What We Are Looking for In Our Fellows

“There are levels to art,” a recent candidate told me as he asked about our fellowship opportunities, wanting to know where he stood amongst the other candidates accepted.

That sentence disqualified him immediately from our program. Not because he isn’t right — there are levels to art — but because someone who can truly hold the responsibility that an artist has in this world knows competition is largely irrelevant.

Art’s mission is not to save.

It is to transform.

To transform garbage mentalities into trust in one another.

Trust in humanity.

Trust in possibility.

They speak of their essence and why they choose to create what they create in this world. They speak of the technical skills they want to improve and how they are going to improve them. They speak of the marketing and sales support that is bound to find them — and that’s us at Planting Good Seeds.

We’re magnetizing the type of fellows who already know they’re talented, already know their work has significant value, but just aren’t as savvy when it comes to merchandising their art.

And that is because art should not be merchandised — it should be worshipped.

Which first starts with worshipping yourself, the artist and the very gifts you give to this world.

It’s about creating art that has physical movement behind it. Art that doesn’t get people to just think for a moment, what an interesting perspective. It’s art that creates action. Art that gets people to say, hey, I’m going to stop doing that, thinking that, or creating that because it’s not what I want to do anymore.

A lot of people think we are here to save Colombians from something, as we are planted here in the Caribbean creating the first recycling art studio of its kind. We have no such mission.

Colombians don’t need saving. Quite the contrary — we are here to work alongside some of their artistic expertise. As in the Caribbean, many artists have already known for a very long time - productivity does not equal net worth.

We are here to transform the world — not save it.

And so we accept transformers. People who can turn trash into gold — and that goes for the physical as well as the mental perspectives littering the world.

This kind of talent is never found purely in one skill set or degree.

Art has more than a place in human history — art has been our entire human history, and the only true reason why things have ever stood the test of time.

Our fellows know that. They aren’t self-absorbed in how their fine art degree compares to the next. They are transparent. Curious. And wired for success.

Check out our new openings for July directly on our site.

Simon Bolivar by Ramzer 02'