About
We've spent decades teaching people that they're more capable than they think.
Artist in Residence is what happens when two art educators decide to stop waiting for people to walk into a classroom and start shipping the classroom to them instead.
Cathy's Story
Her studio practice is rooted in the belief that art doesn't require a gift, it requires a starting point. She's watched students walk in convinced they couldn't make anything worth keeping and leave with something they were genuinely proud of. That experience, repeated hundreds of times, is what drove her to build a system that could deliver it to anyone, anywhere.
Jamie's Story
Jamie spent over 15 years teaching art in formal education settings across the country before landing back in Phoenix. That career gave her something most art educators don't have: a deep, tested understanding of exactly how to teach someone who believes they have no talent. She knows the specific moment a beginner's doubt turns into confidence. She's designed Artist in Residence projects to manufacture that moment, every single month.
Why We Built This
We have a passion for helping people discover or rekindle their artistic journeys.
Every time someone said "I'm not creative" or "I could never do that," we heard a person who had been told the wrong story about themselves. Art isn't a talent. It's a skill. And like every skill, it responds to the right instruction, the right materials, and a project designed to succeed.
That's what Artist in Residence is. It's not a craft kit. It's not a box of random supplies. It's a curriculum-based art experience built by two educators who know exactly what it takes to get a result that makes you proud, and who have dedicated their careers to making that result available to everyone.
The Blank Canvas Philosophy
Why everything here is black and white.
The site is black and white on purpose. When everything around the art is neutral, the work inside the box becomes the color. That's the experience we're building. The supplies disappear into the background. The art you make is what you see.
The supplies are professional grade because a beautiful result is only possible with materials that can actually deliver one. We've watched students struggle with cheap brushes that don't hold paint and student-grade pigments that don't blend. We don't put those in the box. Your result depends on what's inside, and we take that seriously.
The AIR Standard
What sets Artist in Residence apart.
There are a lot of craft kits in the world. Most of them are built around the box, not the result. The supplies are chosen for cost, the instructions are minimal, and the finished project is whatever you manage to make on your own.
That's not what we do.
Every Artist in Residence project starts with the finished piece. We work backward from the result to determine which supplies, which technique, and which tutorial will get a complete beginner to that result consistently. If a supply doesn't perform at a level that makes the project work, we don't use it. If an instruction isn't clear enough for someone who has never done this before, we rewrite it. The standard is simple: every person who opens this box should be able to make something they're proud of.