Boulder Soma Artist Residency

Making the subtle power of somatic work visible through art.

Somatic work often changes people in quiet, intimate ways: a breath returns, a protective pattern softens, an image rises, a body remembers another way to be.

The Boulder Soma Artist Residency offers artists ten private somatic mindfulness sessions and invites them to create an original work in response to the experience.

Each session is held as a living, collaborative work of attention — shaped by breath, sensation, silence, language, memory, contact, and discovery.

Over time, the artist listens inwardly through the body. The work that emerges is gifted to Boulder Soma and becomes part of the Boulder Soma Residency Collection, with the long-term vision of public exhibition.

The residency is grounded in consent, nervous system respect, creative autonomy, privacy, and deep listening.

Not as promotion.
Not as proof.
As a response.
A translation.
A trace of what moved.

Express Interest
Express Interest

Why this residency exists

Somatic work often changes people in ways that are difficult to explain.

A body softens.
A breath returns.
A protective pattern is met with kindness.
A forgotten image rises.
A person feels themselves from the inside again.
Something that has been waiting at the edge of awareness begins to move.

These shifts are intimate. They are powerful. And they are often hard to capture in ordinary language.

I created the Boulder Soma Artist Residency because I believe artists are uniquely able to give form to this territory. Artists know how to stay close to what is not yet fully formed. They work with image, texture, metaphor, contradiction, beauty, grief, humor, memory, and mystery.

This residency offers artists a protected container for embodied listening, and invites them to create from what becomes visible there.

The session as living art

As a somatic practitioner and poet, I experience each session as a living, collaborative work of attention. It is not a formula. It is a temporary composition made of breath, sensation, silence, language, timing, memory, contact, and discovery. Each session is shaped by what emerges between practitioner and client in real time. Each session is a living composition.

A poem made of breath, silence, sensation, memory, gesture, image, and the courage to notice what is true.

In somatic mindfulness, so much of what matters happens beneath the level of ordinary explanation. A person may not leave with a dramatic story. They may leave with a softened jaw, a deeper breath, a new tenderness toward an old protection, a small opening where there used to be contraction.

These shifts are intimate. They are powerful. And they are often difficult to describe.

I created the Boulder Soma Artist Residency because I believe artists are uniquely able to listen into that territory. Artists understand the threshold between what is felt and what is formed. They know how to give shape to the unseen without making it smaller.

The residency invites artists into 10 sessions of embodied inquiry. At the end, each artist creates a work in response to the experience. Not as a testimonial. Not as promotion. Not as proof.

As a response.
As a translation.
As a trace of what moved.

The long-term vision is to build a collection of these works and eventually share them in public exhibition — offering the community another way to encounter somatic mindfulness: through art, language, sound, material, and presence.

The artist’s response

At the close of the residency, each artist creates and gifts an original work or body of work to Boulder Soma.

The work may be visual, written, tactile, sonic, movement-based, sculptural, photographic, digital, performative, poetic, or interdisciplinary.

It may take the form of:

  • a painting, drawing, textile, sculpture, ceramic, photograph(s), or installation

  • a poem, poem cycle, written work, artist book, or spoken piece

  • a sound work, performance document, ritual object, video, or hybrid form

  • a study, fragment, object, or body of work mutually agreed upon in scale and medium

The artwork does not need to explain the sessions.
It does not need to be literal.
It does not need to be positive.
It does not need to promote Boulder Soma.

It only needs to be honest to the artist’s experience.

The founding cycle

The residency will begin with a small founding cycle of artists whose practices resonate with embodiment, memory, perception, transformation, language, material, or inner life.

This first group will help shape the tone of the residency and the future collection.

Artists may be invited directly or may submit an expression of interest.

Who this is for

This residency may be a fit for artists who are curious about:

  • embodiment and creative process

  • the body as a source of image, language, memory, and knowing

  • creative block, burnout, or renewal

  • nervous system patterns around visibility, expression, performance, or self-trust

  • grief, transition, identity, aliveness, or emergence

  • the relationship between inner experience and artistic form

  • contemplative practice, somatic work, mindfulness, or Hakomi-informed inquiry

Artists from many disciplines are welcome: visual artists, writers, poets, performers, sound artists, textile artists, sculptors, photographers, movement artists, interdisciplinary artists, and others whose work lives near the threshold of inner experience and form.

This residency is not a critique program, art class, commission, therapy substitute, or promotional collaboration.

A living collection

Each residency work becomes part of the Boulder Soma Residency Collection.

Over time, the collection will gather artistic responses to embodiment, mindfulness, healing, resistance, tenderness, aliveness, and transformation.

The long-term vision is to hold a public exhibition of works created through the residency — an opportunity for the wider community to encounter somatic mindfulness not only as an idea, but as image, language, sound, object, movement, and presence.

