A YEAR AT OAKLEY ART HOUSE

 The Oakley Art House provides a safe and serene space for creatives to live together inexpensively, while focusing on growth and excellence in their respective craft.

Songwriters, sculptors, poets, novelists, photographers, painters, musicians welcome. If your area of focus doesn't fit into one of the conventional buckets, we are happy to talk about that too.

The Oakley Art House is a safe space to make decisions and we believe in the power of community in shaping our creative decisions. A community only grows stronger with diversity, and it is our goal to help create those diverse connections to help better shape the kind of artist you can become.

Mature, meaningful conversation about your work is a learned skill that is critical for understanding and improving your craft, fostering creative atmosphere, and ultimately, enriching the culture around you. Through weekly meetings, we hope to explore our inspirations, processes, and artistic outputs so that we might better understand our motivations and produce strong pieces of work.

A weekly group meeting in the form of critiques, discussions, movies, gallery visits, and more

Discussions in goal setting and accountability

Supportive feedback and encouragement

A productive exchange of ideas and experiences

We believe it is possible to possess drive without undue pressure and community without unhealthy competition. We will help you formulate a project, set milestones, meet goals, and measure success and growth. We will show you the doors to make connections in the Boulder Arts community, but the momentum to walk through those doors must come from you.

The Oakley Art House is a community centered art space. There are only a few guidelines to be considered, but they must be met:

We do not require an extensive portfolio or a vast understanding of the craft in which you are interested, and the respective interest in art does not need to fit into the traditional bucket of painter, photographer, or musician. We do, however, require a relatively singular artistic focus or a particular artistic project with a goal, which an artist can see themselves devoted to during their year long stay. 

We also understand that excellence and growth in the arts can mean many different things, and we require an open mind for artistic discussion and positive and effective criticism. If you have no clear goal but a deeply rooted passion in your art, we can help to discover what a successful path for you might look like. 

A focus on community is a mainstay at the Oakley Art House. Whether its a small town community, a larger network of connectivity which spans the country, or a positive house environment, the weekly meetings are our opportunity to practice building the kind of community of which we would like to see and be a part. 

A weekly meeting at The Oakley Art House is not meant to be a stagnant event or the same thing every week but rather a continual collection of experiences and community building practices. Gallery visits, film and book recommendations, art parks and inspirational outings, house dinners with discussions on art and artistic process are all examples of types of weekly meetings in which we engage. Meetings should be a time to both reflect on our own art with other members of the house as well as an opportunity for inspiration from others.

Finding a collective time for a house full of artists can be difficult, and schedules vary greatly. We understand that not every event and house meeting can be attended, and we will work on ways to maintain the community involvement within the house. 

The opportunity to work and live with artists who all support each other is a privilege, and we would not have this privilege without the house. And though it can be your home for a year, it will be your housemates home as well. Living and working with other artists, sharing studio space and common areas, we require a sense of organization and cleanliness. 

The Oakley Art House is located on a horse farm outside of Boulder on a beautiful stretch of land, populated by numerous songbirds and wildlife who enjoy the view of the mountains just as much as we do.  Cleanliness and respect for such a beautiful space and house include helping to tend the gardens, making sure walkways are shoveled in the winter, and regular cleanliness of common and shared areas. 

We ask that you respect the space of others and respect the house. Maintaining a healthy respect for the shared art experience will make for a better overall experience. 

If the Oakley Art House sounds like a good fit, please contact us and introduce yourself!