I love to draw weird cartoons, and make people laugh with caricatures. I’ve been doing art for as long as I can remember. Some of my interests include dungeons and dragons, watercolor, pen/ink, and just anything fantasy/sci-fi related. Excited to be apart of this budding art scene around town.
ARCHIVED INFORMATION
A note to applicants
Thank you for applying for the City of Roanoke’s Resident Artist program. We’ve got a panel of volunteers and stakeholders reviewing the applications, and they are having a great time getting to know you – at least in that small, electronic way.
The panel has reviewed applications and already met once. There will be some calls made to individual artists for some more information requested by the panel. We don’t need additional information for everyone, so don’t worry if you don’t get a call. On Wednesday of next week (7/24), the panel will reconvene with draft recommendations for placement.
At that point, the panel will let us know if they need more information, or if they are ready to start making position offers.
After Wednesday of next week we should be able to contact about 25 to 40% of the applicants, letting them know that they will not be selected. Of course, we hate making these notifications, but it doesn’t mean a flat no…but there may be a better way we can engage with you. (See below)
There will be a group that won’t hear right away – specific alternates for specific positions. Once offers are made, we may need to come back to others these people, so we’ll wait to notify you. Situations and preferences can change and artists may feel there’s another path for their community engagement. We’re so happy we have a deep pool of qualified artists.
It will take time to have those conversations, so please bear with us if you still haven’t hear from us by the end of next week. Our goal is to begin writing agreements in early August. So we anticipate everyone hearing from us by August 7.
We had 47 applications, and we can see ways that each and every applicant can contribute in creating a stronger community that fosters a sense of connection and belonging across residents through the arts.
For this program, however, we only have 19 slots.
Fortunately there are a good number of ways of additional ways we’re working with partners to support the contributions of individual artists:
Artist Action Grants for specific projects advancing justice, wellness, and inclusion (opening again early this fall).
Strategies like this weekend’s inaugural Busk Roanoke to build a culture supportive of live public performance.If you’re not performing, come on out on Saturday and even Sunday support the performers! 11-1 and 4-6. It may go even later since there is an evening artisan market happening.
The Arts Connect Neighbors Catalog (opening again for artist listings early this fall) that allows us to pay you to do neighborhood workshops around your craft.
And employment and contracting opportunities with our community’s network of arts and cultural organizations.
Finally – through the Resident Artist program itself, there will be a good number of opportunities to pay additional artists on a project basis, a great way to try this out and a way for us to support growth among a wide range of artists with different experience levels and goals.
For now, just know how much we’re enjoying looking at your work and how glad we are to live in a community in which we want to contribute and we believe collectively that it matters.
Application Archive
CREATING EVERY DAY
the place we want to be.
We have a variety of opportunities with upcoming artist in residence program. The term for the 2025 Artists in Residence is September 2024 through August 2025. Stipends will vary based by role.
Our organizing structure this year is fueled by three major initiatives:
– Daisy Art Neighborhood Activations
– Arts Connect Neighbors Catalog
– City of Roanoke Public Art Program.
Our focus neighborhoods include:
– Melrose Plaza
– 11th Street NW
– West End
– Gainsboro
– 9th Street SE
The Application was due at MIDNIGHT, Thursday, July 11.
Artist roles include:
– Neighborhood Artists (with community building experience)
– Emerging Neighborhood Artists (with an interest but less on-the-ground experience in community building)
– Teaching artists in a key art techniques and forms (such as printmaking, theatre, dance, sewing, welding, etc…)
– Arts Connect Neighbors Facilitators
– Communicating and documenting artists
Please note: We’ll also continue our annual Artist Action Grants for specific artist-led projects with an application round late this summer or early in the fall. Additionally, the Arts Connect Neighbors catalog will be opening for new catalog entries soon. So, if the above roles don’t appeal to you, keep an eye out for those opportunities.
We’ll overview the opportunities in a brief presentation, and you’ll get a chance to connect with others working through the arts to make Roanoke a stronger community.
The application is open now!!! Applications are due at midnight , Thursday, July 11. But what’s an emerging artist, and how will all of this work? We’re answering these burning questions and more below. Encourage someone you know to consider undertaking this adventure with us.
What’s a resident artist?
For this program, a resident artist, or artist in residence is someone who aligns their creativity and creative process with our city goals, working alongside staff, volunteers, and residents. We’ll be working together and learning together for a year.
What will my project be?