The exhibition may include original artworks, artist statements, process fragments, audio reflections, poetry, guided somatic invitations, artist talks, and contemplative viewing experiences.

The work will be shared with care, proper credit, and respect for each artist’s privacy and authorship.

Express Interest
Express Interest

Express interest

The founding cycle is small and relational.

This form is a first step. It is a way to share your work, your curiosity, and what draws you to this residency.

After reviewing expressions of interest, I may invite a few artists into a short conversation to sense whether the residency feels like a good fit on both sides.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Values + Mission

  • The residency is guided by the same values that shape Boulder Soma’s work: consent, curiosity, nervous system respect, relational presence, non-force, privacy, and deep listening.

    The process is not about pushing for revelation, performance, productivity, or catharsis. It is about creating conditions where something honest can emerge at the pace of the body.

    Artists are invited into a space where their inner experience, creative process, and final work are held with care.

  • Somatic work often changes people in ways that are difficult to explain.

    A body softens.
    A breath returns.
    A protective pattern is met with kindness.
    A forgotten image rises.
    A person feels themselves from the inside again.

    These shifts can be subtle, powerful, and hard to capture in ordinary language.

    The residency exists because artists are uniquely able to give form to this kind of inner experience. Through image, language, sound, object, movement, texture, metaphor, humor, and beauty, artists can help make visible what somatic mindfulness often makes possible.

  • The mission of the Boulder Soma Artist Residency is to build a bridge between somatic mindfulness and artistic expression.

    The residency offers artists a protected container for embodied self-study and invites them to create work from what emerges. Over time, these works will become a living archive: a collection of artistic responses to embodiment, mindfulness, healing, resistance, aliveness, tenderness, and transformation.

    The long-term vision is to share this collection through public exhibition, artist conversations, writings, and contemplative events so the broader community can encounter somatic work through art.

  • No.

    The artwork is not meant to prove that the work “worked.” It does not need to praise Boulder Soma, explain the sessions, or promote somatic coaching.

    The work may be beautiful, difficult, funny, strange, tender, unresolved, joyful, critical, abstract, or impossible to summarize.

    The artist’s responsibility is not to make Boulder Soma look good. The artist’s invitation is to make something honest.

  • The artist is never required to disclose private session material publicly.

    The final artwork may emerge from the residency without revealing personal details. Artist statements, exhibition materials, interviews, or public conversations will be shaped with consent.

    The residency is designed to make space for depth without turning vulnerability into content.

  • The artist remains the author of the final work.

    While the sessions are collaborative in process, Boulder Soma does not direct, interpret, critique, or control the meaning of the artwork. The final piece belongs to the artist’s own medium, perception, and creative response.

    Boulder Soma may ask questions, reflect, witness, and support the process of listening, but the work itself remains the artist’s.

Creative Process

  • No. In fact, it may be better if you don’t.

    The residency is designed to let the work emerge from the process rather than asking you to arrive with a finished concept. You may begin with a question, an image, a material, a feeling, a block, a longing, or no idea at all.

    Part of the invitation is to let the body surprise the artist.

  • Yes, please.

    The work can be strange, quiet, funny, tender, abstract, unruly, beautiful, awkward, mythic, minimal, messy, symbolic, fragmented, or hard to explain.

    Somatic work often reveals material that does not fit neatly into ordinary language. The artwork is welcome to have that same complexity.

  • Yes.

    The work does not need to be heavy to be meaningful. Somatic work can open tenderness, grief, clarity, and repair — but it can also open joy, humor, pleasure, color, play, absurdity, delight, softness, and aliveness.

    The final work is welcome to emerge from what feels bright, strange, funny, sensual, ordinary, or alive — not only from what feels difficult.

    Transformation is not always solemn.

  • Yes.

    The residency is open to visual, written, tactile, sonic, movement-based, digital, performative, poetic, and interdisciplinary forms.

    The final work might be a painting, drawing, textile, sculpture, ceramic, photograph, poem, poem cycle, spoken piece, artist book, recording, sound work, performance document, ritual object, video, installation, or hybrid form.

    For time-based or ephemeral work, we will clarify what is gifted to the Boulder Soma Residency Collection: documentation, recording, score, script, object, image, or another agreed-upon artifact.

  • That may be a sign that the residency is doing something interesting.

    The final piece does not need to match your original idea. It may shift in medium, tone, scale, or direction as the sessions unfold.

    The process may reveal something quieter, wilder, simpler, deeper, funnier, stranger, or more alive than what you first imagined.

    Surprise is welcome.

  • All of that belongs.

    The sessions are not performances. You do not need to be articulate, impressive, emotionally available on command, or creatively “on.”

    Sometimes the work happens through words. Sometimes through silence. Sometimes through sensation, image, tears, laughter, confusion, or a tiny shift in breath.

    The body has many languages.

  • No.

    The artwork belongs to your authorship, perception, and meaning-making.

