Nurturing Creativity
A Guide to Building Your Artist Residency and Cultivating Creative Community
What if building a community is your next great creative project?
There comes a time when fitting creativity into the margins of a busy life is no longer enough. You don't just want to make art; you want to live among it. There is a growing movement of creators who want to build something bigger than their own portfolio, a residency, a retreat, or an intimate creative sanctuary where art, community, and ideas connect.
Nurturing Creativity is a practical blueprint for anyone ready to build a life centered on artistic community. This book is for artists who believe that community is a creative practice and that the most impactful programs grow thoughtfully, in alignment with the values that inspired them in the first place.
Drawing on six years of founding and running The Verdancy Project, a nature-based artist residency in Oregon, Shannon Amidon guides you through the essential ground:
Shaping your vision and finding the values that will hold the whole thing together
Designing experiences that genuinely serve the artists you invite in
Working through the finances, logistics, and practical realities without losing your mind
Setting boundaries that protect your time, your energy, and your own creative life
Building a rhythm that is sustainable for you, not just the program
Whether you want to transform a spare room into a small backyard residency or launch a rural, land-based retreat, Nurturing Creativity shows you how to build a creative ecosystem that sustains both the artists you host and the life you want to live.
This Book Is For You If:
You've dreamed of starting some kind of creative community
You want to support other artists while maintaining your own practice
You're curious about how residencies actually work—from the inside
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Learn more about Shannon Amidon—artist, author, and founder of The Verdancy Project. Shannon is a visual artist, writer, and creative entrepreneur who has spent the past five years building an artist residency and creative community in Oregon. -
RESIDENCY INTERVIEWS
Explore in-depth interviews with artist residency founders and working artists featured in Nurturing Creativity. These conversations share real experiences, lessons learned, and insights into building and participating in artist residencies around the world. -
RESOURCES FOR READERS
Access downloadable templates, worksheets, checklists, and reflection prompts designed to support artists and organizers who want to start an artist residency or creative program. -
CREATIVE MENTORSHIP
Work one-on-one with Shannon Amidon to gain clarity and guidance as you develop your artist residency, creative space, or community arts program. Consulting sessions offer practical insight, strategic support, and encouragement for turning your ideas into reality.
What Readers Are Saying
“As an artist who has run art studio businesses in the past I wish I had a book like the Verdancy Project to help guide me through not just the logistics of getting a project up and running, but the thought process needed for your creative venture to thrive. Shannon has thoughtfully laid out everything you need to prepare for a residency, including pages to write down notes with helpful prompts. I recommend this book for anyone thinking about beginning their own residency, from a small space to help an artist create and ponder to a larger more extensive area with accommodation offered for a larger project. This book nurtures one’s own creative vision and offers ideas on how you can tap into your community to bring richness and sustainable practice for a broader reach.”
Linda S via Goodreads
“ Shannon Amidon is the founder of The Verdancy Project — a residency I'm proud to be an alumna of. So when she writes about building creative community, she's not theorizing. She's lived it.
Her new book is a practical, grounded guide for artists who dream of creating their own residency, retreat, or creative sanctuary. It covers everything from program design and finances to setting boundaries and sustaining your own creative rhythm along the way. If you've ever imagined gathering artists outside of traditional institutions — even in a small, backyard kind of way — this book will show you how to do it with intention and care.
I can't recommend it highly enough.
Linda R. via Goodreads
A fantastic resource and such inspiration for your artistic journey
“This companionable and empathetic book by Shannon Amidon, along with A Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin, are my two favorite sources right now to bring out my creative spirit. I am a visual artist and love hearing from other artists working in different genres on how they form community. I am so inspired by Shannon’s thoughtful explanations about how to create a residency program and what to ask yourself about what your core intentions are and what means the most to you. She explains the Five Whys exercise as a way to really drill down and figure out what is important to you, and I found that whittling down to be extremely useful and honest.
The entire book is full of encouraging, well-lived, totally unpreachy and timesaving advice. Not only is Nurturing Creativity motivational, it’s full of practical details and real-world experience that Shannon has accumulated during her many years as a professional artist. It’s like listening to a caring and enthusiastic friend who has so much experience and warmth to share. I can’t recommend this book highly enough!”
Wendy A. via Goodreads
“Every artist knows the transformative power of uninterrupted time and space—away from the demands, the emails, the endless to-do lists. Shannon Amidon understands this deeply. In Nurturing Creativity, she offers a practical roadmap, based on lived experience, for building the kind of spaces where artists can truly breathe. A generous, necessary resource for anyone who wants to create sanctuary for fellow creatives”.
Alyson Stanfield - Author of I’d Rather Be in the Studio and host of The Art Biz podcast