Belltower House Artist Residency

A gift of space and time in southern New Mexico.

About the residency:

Belltower House Artist Residency is a gift of space and time. It is granted, free of cost, to artists, writers, and craft practitioners looking for quiet and focus towards their practice.

About the building and grounds:

The Belltower House sits on 50 acres. A dozen kinds of producing fruit trees and vines live on the property amid a few ancient cottonwoods, a spring-fed pond, and acres of rocky hills.

The home is an old adobe, built onto periodically for at least the last 150 years. Through this process of accumulation (a bedroom here, a bathroom there) it has grown into a jumbled structure with bedrooms, an office, living room, kitchen, soaking bathroom, multiple porches, deck, several outbuildings, and the eponymous belltower.

One of those outbuildings is a spring house, which sits over a natural artesian spring that bubbles naturally out of the hillside. This springhouse has been used variably as a studio, dining room, social space, and place of reflection. Plants grow naturally at the spring head and goldfish swim in the pools.

There is also a large barn usable for sculptural work or messy media. (However, there is no power at the barn.)

The residency comes equipped with:

1 queen bed and 1 full bed
Dishes and cookware, linens, basic home needs
Gas stove, microwave, fridge, tiny but powerful dishwasher
A small library of fiction and nonfiction books
High speed internet
Couches
Desks
A record player and wired speakers throughout the house
Washer / Drier
Minisplit heating / cooling units
Two woodburning stoves (one in the house, one in the spring house)
A piano (very out of tune right now)
A matte Frame TV
Kitchen herbs (rosemary, oregano, sage, chives, hops)

About the area:

The residency is in Palomas Canyon, a farming valley 15 minutes from Truth or Consequences, NM.

Truth or Consequences (population 5000) is known for its hotsprings. There are a dozen different bathhouses available to soak in. There is also a local movie theatre, a brewery, galleries, a few restaurants, a bakery, a coffeeshop, a local grocery, a weekly farmer’s market, a bulk order food coop, and a Walmart. It’s a very quirky and pleasant place to be.

Palomas Canyon is a working agricultural valley. While there is a lot of space around the residency, sound carries. You will hear dogs, farm equipment or guns (both target practice and hunting) at times.

People travel here both for stargazing (a dark sky spot) and birdwatching (directly on the migration paths of many species, including the Sandhill Cranes which overwinter here).

Getting here:

The closest working airports are Albuquerque and El Paso, both 2 hours away by car. The closest train goes to Deming, NM. Las Cruces, which is an hour south, is the nearest place for a “city day”– with late night coffeeshops, theaters, a mall, natural food stores, a university, etc.

While there is a bus from Truth or Consequences once a day to Albuquerque, and a few regional transit options that you can piece together to Las Cruces or El Paso, the residency itself cannot be reached without a car.

The Residency Experience:

Requirements and expectations:

A car is required to get here. Being able to drive is a must.
The desert is very peaceful, but also demanding (dust! snakes! hot! cold! altitude!)– please be prepared for rural living
This is a country house. Bugs, power flickers, and wind-based power outages can and do happen.
While the house does not have stairs, the ground is rough and doorframes are small. Those with mobility impairments should reach out with specific needs
It can get lonely here– solitude should sound peaceful not scary
There are days where eating out in town is hard (most things are closed Monday / Tuesday) – being able to cook or snack at home is important
This is a beloved shared space. Please be clean and respectful, above all else.

Application and selection:

Applications are project-based and welcomed across media and discipline, including digital media. Wet, messy or toxic media must be used outside, in the spring house or in the barn– not the house.

Only one resident / project will be accepted at a time. Collaborations are welcome but residents should be prepared to share private spaces. If you would like to apply with a creative partner while working on different projects, please submit separate applications but indicate that you would like to be in residence together. Families, partners, and pets are generally welcomed but require discussion around specific circumstance. Please indicate if you would be travelling with a companion on your application.

Residents are selected through a review process by a small panel of involved and local artists, writers, and poets. Submissions are weighed through a combination of creative promise, relevance and feasibility of proposed project, benefit of the residency to career or practice, fit with rural living requirements, and genre and medium balance with the season’s other residents.

Required application materials:

CV / Resume
Portfolio of 10 past works
Brief artist statement
A project description of what you would like to work on in residence
A short statement about what this opportunity would mean to you at this time
A $10 application fee

Residents are asked to donate a token of their practice at the end of the residency, such as a drawing, a print, copies of a chapbook, etc.

2026 Residency Dates:

Spring 2026 -

Session 1: April 1 - May 13 (5 weeks)
Session 2: May 20 - June 24 (6 weeks)

Fall 2026 -

Session 3: August 26 - Oct 7 (6 weeks)
Session 4: Oct 14 - Nov 18 (5 weeks)

Residencies are 5 to 6 weeks in length and begin and end on a Wednesday.

Belltower House Artist Residency is currently accepting applications for the 2026 residency year!

Apply to the Spring 2026 Session (rolling, open till filled)

Apply to the Fall 2026 Session (deadline: June 1, 2026)

Contact:

Belltower House Artist Residency is run by Everest Pipkin, with help from Quail.

Please direct all questions to belltowerhouseresidency@gmail.com.