Steelgrass Farm Bamboo Sculpture Residency

The Power of Music Concert Workshop Series on Kauai

What: a two-week residency to create outdoor bamboo sculpture.
Who: emerging and early-career sculptors, artists, designers and craftspersons.
When: August 11 – 26, 2012. Where: Steelgrass Farm, Kauai, Hawaii.
Application Deadline: April 30, 2012

Artists at any stage in their careers are invited to apply for the second annual Bamboo Sculpture at Steelgrass, to be held at Steelgrass Farm, Kauai, August 11 through 26, 2012. Participating artists will live on the Farm for the two-week Residency. We provide room, board, on-island transport, and freshly-harvested bamboo for you to use in creating an outdoor sculpture of your own design on one of various sites throughout the property.

The artists selected for the 2011 Residency were Silvi Alcivar, Lauren Bahng, Chris Cunningham, Lucas Gasperik and Taylor Replane. Here are photos of the 2011 Residency, showing the completed works, as well as the artists during the fabrication process. Cinematographers Pam Willis and Eben Gering put together a short video of the process.

In addition to vanilla, honeybees, and the chocolate tree, theobroma cacao, Steelgrass Farm -- a multi-disciplinary educational center for sustainable agriculture, music, culture and the arts -- is home to twenty-two species of bamboo, including mature timber varieties with culms 30-50' tall and up to six inches in diameter. For photos of the property and many of the available bamboos, visit The Story of Steelgrass page.

The Bamboo Sculpture Residency is a hands-on project, so it is useful for applicants to have fabrication skills, including mastery of common tools, which we provide. The challenge in building with bamboo is joinery; traditional techniques include mating notched cuts, pre-drilled through-fasteners, and wrapping with natural lashings. You will have the opportunity to accompany our farm staff as we harvest the raw bamboo for your project, and staff will be available to advise you on joinery and construction, but the work of fabrication is up to you.

You must furnish your own roundtrip travel to Kauai. Once you are here, we provide room, board and on-island transport, as well as a professional photographer to document both the construction process and the completed works. During your two-week stay here at Steelgrass Farm, lodging is shared and meals are communal. Although you will be creating your own individual sculpture, we are a collaborative enterprise, and we welcome applicants who are comfortable interacting with their peers in a shared group environment.

To apply, please submit the following materials. The deadline for receipt by us of your completed application is April 30, 2012.

(a.)	A $35 non-refundable application fee payable to Steelgrass Farm, POB 68, Kapaa, HI 96746;
(b.)	A brief curriculum vitae and a one- or two-page statement of your personal artistic interests and goals;
(c.)	A drawing or image of the piece you propose to create, including approximate dimensions, a rough building time estimate, and a list of the type and quantity of bamboo needed. (Please note that due to the volume of submissions we receive, we are not able to return application materials, so we recommend that you send copies rather than originals.)
(d.)	Two letters of recommendation from people who are familiar with you and your work, and who can comment on your ability to create a project from start to finish, and to work successfully in a collaborative environment. We ask that recommendation letters be sent by the recommender directly to Steelgrass Farm, POB 68, Kapaa, HI 96746.

For more information, contact us at info@steelgrass.org, or phone the Farm office at (808)-821-1857. Please remember that we’re on Kauai time, three hours earlier than the Left Coast, and six hours earlier than the Right.