Forget “exposure”: A Denver residency provides artists something many others don’t — money

There aren’t many trades that require quitting a job in order to start a career, but being a visual artist is one of them. 

Guadalupe Hernandez worked as a high school teacher for six years while pursuing art after hours and during summers. He started taking art more seriously in 2020 and as a result, his work started winning awards and getting selected for shows, especially around Texas where he’s from. The momentum built and by the start of the summer term in 2022, Hernandez had decided he wouldn’t return to teaching in the fall. 

“There was a lot of work that I needed to produce, and I just knew that if I went back to teaching, (my life) would become teaching. Like you might have some energy at the end of the day, here or there, but especially during those first couple of months teaching is all you do,” said Hernandez, whose art focuses on the experiences of Mexican immigrants like his family, and which he saw a growing urgency for during Donald Trump’s presidency. 

Before Hernandez quit teaching he lined up a few stepping stones to guide himself into the world of a full-time artist: a three-month stint at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, a site-specific sculpture project, a few workshops and some one-off jobs packing and moving artwork.

Then he was accepted as the Visiting Artist of Color at the Art Students League of Denver, an eight-month residency that is nearing its end.

Art Students League started the residency in 2021 in recognition of the fact that artists of color have been historically excluded from formal art spaces, including residencies. The six- to nine-month program provides a selected artist with a dedicated studio, a $2,000 per month living stipend, $1,900 per month toward rent and $6,000 for materials. 

In exchange the artist is expected to host public workshops, arrange studio visits and create a body of work to display at the end of their residency. Hernandez’s exhibition, “Not the Best, But Either Way, The Work Needs To Be Done,” opens April 26 and will remain up until June 1. 

“We have a pretty firm stake in the ground about always paying artists across the board with all of our programming,” said Tessa Crisman, director of communications at the Art Students League. She shook her head at the idea of being paid in “exposure,” something that artists regularly encounter when they’re first starting out.

Work in progress

Hernandez’s Denver studio is covered in imagery from the life he temporarily left behind. Photos of Mexican markets are taped near the windows, large-scale portraits of his brothers lean against the walls and his work tables are covered in ornate papel picado, the colorful, decorative tissue paper flags hung at celebrations in Mexico. 

He said that he’s created about “two years’ worth” of work during his eight months in Denver — work that he wouldn’t have been able to produce if not for the stipends, which freed him to spend full days in his studio.

The Art Students League is an anomaly in terms of what it is able to provide to its artists. Many residencies in Colorado offer more qualitative amenities, like studio space, access to alumni networks and community engagement opportunities. These things are extremely valuable resources for artists, especially during the early stages of their careers. But studio space doesn’t buy groceries, and community engagement opportunities won’t pay a utility bill. 

Two of the more widely known residencies in Colorado, Anderson Ranch and the RedLine Contemporary Art Center, don’t offer financial support to their resident artists, but emphasize building the artist’s network. Anderson Ranch in Snowmass Village hosts critics and curators during the residents’ stay that can tether the artists to the art world at large. RedLine in Denver has an “open door” policy, meaning that residents work with their studio doors — quite literally — open to the community and fellow residents. 

Other residencies do offer financial incentives, but are more geographically isolated, like the Green Box Artist Residency in Green Mountain Falls, west of Colorado Springs, which provides a $9,000 stipend, housing and a studio for one month. 

“It is a risk, like self-employment is f-ing hard —  it ebbs and flows, and projects ebb and flow,” said Sarah Darlene, a Denver-based artist and former RedLine resident. “But all these other things are opening up for me because of (my time at) RedLine. So there is a risk, yes. You have to really carve out time to make it work, and do unpaid work in a lot of ways during these residencies. But if you take advantage of it, I think it can really build a lifetime’s worth of support for you after.”

During her residency, Darlene developed the concept for her “Flow State” meditative painting classes, which she now teaches regularly at the Denver Art Museum. She has also been tweaking the classes for new settings, like businesses and health care.

Hernandez was offered a massive public art commission in Houston during his Denver residency. He was able to complete it alongside his personal work because of the time and space the residency granted him. That piece will set him up financially for at least the next year, and, he hopes, anchor future proposals in the realm of public art. 

He was also recently asked to interview for a teaching job at a private school in Houston. With the public art commission in place, he doesn’t need the position for the moment. But he still might want it.

 “If I get that job, I’m definitely gonna consider it,” he said. “It’s nice to have that security.”