By Mike Easterling measterling@sfnewmexican.com
Original Article: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/business/make-santa-fe-launches-three-month-fellowship-program-mixing-craft-art-engineering/article_edf00960-8564-43fe-a3f0-107d07c8d35c.html
Boldness. Audacity. And failure.
Those are three of the words James Johnson, the executive director of Make Santa Fe, uses to describe what he hopes to see emerge from his organization’s new maker-in-residence program, which will offer three-month fellowships to builders, designers and creative technologists working on a specific project.
The program, which will get underway this spring, is designed to be heavily focused on the creative process instead of the result. Johnson said he and others at Make Santa Fe — a nonprofit community workspace where members can access the tools, resources and workspace they need to create, develop or repair a concept — want to see how a maker’s project develops over a 90-day period, warts and all.
Especially the warts.
“That’s exactly right — we’re being really careful not to ask people to finish a project,” he said, adding the program almost carries with it a component of intentional failure.
“We want to inject inspiration into our space,” he said.
The makers selected for the program will have three months to use the Make Santa Fe studios and equipment while documenting their work and sharing their perspectives on what works and what doesn’t with community members in a series of talks and presentations. They will be encouraged to experiment, swing for the fences and not feel pressured to succeed at their chosen endeavor, Johnson said.
“The way we’re going to hold our makers in residence accountable is by seeing whether they learn from their mistakes,” he said. “What we don’t want to see is a presentation of finished projects. We want to see the process.”
Not just art
Many folks have the idea that Make Santa Fe, located at 2870 All Trades Road, focuses largely on art projects. Johnson said that’s not true.
He envisions the marker-in-residence program being a combination of craft, art and engineering. If a maker uses their time to develop a product from idea to prototype, that’s fine.
The idea for the program has been around Make Santa Fe for a long time, Johnson said; co-founder Ginger Richardson initially floated the concept.
“It was her idea — we just reinvented it,” Johnson said, noting Richardson is one of the financial backers of the program, which is being made possible by a group of donors.
Make Santa Fe officials have wanted to launch the program for a long time but lacked the resources until now, he said.
“We’ve been building up to support this kind of thing,” Johnson said. “At the beginning of this year, we decided, ‘Now is a good time.’ ”
Make Santa Fe already has begun accepting applications for the first three-month program, which will feature one or two makers, he said. A second three-month program will take place later this year, with Johnson saying the idea is to do one program each quarter in 2027.
He said the first participant or participants will be selected within the next month and begin their residency in May.
“People are super excited,” he said. “Some of them have said, ‘I can’t believe we haven’t done this yet.’ ”
Johnson said his expectation is the program will reveal that a maker who is trying to resolve a mechanical issue for a product, for instance, will take many of the same steps as an artist who is trying to evoke an emotional response through their work.
“The focus will be on trying to figure a problem out,” he said.
Each resident will be given 24-hour access to the organization’s fabrication studios and its technical classes, in addition to a small stipend designed to support their work, according to a news release. As the process unfolds, the residents will be expected to document their work and share updates, including making a public presentation at the end of the fellowship.
Those presentations not only will allow the resident to open up about their creative experience, they also could help acquaint the public with what Make Santa Fe has to offer.
“That’s a great point,” Johnson said. “We’re one of the most well-equipped fabrication studios in Santa Fe, and I think people miss that. … I want people to see Make Santa Fe as a very valuable business startup place — a hub for invention.”
