Open calls:

let's do things together

Open call // rolling basis

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Open call // rolling basis 〰️ 〰️

The Geraldine Road Fund

In honor of Geraldine, 2011–2027. She went everywhere.

Geraldine was our executive director —Aubrey’s— road dog. The most loving and adventurous one-eyed black pit bull who came up from the Louisiana swamps and spent the better part of sixteen years as a constant road companion — logging miles nationwide, every long drive into unfamiliar country…she made those lonesome highways not lonesome at all. She always accompanied Aubrey to artist residencies— from Butte, Montana to California’s Alabama Hills, Idaho’s wild Snake River, a goat farm in Selma, Alabama….just to name a few. She had a bandana for every occasion, excellent instincts, licks to give, and no opinions about your artist statement.

She was, in every sense, a road dog.

The Geraldine Road Fund is a small travel grant for Wyoming artists heading into a residency. It exists to lower the barrier between here and the place where the work gets made — gas money, a night on the road, whatever gets you there.

And if your dog is coming with you into residency, we've got a bandana for them. Because some of us don't go into the field alone, and we think that's worth honoring.

  • Please email the following to alcesworks@gmail.com:

    • your acceptance letter from a residency program

    • A short letter of need (no more than one page) telling us what this award would make possible.

  • Rolling — apply anytime.

  • up $250 based on need

  • Wyoming-based artists accepted to an artist residency program anywhere in the country.

  • An artist-edition bandana made by Aubrey . Free, for the dogs who go with you.

Geraldine in residency at the Montello Foundation, in the Great Basin Desert of Northeastern Nevada. 2022

Open call // rolling basis

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Open call // rolling basis 〰️ 〰️

The Snow Survey Natural History Residency

Come spend time in the Snowy Range, where art, science, and storytelling meet. The Snow Survey Natural History Residency invites artists of all kinds to immerse themselves in the Medicine Bow–Routt National Forest, create new work inspired by local ecologies, and share stories that connect people to place.

The residency offers four Wyoming-based naturalists (broadly defined—artists, writers, filmmakers, designers, educators, storytellers, etc.) artists the opportunity to participate in a mini residency to develop work that visually tells the stories of local ecologies and ecosystems. By supporting both artistic practice and environmental storytelling, this residency fosters deep engagement with place while creating meaningful connections between artists, the public, and the natural world.

Each participating resident will be given the opportunity to exhibit work at the Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center Gallery.

  • Please email the following to alcesworks@gmail.com:

    • short letter of interest stating why you’d like to have this residency (250 words max)

    • 3–5 samples of your artwork (any medium).

    • A short bio (150 words max).

  • We accept letters of interest on a rolling basis. Residencies are awarded twice times a year, with notifications sent on the equinoxes.

    • Location: Historic Snow Survey Cabin, along the Snowy Range Scenic Byway in the Brush Creek–Hayden Ranger District of the Medicine Bow–Routt National Forest.

    • Who: Two Wyoming-based naturalists (broadly defined—artists, writers, filmmakers, designers, educators, storytellers, etc.) selected each year.

    • Support: $30 stipend per day + up to 4 nights of accommodation in the Snow Survey Cabin.

    • Opportunity: Time to immerse yourself in the wild, create new work, and visually tell the stories of local ecologies and ecosystems.

    • Exhibition: Residents will be given the opportunity to exhibit work at the Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center Gallery.

    • Flexible Scheduling: Residency dates are set in collaboration with participants. Your time is your own!

See what we've done in the archived calls below

Call expired - this is an archived call

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Call expired - this is an archived call 〰️ 〰️

An American Wake: Filleadh

An American Wake: Filleadh is a transnational public art installation and diaspora exhibition exploring the lives, labor, and legacies of Irish immigrant workers in the American West. The title draws on the Irish ritual of the American Wake — the farewell gathering held the night before emigration, when families mourned a departure understood to be permanent.
Filleadh (FIL-uh) is the Irish word for return, for homecoming.

This exhibition is itself a filleadh — a homecoming — for the ancestral Irish men and women who left County Cork—and the wider island of Ireland—to work in and around the copper mines of Butte, the silver mines of Leadville, and the transcontinental railroad across Wyoming. They built a working-class world in the west, shaped by solidarity, survival, song and a longing for the homelands they left behind for a better world. This exhibition brings our ancestors back home.  

An American Wake: Filleadh will be presented at the Allihies Copper Mine Museum in West County Cork, Ireland, where many of those emigrants began their journeys. A descendant gallery space will present work by 2D artists of Irish descent from Montana, Colorado, and Wyoming — artists whose own roots trace back across the Atlantic — returning their ancestors' stories to the land they left behind.

  • This call is open to artists who meet all of the following criteria:

    • You are an artist working in 2D media

    • You are of Irish descent — your ancestry connects you to the Irish diaspora in any generation

    • You are currently based in Montana, Colorado, or Wyoming—or you call these states home. 

