The Peleh Residency, based in Berkeley, CA and Brooklyn, NY offers artists across all genres time, space, and support to practice their craft. Designed to accommodate artists with families, the residency provides a space for retreat, reflection, and art-making, and an opportunity to foster new collaborations, audiences, and connections. There are no teaching or speaking requirements, although there is ample opportunity to showcase new work.
The program offers working artists and their families a stay at a three-bedroom private home with a separate studio, a weekly stipend, travel expenses, and childcare support and a shorter professional-development focused stay in Brooklyn. Residencies are generally offered in three to six-month periods, arranged to align with the school calendar, and with flexibility to accommodate the individual needs of each artist and family. In addition, the program matches the artist with a Bay Area-based mentor, typically a senior professional in the artist’s field.
The Peleh Residency is one of the few specifically family-friendly residencies in the country, supporting artists in pursuit of their craft while continuing to be parents and caregivers. Though not exclusively, the Peleh Residency also looks to learn from artists who are driven by issues of Jewish and Israeli identity, tradition, history, and community from a diversity of perspectives.
The Peleh Residency emerged from a desire to support the creative process while fostering a new cultural infrastructure that honors a commitment to family and work. The program reflects two core beliefs of its founders: that, if we are to thrive as a community, the universal experience of caregiving and working must be acknowledged, and that art and culture have the power to cross boundaries between people and ideas, bringing historical identity into modern life in new ways.
The Peleh Residency was founded in honor of Ruth Silverman whose spirit guides this endeavor. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Ruth Silverman was a celebrated photographer, curator, and author, who lived in Berkeley until her death in 2015. Her home has long been associated with creativity, generosity and wonder.
Applications to the Residency are by invitation.
All artist photos by Geoffrey Biddle.
Past Residents
Performance, Photography, Visual Art
August 2018 - January 2019
Based in Jerusalem, Israel
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