Apply - Recology San Francisco

APPLY TO THE PROGRAM

Applications are accepted June 1 through September 1, 2025 for residencies beginning February 2026. To be eligible, artists must first attend an on-site tour then complete and submit an online application.

Please note, we do not provide housing and artists must currently live in the San Francisco Bay Area to be considered for the residency.

Selection

Our advisory board, which is composed of former artists-in-residence, arts professionals, environmentalists, and educators, reviews applications in October and selects eight to ten candidates to interview in November.

The board evaluates applications based on the artist’s submitted work samples and proposal, the ability of the artist to respond to the challenges that come with scavenging for materials, and how the residency can provide the artist with professional growth. The board also considers the artist’s use of materials and the types of tools available in the studio.

Recology awards six artists residencies annually. Residencies run from February – May, June – September, and October – January.

Eligibility

We accept applications from local emerging, mid-career, and professional artists. Students currently enrolled at a local college, university, or other educational institution must apply to the student residency program (more information below). We do not accept applications from artists who reside more than a one-hour drive from the San Francisco Transfer Station (401 Tunnel Ave.).

Student Artists

The Student Artist in Residence Program is specifically designed for those studying art at local San Francisco Bay Area colleges and universities. Though similar to the professional artist-in-residence program, the time expectations and structure of the student program are more flexible.

The program provides students with a 40ft retrofitted shipping container studio, access to materials, and an exhibition at the end of their residency. Student residencies run concurrently with the main residency program. Applications are accepted June 1 through September 1, 2025 for residencies beginning in February 2026. Three student artists are selected each year. Student artists must first attend an on-site tour then complete and submit an online application in order to be eligible for a residency. Student artists are selected by staff and the newly formed Student Advisory Board composed of former Recology student artists: Rabbit Garcia, Deena Qabazard, and Daniela Tinoco.

We will not be accepting applications from international students for 2026 residencies.

2024 Advisory Board

Michael Arcega
Artist (AIR Program Alumnus), Professor of Art, SFSU
Interdisciplinary artist Michael Arcega works across media to create art that is informed by language, history, and geography. In his work he adopts methodologies used in the anthropological study of world cultures that often emphasize “otherness,” but Arcega turns the tables, positioning North America as ‘the other” whose symbols and rituals must be studied and understood. Though a socio-political critique, Arcega’s work also has a playful element, providing familiar entry points to alternative ways of thinking about the people who colonize the landscape. Arcega is a Professor of Art, and a Sculpture and Expanded Practice and Graduate Coordinator at San Francisco State University. He received an MFA from Stanford University and a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2012, he was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work has been exhibited at the Asia Society in New York, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Honolulu Academy of Art, and the Orange Country Museum of Art in Newport Beach.

Charmin Roundtree-Baaqee
Owner, Founder of Art is Luv
Co-chair City of Oakland Public Art Advisory Committee
Charmin Roundtree is a Bay Area native, Civil-Environmental Engineer, curator, and public art manager with over 15 years experience in large scale project management, art procurement, community engagement consulting, and community service through mentoring and board service. She joined the Recology Artist in Resident Board in 2021 and is a board member of the Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, CA. Her most recent board appointment is with the Berkeley Art Museum and Film Archive (BAMPFA) and she is currently a program ambassador for the Berkeley Repertory Theater. Her love for art, the environment, and the communities that uplift humanity’s cultures are central to her work as an artist and arts worker.

JD Beltran
Artist, Educator and Founder, Center for Creative Sustainability and Co-Founder, Art + Water
Commissioner and former President, San Francisco Arts Commission
JD Beltran, an award-winning artist, filmmaker, writer, and creative infra-structuralist, founded the Center for Creative Sustainability and co-founded with Dave Eggers the artist residency Art + Water in San Francisco, forging innovative collaborations and solutions to support artists, creatives, and the creative economy. First appointed by now California Governor Gavin Newsom, Beltran has served on the San Francisco Arts Commission for over 16 years and was President for 8 years. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally, including at the Walker Art Center, the SFMOMA, The M.H. de Young Museum, the Getty Institute, The Kitchen in New York, MIT Media Lab, Cité des Ondes Vidéo et Art Électronique in Montreal, ProArte in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Fei Contemporary Art Center in Shanghai, China. Her work also is in the permanent collections of museums throughout the country. Beltran is a professor in Art, Design, and Technology, having taught at the San Francisco Art Institute and CCA, and San Francisco State University and currently at Stanford University.

