Artist Selection Process

Lucas Artists Program Fellows are selected through a rigorous juried nomination process, while Guest Artists are identified and invited to participate by LAP’s curatorial team.  Once selected, LAP supports artists in constructing their own residency schedule to best serve their individual practice.

Montalvo Announces New Lucas Artist Fellows, 2023

Montalvo Arts Center’s Sally and Don Lucas Artists Program (LAP) is proud to announce the fellowships awarded from its California open call held earlier this year, the first open call held by the LAP in over ten years. 

Of 370 applicants, 65 artists—spanning careers from emerging to established—were awarded Lucas Artists Fellowships: 30 in the field of visual arts, 19 in literary arts, and 16 in music/composition and performing arts. Fellows will receive three months of residency time which can be used at their discretion over a three-year period, beginning in October of this year and extending through 2026.

Lucas Fellows are identified through a competitive international nomination process that ensures support for highly qualified, and often under recognized, artists who have the potential to become major voices in the next generation of creative thinkers. This selection process is held approximately every three years.

The LAP relies on an international rotating network of over 500 nominators who are invited to nominate up to three artists of exceptional merit. Each artist is invited to submit a full dossier on their work, which is reviewed by a jury of experts in each discipline. Approximately 30 artists per discipline are selected every three years. Artists are awarded three months in residence, which can be taken as one block of time, or in as little as 2 week increments over three years, allowing each fellow to customize their time to accommodate their own unique creative process.

Residencies are offered in all contemporary artistic disciplines including the visual arts, design, literary arts, film and new media, choreography, performance art, music and composition, and social practice. The LAP also welcomes curators and teaching artists as well as artists’ collaborators from overlapping fields, including science, technology, health care, planning, justice and activism, and other scholarly pursuits.