The City of Summerside and the PEI Council of the Arts supports a self directed artist-in-residence program called PACE. The year-round program stimulates conversation between artists, area residents and visitors, as they connect with special programming presented by the artists-in-residence throughout the year.

The program provides studio facilities and furnished accommodations to emerging and established contemporary artists, fine craft practitioners and creative industry professionals to support the development of their practice. Residency activities revolve around making, learning about and sharing contemporary arts in all their forms.

There are three residency periods per year: summer (July – August), fall (September – October) and spring (March – May). More then one artist may be in residence per period. Artists can apply for stays of 3 - 8 weeks. Artists are required to determine preferred length of stay, and two choices of time frame.
PACE supports artistic innovation and excellence and promotes career development by facilitating exposure to and connection with the Island arts community.

Residents must provide some element of regular public access throughout their stay. For example - artist talks, studio visits, “open studio”, lectures, exhibits or workshops etc. details to be determined. This program is open to all professional artists, working in any media.

The deadline for the next residency period in the spring of 2012 (March-May) was September 1, 2011.  All applicants will informed of the decision of the assessment committee once it is reached.

For general information on this program, contact the PEI Council of the Arts, at 368-4410, toll free at 1-888-PEI-ARTISTS (734-2784) or via email at info@peica.ca

The PACE program is currently open to PEI residents only, as this is the first year for this program.  We do anticipate opening it to non-Island residents in the future.  Check back here for more details.

Download the PACE Artist-in-Residency application here.

Nancy Cole is the artist-in-residence for September and October 2011. Cole is an emerging professional textile artist whose main focus is quilting. Her practice has evolved into contemporary and concept-based art pieces based on the notions of quilting and other traditional textile techniques. Her PACE residency will center on Seven, a collaborative art project that involves area youth as well as demonstrations and open quilting sessions. Her vision is “to create a large silk, transparent quilted textile that reflects cursively written words for the favourite food of our youth as well as making a point that one seventh, or one billion of the seven billion on earth, go hungry.”

Nan is very excited to take part in this residency. “As a visual artist, I don’t often have the opportunity to interact with the public while I’m creating,” said Cole “I am really looking forward to it.” Cole plans to spend her mornings in the studio and her afternoons working outside, weather permitting. “I plan to have an extra chair along for people who have never tried quilting, so they can experiment along with me.”

You can follow Nan's progress on her Facebook page or on our website, under News.