For this program, artists don’t apply with a project, but rather with their curiosity and their belief that together we can make a difference in the community around us. We’ll align artists with community challenges and initiatives. Everyone’s role will be unique, based on their experience, curiosity, and personal and professional goals.
What’s an emerging neighborhood artist?
There’s not always a clear path for community engagement. How do we each apply our skills and talents in the world around us? Well, the answer is different for each of us. This is a chance to explore that community engagement, perhaps for the first time.
We believe that there are lots of untapped people and skills surrounding us. We have what we need right here to make our community a better place.
We want to demonstrate this with artists who have not engaged in community projects yet, but who want to build that practice as part of their artistic work. Emerging doesn’t necessarily mean young, but our emerging artists can be as young as 18. A recent high school graduate pursuing the arts as part of their path, living in the community, and possibly taking classes at Virginia Western would be a great fit. So would an established artist who is comfortable with their studio practice but wants to try applying some of those lessons out in the community.
Is this just for visual artists? What if I can’t draw?
That’s a great question! The arts are a broad category and to be successful we must will engage artists involved in the performing arts like dance and drama, literary arts like poets and creative writers, dramatic arts like directors and actors, musical artists such as composers and performers, and visual artists like painters, sculptors and graphic designers. We also include culture bearers who engage in traditional arts to help preserve, communicate, and engage others with the arts, crafts, foods, and history of cultures.
It’s not what you produce, but the creative process you use to produce. That creative process can encourage the creativity in others and be applied to help our community meet its goals.
What if I don’t know how to do this?
By asking that question, you’ve opened the door to learning. We are all learning everyday how to do this. We’ll have some discussions around relevant articles and speakers. We’ll connect with each other and learn from each other. But most of all we’ll learn by doing. We’ll get involved in City projects, neighborhood efforts, and the goals of some nonprofit partners, and by doing so we won’t say that we have the answers, but we are willing to explore the questions together.
What kind of projects will resident artists take on?
– Advancing neighborhood places through Daisy Art Parade activations and preparation
– Engaging Roanoke residents through instruction and encouragement in specific art activities.
– Partnering with city departments and community partners to initiate public art projects.
– Helping neighborhoods access free art activities.
I’ve got some experience as a community artist. Can I apply?
Please do apply! We are also asking our current artists in residence to apply again. No matter what your experience level is, we want to hear about your goals and how you see the program benefiting you. We want to know what you’re interested in this year.
How much does this pay?
This is not a full time job, but, rather, we provide a stipend to support a certain level of engagement in learning alongside our community of artists. Key to the program is a project that you are interested in exploring. Think of this as a community leadership program. When you finish, you will have a stonger network, be more connected, and better able to advance community art projects–if that’s what you want. However, unlike most community leadership programs, there is no cost. We turn that on its head and pay you to learn. Stipends range from $6,000 for emerging artists in residence to $10,000 for experienced artists in residence. We’ll pay in four quarterly installments at the beginning of each quarter.
What else do I have to do to qualify?
You will be considered part of our City team. In fact we’ll ask that you go through the volunteer process to be covered under City liability insurance. That includes a background check and drug screening. The resident artist role does not include health insurance.
How are artists selected?
A panel of the Roanoke Arts Commission will select the artists. The panel typically includes artists and community partners, arts professionals, and dedicated residents. It’s a competitive process, and we work hard to get opportunities to as many people as possible. The panel looks at artistic excellence and merit — the quality of your work and your ability to complete it. They will review all of the. questions including what you are trying to learn. That’s important in building a learning community.
Do I have to live in Roanoke to qualify?
You don’t have to live in the city, but you do have to live in the surrounding area, and demonstrate a commitment to the city’s success. That can be done through participation in a local cooperative gallery, civic club, job, church or other activity in the city.
Can I put this on my resume?
Definitely! We think it’s really meaningful. If you are thinking of art school, exploring a career in arts, community development, or anything working with people, we think it will help. The learning is significant.
What’s the time commitment?
A: That’s a hard question to answer, since artists are self driven, each working on unique projects that they develop and shape. We want artists to get what they want to out of the projects and the experience. That said, 5 hours a week is probably a good estimate.
I want to learn more. Who can I talk to?
Feel free to reach out to Douglas Jackson with your questions at Douglas.jackson@roanokeva.gov or 540-853-5652.
The City of Roanoke’s Resident Artist program is funded through the City’s Percent for Art program and the City of Roanoke with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Thank you for your interest and good luck!
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