    I may ask questions, reflect what I notice, or support your process of listening, but I will not interpret your work for you or reduce it to a psychological explanation.

    The residency is not about decoding the artist. It is about creating conditions for deeper listening.

  • No.

    The residency values depth of engagement more than size. A small-scale work can be powerful when it is made with care, attention, and sincerity.

    The final work should be a meaningful artistic response to the 10-session process — considered, intentional, and complete within the artist’s chosen form.

    Before the residency begins, Boulder Soma and the artist will discuss the medium, scale, and scope of the work so the offering feels clear, respectful, and aligned with the integrity of the Residency Collection.

Practical Details

  • The residency is a somatic mindfulness and self-study process. It may feel personally meaningful or therapeutic, but it is not a substitute for mental health care.

  • No.

    Curiosity is enough.

    You do not need to know how to “do” somatic work. The sessions are guided slowly and collaboratively, with attention to consent, pacing, nervous system safety, and what feels accessible in the moment.

  • The artwork becomes part of the Boulder Soma Residency Collection.

    The intention is to care for the work, document it with proper credit, and share it through future residency-related exhibitions, writings, events, or archives.

    The artist retains copyright and authorship. Boulder Soma receives the gifted work and the agreed-upon rights to steward, document, exhibit, and share it in connection with the residency.

    Future decisions about the physical work — including loaning, transferring, donating, storing, or otherwise stewarding it — will be made at Boulder Soma’s discretion and in alignment with the care, integrity, and long-term vision of the Residency Program.

  • Boulder Soma receives the gifted physical or other residency artifact as part of the Boulder Soma Residency Collection.

    The artist retains copyright, authorship, and the right to be credited.

    As part of the residency agreement, the artist grants Boulder Soma permission to document, photograph, record, display, exhibit, publish, and share the work in connection with the Residency Program. This may include images, audio, video, written excerpts, recordings, or other documentation shared on the Boulder Soma website, social media, newsletters, exhibition materials, archives, artist profiles, public programs, or other residency-related contexts.

    Boulder Soma may make minor formatting adjustments needed for display, such as cropping an image for a webpage, resizing a photo, adding captions, or adjusting audio levels, but will not materially alter the meaning, content, or authorship of the work.

    Boulder Soma does not receive the right to sell reproductions, create merchandise, license the work to third parties, or use the work for unrelated commercial purposes unless a separate written agreement is created.

    The residency agreement will clarify ownership, copyright, documentation, public sharing, exhibition, and future stewardship before the residency begins.

  • That is the long-term vision.

    The first phase is about building the collection with care. Once enough artists have completed the residency, Boulder Soma intends to curate an exhibition of the works.

    The exhibition may include original artworks, artist statements, process fragments, audio reflections, poetry, performance documentation, guided somatic invitations, and public conversation.

    The exhibition will grow from the work, not the other way around.

  • Yes, when appropriate.

    Part of the vision of the Residency Collection is to make the work visible and accessible over time. Boulder Soma may share images, audio, video, written excerpts, artist statements, recordings, or other documentation of residency works on the Boulder Soma website and in residency-related materials.

    The artist will always be credited. Private session material will not be shared unless the artist explicitly chooses to include it.

    The purpose of sharing the work is to support the Residency Program, honor the artist’s contribution, and help the public encounter somatic mindfulness through art, language, sound, object, movement, and form.

  • For the first cycle, the residency will primarily be held through individual sessions.

    Depending on the shape of the cohort, there may be an optional gathering, shared reflection, studio visit, reading, or informal salon.

    Over time, Boulder Soma may offer artist gatherings, public conversations, exhibition events, and contemplative viewing experiences connected to the Residency Collection.

  • The founding cycle will be small and carefully held.

    Selection is based on resonance with the residency, artistic practice, relational fit, practical capacity, and the overall shape of the cohort.

    Artists may be invited directly or may submit an expression of interest.

  • You are welcome to express interest.

    The founding cycle will be small, but the residency is not only for artists with traditional credentials or institutional recognition. I am interested in depth, resonance, sincerity, creative practice, and fit.

    Over time, part of the vision is for the Residency Collection and exhibition platform to support artists at many stages of visibility.

  • Yes. The Boulder Soma Artist Residency is a remote / hybrid residency.

    The residency is held through a 10-session somatic container rather than through a live-in program. Sessions may take place online by video call or in person, depending on the artist’s location and preference.

    The residency is not defined by a physical location. It is defined by sustained attention, embodied inquiry, and the artist’s creative response.

  • No. The residency does not include housing, accommodations, studio space, travel support, meals, or relocation.

    Artists participate from wherever they are. The creative work may unfold in the artist’s own studio, home, landscape, community, or chosen environment.

Begin with a conversation

The residency begins with listening.

If your work lives near the threshold of body, memory, language, image, sensation, grief, humor, tenderness, transformation, or becoming, I’d be glad to hear from you.