A Residency in Houston Is Throwing Open Its Doors — And It Wants Working Hands, Loud Minds, and Craft That Can Hold a Room
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft opens applications for its 2026–27 artist residency, offering stipends, 24/7 studio access, and deep public engagement. Deadline: February 1, 2026.
The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft just cracked open its annual residency call, and the timing hits like a flare in the winter dark. From December 1 to February 1, artists in wood, glass, metal, fiber, and clay have a narrow window to step into one of the country’s last truly work-first craft residencies — a place where the studio lights stay on 24/7 and strangers wander in to watch your hands move.
Five to ten artists will make the cut. They’ll get a private 200-square-foot studio, a $1,000 monthly stipend, kilns humming outside for the ceramicists, and a front-row seat to Houston’s museum district foot traffic. But the real exchange is more exposed: this program folds the public directly into the studio. Saturdays aren’t quiet. Neither are the evenings when an opening pulls the city through the door.
For those who want insulation, this won’t land. For those ready to let process breathe in front of others — this place becomes a pressure chamber that sharpens the work. The residency runs three to twelve months, with a bias toward the long haul. Curators stop by. Gallery owners knock. Residents teach. Conversations with visiting art professionals drift late into the day. In the end, the cohort folds into HCCC’s annual In Residence exhibition — a small but serious public ledger of the year’s evolution.
The application is straightforward but demanding: ten recent works, each with a detail shot; a one-page statement grounded in real process; three references who know what you’re building; a resume tight to three pages. No wiggle room, no deferrals if life gets messy.
If you're pushing heat, fiber, metal, glass, clay — and you want a residency that refuses to hide the work from the world — this door is open for two months. After that, it snaps shut until next year.
Deadline: February 1, 2026. Apply here.
For some artists, this becomes the year everything tilts.
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