Mini Residencies at the UW Neltje Center
a place like no other
At the core of the Neltje Center’s programming is our Mini-Residency initiative, which welcomes students, faculty, artists, scholars, and creative thinkers from all backgrounds for focused periods of study, collaboration, or multi-day workshops. The program continues Neltje’s legacy of opening her home as a space for inspiration, exchange, and creative growth.
The Neltje Center for Excellence in Creativity and the Arts is a 15,000 sq. ft. center for arts and culture located 20 miles southeast of Sheridan, WY in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains that was an estate gift to UW from the artist, collector, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Neltje (1934-2021), who relocated to Wyoming from NYC in the 1960s. Neltje established herself as an abstract painter and champion of the arts in Wyoming and supported many local and state-wide arts and culture organizations throughout her life.
The Neltje Center for Excellence in Creativity and the Arts is Neltje’s former home, studio, and outdoor flower and sculpture gardens. The Neltje Center is filled with art and artifacts by makers both locally and from around the world—including Neljte’s own paintings—that express her unique relationship to color, form, texture and her respect for cultural expression of all types. The Neltje Center is administered through UW’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Mini-Residencies provide a unique opportunity for an intensive period of study or multi-day workshop to take place at the Neltje Center at any time during the academic year, J-term, or summer semester. This remarkable setting offers a space of visual beauty, creative complexity and intellectual delight, encouraging collaborative, multi-day projects in an environment designed to spark new thinking.
We encourage you to consider how your mini-residency might engage our local and state community during your time at the Center. This exchange—whether through public programs, informal conversations, or collaborative outreach—enriches both our guests and our neighbors. Community engagement is central to the Neltje Center’s mission: we believe creativity flourishes when rooted in place, and that building connections between artists, thinkers, and residents helps strengthen Wyoming’s cultural life in lasting and meaningful ways. When appropriate, community engagement may be a required component of a mini-residency.
We invite proposals from UW Faculty and Staff seeking to work collaboratively with their peers or enhance student experiences through immersive, in-depth work beyond the Laramie campus.
We also warmly invite professional artists, scholars, and thinkers from all backgrounds to submit applications to use the Neltje Center as a site for creative inquiry, research, and experimentation. Whether you're developing new work, seeking space for reflection, or hoping to connect with others in the field, the Neltje Center offers a peaceful, inspiring retreat to support meaningful exploration across disciplines.
Mini-residencies typically last from 3-4 days and are led by one or two faculty/lead artists who work onsite at the Neltje Center with a select group of between 3-10 students/participants.
The application process asks you to review and acknowledge terms and conditions for use of the Neltje Center. By submitting an application, you agree to abide by the Center’s expectations regarding respectful use of the facilities, property care, community engagement, and adherence to safety protocols. These terms and conditions include:
- While participants are invited to stay over the weekend, the Neltje center is not staffed Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays.
- Overnight capacity for the Neltje Center is 6 beds, with opportunities for other accommodations off-site.
- Guests may use only the designated beds provided for overnight accommodations. No alternative sleeping arrangements—such as couches, air mattresses, sleeping bags, or outdoor tents—may be used.
- Arrival window is 1-3pm on your first day, and departure is by 10am on your final day.
- Participants commit to being a responsible and respectful steward of the Neltje Center during their stay.
Previous mini-residencies at the Neltje Center have taken many forms—ranging from professional dance companies like David Dorfman Dance creating new work, to UW cello students exploring advanced techniques, to philosophers contemplating the nature of beauty. Other residencies have included rebranding summits, grant-writing intensives, strategic planning retreats, and public conversations that invite community members into the creative process across disciplines. This diversity reflects the Center’s commitment to supporting bold ideas, deep inquiry, and dynamic forms of expression.
You will need to provide contact details and answer the following questions about your proposal. We recommend answering these questions in a separate word doc before submitting, as the portal does not allow you to save and return to your application later.
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Title
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Other participating faculty/leaders
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Describe target students/ participants
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Description of project/workshop/course of study
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What impact do you expect this project to have on students/participants? What outcome(s) do you desire to achieve by using the Neltje Center?
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Why does the Neljte Center make sense for this proposed course of study? How will the project engage/utilize the UW Neltje Center’s unique space, collection, and surrounding communities or region?
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How will students /participants be equitably selected to participate in this opportunity? This may include requiring an application essay, selection by seniority, etc.
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Desired travel dates
To submit a proposal online, click the button below for the application. Contact Beth Venn at bvenn1@uwyo.edu for more information.
Proposals are reviewed on a rolling basis and dates are limited. If you have questions about the status of your proposal, please contact Kathryn Stevens at Kathryn@uwyo.edu for information.
“I think this type of focus is hard to come by on campus or at home. At the Neltje Center, you can put your head down and work – and when you lift your head, you see other people doing the same thing, or you see a sandhill crane hooting over the fields, or you see the ceramic bust of a crow woman hiding a nest of eggs behind her back…that makes it a good space for collaboration too, which is part of what made the science/storyteller workshop successful. There’s a feeling that you’ve stepped into a space that is meant for these types of conversations about bringing ideas to life.” - Graham Marema, MFA candidate '24
Past UW Mini-Residencies
