Overview
The Anderson Center provides residencies of two to four weeks’ duration from May through October each year to enable artists, writers, musicians, and performers of exceptional promise and demonstrated accomplishment to create, advance, or complete work. There are typically 5 residents at the Anderson Center at a time, and the organization hosts approximately 35-40 residents each year.
The program is one of the largest of its kind in the Upper Midwest. Since the Center opened in 1995, over 800 artists from 45 states and 40 countries have participated in the program. Residents have come from countries including Argentina, Australia, Cameroon, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, England, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, and Uganda.
Since 2014 the Anderson Center has offered such month-long residencies in alternating years to small groups of Deaf artists, including poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers, whose native or adoptive language is American Sign Language (ASL). Supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Anderson Center's Deaf Artist Residency is the only program in the country that is Deaf-centric. It was developed with the goal of contributing to the creation of a local and national network of Deaf culture-creators.
The Anderson Center’s Jerome Emerging Artist Residency Program offers month-long residency-fellowships to a cohort of early-career artists from Minnesota or one of the five boroughs of New York City for concentrated, uninterrupted creative time to advance their personal artistic goals and projects. The program aims to meet the specific needs of emerging artists while welcoming them into a supportive and inspiring residency environment that empowers them to take risks, embrace challenges, and utilize unconventional approaches to problem-solving. Thanks to support from the Jerome Foundation, selected emerging artists receive $625/week in honoraria, documentation support, and a travel stipend.
The Center also engages in artist exchange programs with the city of Salzburg, Austria, and with Red Wing's Sister City, Quzhou, China. The Salzburg Artist Exchange is in cooperation with Stadt-Salzburg Artist-in-Residence Program and is open to emerging and mid-career Minnesota artists. The Quzhou Artist Exchange is only open to artists living in or around Red Wing. The Center participates in annual scholarship programs with the MFA programs at The University of Minnesota and Pacific Lutheran University in Washington.
Anderson Center residencies begin on the 1st or 16th of each month and end on the 15th or last day of each month. There is no charge for the residency, and all food is provided. Outside of the Jerome Emerging Artist Residency, additional funding is not available at this time. Residents must arrange for their own transportation to the center, or to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, or to the train station in Red Wing.
The Anderson Center Residency Program was set-up by a working poet to support other artists and continues to function by those with hands-on experience in the creative process. The organization seeks out feedback from residents each month in order to implement necessary changes as it works toward continual improvement of the program. Most importantly, staff trust artists to know what they need most to advance their individual practices. The Center does not dictate specific outcomes. Instead, the expectation is that the gift of time and space will generate significant advancements in residents' work. The Anderson Center trusts the artists to best use their time to benefit their own work and reach their own goals.
As an interdisciplinary arts organization, the Anderson Center embraces artists who are diverse in every way. Since its inception, the organization has intentionally worked with artists representing a wide range of disciplines, with the belief that the exchange of ideas is generative. The residency program supports artists from around the world, representing a wide range of cultures, races, sexual identities and genders. The Center intentionally works to make space for people and ideas to comfortably come together and operates with a spirit of welcome for all.
Location
The Anderson Center campus consists of 350 acres of the historic Tower View Estate, built by Dr. Alexander Pierce Anderson between 1915 and 1921, on the western edge of Red Wing, Minnesota. The estate’s original buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Center features a large sculpture garden, and is adjacent to the Cannon Valley Bike Trail, a 20-mile biking and walking trail that runs from Cannon Falls to Red Wing.
The Center is approximately 45 minutes southeast of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and 5 minutes northwest of the small but charming town of Red Wing. Transportation is provided between the Center and the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport (MSP) on the first and last day of residencies only. Residents who choose to drive will have access to private parking on the property. Residents without cars can either use one of the Center bicycles to ride into town (about 5 miles) or, often, can get a ride in with another resident.
Red Wing is a small town, but it has amenities including Hanisch Bakery (voted Minnesota’s best bakery), a chocolate shop, coffee shops, restaurants, the historic Sheldon Theatre, the Red Wing Arts Association, the Red Wing Shoe Company store, Goodhue County Historical Society museum, the Red Wing Stoneware & Pottery store, the Pottery Museum of Red Wing, a Duluth Trading store, a Target, a YMCA, several pharmacies, a library (the Center has arranged for residents to have access to a library card for their month at the Center), liquor stores, a small independent bookstore, several parks, and multiple hiking trails throughout the Red Wing bluffs.
The Twin Cities (Minneapolis-St. Paul) offer a wide array of attractions, including the Minneapolis Center for Book Arts, Loft Literary Center, Rain Taxi, Greywolf Press, Coffee House Press, Milkweed Editions Press, Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Walker Arts Center, the Guthrie Theatre, the Penumbra Theatre, the Northern Clay Center, the Textile Center, the Minnesota Historical Center, as well as a variety of art supply stores.
Accreditation
The Anderson Center at Tower View is a fully accredited member of the Alliance of Artists Communities and RES ARTIS: International Association of Residential Art Centres.