How to Apply for Residency Sessions

We take a small group of people for each of the year’s intensive residency sessions, and enrollment is only open until residency sessions fill to capacity, so we advise you to be in touch with us as soon as possible. This page details enrollment cost, options, application instructions and things to consider before you apply.

Mildred’s Lane schedules residencies with Fellows on an individual basis. The annual Residency Program is guided, but not fixed, by the annual calendar of Summer Sessions. Some Fellowships are scheduled to coincide with a particular Session as desired by a Fellow, or to overlap multiple sessions.

Residency/Fellowship Programs incur a fixed weekly cost:

1-week Fellowship — $1,300.00

2-week Fellowship — $2,400.00

3-week Fellowship — $3,600.00

By the day — $200/fellow

Overnight — $350/fellow

The richest experience recommended by Mildred’s Lane is for enrollment in 1–2 weeks of Independent Study and 1–2 weeks of an intensive session, in either order. Fellows in residence at Mildred’s Lane for two weeks or more will experience the dynamic range of an intensive educational environment and an open-ended social-ecological experience.

Once you have been accepted into the residency program by following the application instructions below, you can MAKE A PAYMENT.

Application Instructions

If you are a student or faculty member, see “INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERSHIPS SECTION BELOW” and get in touch with the institutional department chairs and professors to potentially sponsor your enrollment. Otherwise, as an independent applicant, simply follow this procedure below:

We review independent applications year-round. Please apply as early as January.

1) an essay or letter of interest explaining the reasons for wanting to be a part of the Mildred's Lane experience

2) a letter of recommendation from a colleague or mentor 

3) a résumé

4) a portfolio or work sample — a website or compilation of captioned images suffices

Please send applications in pdf form to workstyles@mildredslane.org

Note: We require a 50% non-refundable deposit toward the length of stay upon acceptance and the total balance upon arrival to Mildred's Lane. 

Is it the Right Fit?

Mildred's Lane is not suitable for everybody; it is a highly unusual social engagement and experience. The entire landscape becomes the studio. It is a rustic site where we apply our creative skills to every aspect of life. We cooperate in a critical engagement with the environment and each other through a collective labor system called WORKSTYLES. We all maintain and steward the site projects. It requires collaborative involvement, learning to work, and live together – better.

Mildred's Lane seeks rigorous, transdisciplinary individuals to function within a small group of other select, highly skilled creatives. We provide vital skills in working within a given community through the art of WORKSTYLES. Ask questions such as: Is the individual ready for a rustic experience deep in the woods? Is the individual willing to share the daily workstyles to benefit the group? Is the individual willing to work with others collectively? Is the individual self-motivated? Curious? Ready for change – to be a part of the change? We are excited to work together!

Institutional Partnerships

Mildred’s Lane works with dozens of academic graduate programs on an annual basis. Partner Institutions send fellows to our intensive residency sessions and/or for independent study. We think of this program as an award for exceptional student(s) and faculty with an interest in collaborative and interdisciplinary praxis.

Select a fellow by an internal application or use our application process. These are options for involvement:

• A Sending Institution structures scholarship funds in various ways to support fellowships for one or more persons in the sessions. 

• A Sending Institution may contract Mildred's Lane as an adjunct arrangement, mentor, or instructor(s) including the use of the entire site and facilities, a program of instruction, lectures, workshops, events, or other devised by the participants.

• A Sending Institution may come as destination guests for short stays participating in the current program or collaborating with Mildred's Lane.