    • You have a specific Irish diasporic ancestor or ancestral community whose story you wish to honor and return home  through your work

    We welcome artists at all career stages, including emerging and self-taught artists. We especially encourage applications from artists whose communities are underrepresented in institutional art contexts.

  • Submit a single PDF or email to ALCES Community Works containing all of the following:

    1. Artist Bio
    A brief biography (150–250 words) that includes your connection to Irish descent or diaspora heritage, your location in Montana, Colorado or Wyoming, and your artistic practice.

    2. Artist Statement
    A statement (250–400 words) describing your proposed work: the specific ancestor or ancestral community you intend to honor, your relationship to that history, and how your artistic approach will reflect that story. Tell us who you are returning to Ireland.

    3. Work Samples
    Three (3) images of recent work representative of your practice and proposed medium. Include image titles, media, dimensions, and year. Images should be JPG or PNG, 300 dpi preferred.

    Submit to: alcesworks@gmail.com

    Subject line: American Wake Open Call — [Your Name]

    Deadline: May 15, 2026

    • Open Call Submission Deadline: June 15, 2026

    • Artist Notifications: June 22,  2026

    • Completed Works Due to ALCES, Laramie, WY: September 1, 2026

    • Exhibition Opens October 1st and on view for the entire month at Allihies Copper Mine Museum, County Cork, Ireland. Please note there is acompanying programming in person on online—schedule TBD

  • Selected artists will produce one original 2D artwork for the exhibition. The work should:

    • Honor a specific Irish diasporic ancestor or Irish emigrant community with ties to Montana, Wyoming, or the broader American West

    • Reflect the artist's own relationship to Irish diaspora history, memory, or identity

    • Be suitable for display in a museum context

    • The entire ready-to-hang work should be no larger than 11”x17” 

    • Be ready to hand-deliver or ship to ALCES Community Works in Laramie, Wyoming by September 1, 2026

  • What ALCES Provides

    • Transport of your completed work from Laramie, Wyoming to the Allihies Copper Mine Museum in County Cork, Ireland

    • Return shipping of your work to Laramie, Wyoming after the exhibition closes

    • Exhibition of your work in an international museum context

    • Recognition in all exhibition materials, including wall text, catalog, and press

    Questions
    We encourage you to reach out with any questions about the call, your eligibility, or your proposed work. This is a community endeavor, and we want every interested artist to feel welcome to apply.


    Contact Irish descendant Aubrey Edwards, Executive Director, ALCES Community Works and exhibition curator at

    alcesworks@gmail.com

Call expired - this is an archived call

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Celebrate Wyoming People’s History book and poster Project

Alces Community Works invites Wyoming artists to contribute to the Celebrate Wyoming People’s History Project, a new series of posters—and future book publication— that honors the untold, overlooked, and powerful stories of our state. This project is developed in partnership with the internationally recognized Celebrate People’s History! poster series created by the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, which for more than 25 years has amplified grassroots movements, collective struggles, and everyday people who shaped history.

We seek Wyoming-based artists, designers, and storytellers to create original poster artworks that uplift little-known histories. We are interested in: individuals whose lives and labor shaped our communities; groups or movements that organized for justice, equity, and dignity; events that reveal Wyoming’s diverse cultural, labor, and social histories; stories that may have been erased, suppressed, or left out of textbooks.

  • Please email the following to aubrey@alcesworks.org:

    • A short letter of interest stating what story you’d like to uplift and why it matters (250 words max).

    • 3–5 samples of your artwork (any medium).

    • A short bio (150 words max).

  • We accept letters of interest on a rolling basis. Acceptance of poster prosals are announced on:
    MLK Day
    César Chávez Day
    May Day
    Juneteenth
    Indigenous People’s Day.

    • Who: Wyoming-based artists, designers, and storytellers (broadly defined—visual artists, printmakers, photographers, illustrators, educators, community historians, etc.). All career stages welcome; priority given to underrepresented voices.

    • Support: Artist honorarium of $300 + publication and distribution of your poster locally and nationally.

    • Opportunity: Create an original poster uplifting an individual, group, event, or movement from Wyoming’s people’s history—stories of labor, resistance, resilience, and cultural heritage often missing from mainstream history.

    • Exhibition: Posters will be exhibited across Wyoming in schools, museums, and community spaces, with opportunities for public programming.

Call expired - this is an archived call

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Artemisia Tridentata
From Rugged Soil

Celebrating Queer Wyoming Artists at MASS Gallery
Exhibition Dates: June 6–July 11, 2026

Alces Community Works invites Wyoming-based queer artists to submit work for Artemisia Tridentata, a multi-artist exhibition at MASS Gallery in Austin, Texas. This exhibition centers queer creativity, resilience, and community in Wyoming and places our voices in dialogue with MASS Gallery’s (inter) national LGBTQIA+ programming.

