ADSF Emerging Artists Residency Program
Pictured artwork (left to right) by Tashina Three-Sticks, Talaya Banks, and Tyree Jones
About the Program
In the fall of 2021, Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe launched the pilot for our Emerging Artists Residency Program. In partnership with NEWSED Community Development Corporation, this program is designed to support emerging local talent and foster the continued economic development of Denver's most historic creative district.
Through the program, each artist receives:
- 3 months of free studio space in the Art District on Santa Fe Studio & Headquarters
- A $500 materials stipend
- A 4-week Business Basics course through NEWSED
- A chance to display their work in a group show in the Art District
- Mentorship and networking with professional artists in the community, and much more
Since then, our residency program has hosted 40+ up-and-coming local artists. Learn more about our current residents and alumni below!
Applications for Winter and Spring 2026 are now CLOSED. Check back soon!
Sponsor a Resident Artist
The ADSF is adopting a new, small donor program where you get to sponsor a resident artist for just $24! In return, the donor receives a photo of the artist in their studio—a gift to show exactly how your donation is supporting their residency experience.
Meet the Artists
Sarah bouma
Sarah Bouma is a painter, collage artist, and digital artist from Alamogordo, New Mexico. Her work explores themes of identity, liberation, and transformation. Through surreal yet familiar imagery, she taps into a collective consciousness that holds deep emotional weight.
Using complex compositions, symbolic imagery, and layered materials, she examines how people can transcend imposed boundaries and evolve into their fullest selves. Her work merges realism and abstraction to evoke the inner landscapes of becoming. She seeks to create a space where spirituality, feminism, and selfhood coexist rather than compete.
Sarah earned her BFA from New Mexico State University in 2013.
Blessing Guerra
Blessing Guerra is a queer Mexican multimedia illustrative artist from El Centro, California. Since 2022, she has been based in Denver, Colorado. Being primarily self taught, her art takes inspiration from the nostalgia of the animation and films she grew up watching. Often using herself as reference for characters as her work is a reimagining of herself and mirror of her personal experiences and stories.
Blessing’s work focuses on highly stylized portraiture and figures to convey themes and emotions of anxiety, trauma, feminine rage, and the queer identity. Using elements of pop-surrealism, anime, and 2D animation, she creates a unique style that highlights the intensity of the human experience with a sense of childlike wonder.
rhae schulz
I make for my wandering eye. In a world where we all seem to be running around moving from one thing to the next, I find myself needing to tighten my grasp on the beautiful wonder of noticing. Trying to preserve those memories and moments not just as they were, but as I remember them. The split seconds of quiet, of serenity, of sweetness.
Not all my work explores beauty, because not every curiosity discovers aesthetics, because some moments are funny, or sad, or so many other things. I am not concerned with the realness in the image but instead the realness in experience. I am interested in the relationship with the moment, the thoughts, the emotions, the mood. This curiosity that drives my subject matter also drives my practice. While I am a painter, I am more than just a painter. I am curious about material and space and don't shy away from unconventional methods.
Program Alumni