This exhibition will be a portrait of rural queer futurities, resilience, and imagination across distance—an offering from a rural state to a national audience; a gesture of connection between Wyoming and Austin; and an affirmation that queer creativity thrives everywhere, not in spite of place, but through it.

Please read detailed info on this page. For questions or assistance, please contact:
alcesworks@gmail.com

  • MASS Gallery is a volunteer-run, democratic collective in Austin dedicated to fostering creative and social action within LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities. Their mission includes hosting bi-monthly exhibitions and events, supporting artists with studio space and residencies, and providing a gathering place for marginalized communities. Learn more: massgallery.org/about

  • Artemisia tridentata—the sweet-smelling sagebrush that stretches across Wyoming’s high desert plains and prairie basins—forms one of the most resilient ecosystems in North America. Rooting in harsh conditions, sagebrush thrives despite scarcity, temperature extremes, and winds that reshape the horizon daily. It is a symbol of endurance, adaptation, and the quiet force of life that persists against the odds.

    So too do queer communities across Wyoming.

    In a state of fewer than 600,000 people—where the suicide rate remains among the highest in the nation, where social services continue to be slashed, where no hate crime legislation exists, and where the legacy of Matthew Shepard’s 1998 murder casts a long shadow—rural queer people continue to build connection, cultivate joy, and protect one another. We find and make belonging in places often overlooked on the national cultural map.

    Artemisia tridentata brings this lived landscape into conversation with MASS Gallery’s mission to support LGBTQIA+ artists, foster social action, and host creative work grounded in community. This exhibition centers contemporary queer artists from across Wyoming who will create/refine works grounded in questions and conversations with their local communities. 

    • What do queer spaces, queer safety, and queer joy look and feel like in Wyoming?

    • How do you imagine queer spaces, queer safety, and queer joy in Wyoming? 

    The resulting exhibition is a portrait of rural queer futurities, resilience, and imagination across distance—an offering from a rural state to a national audience; a gesture of connection between Wyoming and Austin; and an affirmation that queer creativity thrives everywhere, not in spite of place, but through it.

    Submissions may respond directly or metaphorically to the theme and may be inspired by personal experience, community dialogue, local histories, or rural queer futurities.

    All mediums are welcome, including but not limited to: painting, sculpture, photography, textiles, installation, video, mixed media, and performance (with documentation).

    • Open Call Released: December 1, 2025

    • Submission Deadline: February 1, 2026

    • Artist Notifications: March 1, 2026

    • Artwork Arrival in Laramie: May 1, 2026
      (Alces will transport all works to Austin)

    • Exhibition at MASS Gallery: June 6– July 11, 2026 

      • Install begins May 30th, deinstall completed July 18th, 2026

    • Works returned via dropoff or shipping by July 30th, 2026

    • Open to queer-identifying artists currently living in Wyoming.

    • Emerging, mid-career, and established artists are encouraged to apply.

    • Artists living across Wyoming, and all rural/remote communities are especially encouraged to submit.

    Artists will be selected through a combination of:

    • Open RFQ submissions

    • Direct invitation

    Selections will be made by Alces Community Works in partnership with MASS Gallery’s member curator Beth Schindler.

  • Artists should submit the following to alcesworks@gmail.com

    1. Artist Statement (250–500 words)

    2. Proposal or Work Samples

      • Up to 10 images, or

      • Up to 5 minutes of video

    3. Short statement (150–300 words) on how your work connects to queer life, space, or joy in Wyoming.

    4. Short letter of intent (150 words) why do you want to show work at Mass Gallery? 

    5. Short bio and contact information

    Proposed works may be new or already completed. Selected artists are welcome to refine or expand work based on community conversations.


    • Travel stipend TBD for artists wishing to attend the opening.

    • Housing provided in Austin for the duration of opening weekend.

    • Artists will be invited to participate in a community conversation at MASS Gallery open weekend.

    • Alces will cover return shipping for all works.

Call expired - this is an archived call

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Call expired - this is an archived call 〰️ 〰️

Stories Held & Shared miniGrants

Alces Community Works invites applications for Stories Held & Shared Minigrants a small-grant program supporting immigrant and first-generation storytellers working in any creative form. These grants provide $100–$500 to support the development and completion of a specific storytelling project, grounded in lived experience, cultural memory, and care.

Grant recipients may choose to host a community-centered public sharing—such as a reading, exhibition, screening, or gathering—with Alces’ support. Public sharing is optional, and storytellers maintain full authority over what is shared, how, and with whom.

We welcome projects across disciplines, including writing, oral history, visual art, sound, performance, film, and hybrid or experimental forms. Storytellers at all stages of practice are encouraged to apply.

Stories Held & Shared honors storytelling as a practice of holding, remembering, and passing along in our Wyoming communities.

Celebrate Wyoming People’s History!

Snow Survey Cabin Science Communicator Residency

The Allihies Copper Mine Museum Descendant Exhibtion