Terry Berlier
Artist (AIR Program Alumnus), Professor of Art, Stanford
Terry Berlier is an interdisciplinary artist who investigates the evolution of human interaction with queerness and ecologies. She has exhibited in solo and group shows in North America, Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia including the Marc Chagall National Museum in France, Museum of Old and New Art in Australia, Contemporary Art + Spirits in Osaka, Japan, EMPAC at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. She has received numerous residencies and grants including the Creative Work Fund Grant, Stanford Faculty Creative Project Seed Grant, Center for Cultural Innovation Grant, the Zellerbach Foundation, and the Arts Council Silicon Valley Artist Fellowship. Her work has been reviewed in the Art in America, BBC News Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, published in the book ‘Seeing Gertrude Stein’ University of California Press, and ‘Slant Step Book: The Mysterious Object and The Artworks it Inspired’. Her sound sculptures can be heard on Earthly Records “A Kind Of Ache” with Sarah Hennies and The Living Earth Show. Berlier is a Professor of Art, by Courtesy Professor of Music, Director of the Sculpture Lab, Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Art and Art History at Stanford University since 2007.

Kevin B. Chen
Curator, Artist, Educator
Kevin B. Chen has been an active presence in the Bay Area arts community for over three decades, working as a curator, visual artist, and educator. He currently serves as faculty in the School of Art and curator at the Fine Arts Gallery at San Francisco State University and as a member of Root Division’s Curatorial Committee. He previously served as co-chair for the City of Oakland’s Public Art Advisory Committee, managed the Artist Residency Program at the de Young Museum, and taught at Stanford University, Mills College, and California College of the Arts. He has curated exhibitions and projects for Headlands Center for the Arts, Minnesota Street Project, University of Nevada Reno, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Art Institute, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries, SOMArts Cultural Center, and Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco & Kearny Street Workshop. As a visual artist, his work has been exhibited at venues such as the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Southern Exposure, and The Kitchen.

Elena Gross
Writer, Curator
Elena Gross is the Director of Exhibitions & Public Programs at the GLBT Historical Society and an independent writer and curator living in Oakland, CA. They specialize in representations of identity in fine art, photography, and popular media. Elena’s research has been centered around conceptual and material abstractions of the body in the work of Black modern and contemporary artists and most recently in queer artistic and literary histories of the late 20th century. Elena is the co-editor, along with Julie R. Enszer, of OutWrite: The Speeches that Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture (Rutgers University Press), winner of the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Anthologies.

Jamil Hellu
Visual Artist (AIR Program Alumnus)
Through an interdisciplinary studio practice rooted in photography, Jamil Hellu creates personal and politically charged projects to expand the discourse on identity representation. His work is a dynamic exploration of queerness, community, and cultural heritage. Hellu earned his MFA in Art Practice from Stanford University and has exhibited widely. His projects have been supported by grants and residencies such as the Fleishhacker Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and the Headlands Center for the Arts. He is an active participant in the San Francisco Bay Area arts community and is a Photography Lecturer in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University.

Jonathan Carver Moore
Gallery Owner
Jonathan Carver Moore is the founder and director of Jonathan Carver Moore, a contemporary art gallery that specializes in working with emerging and established artists who are BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and women. As an openly gay Black male gallerist in San Francisco, Jonathan is dedicated to advocating for the arts and is an active member in the Bay Area’s creative community. He is the Development Chair at arts education non-profit, Root Division and he also serves on the advisory board at Black [Space] Residency.

Deborah Munk
Manager, Recology Artist in Residence Program
Deborah Munk has served as the Director of the Artist in Residence Program (AIR) at Recology San Francisco since 2007. She also manages the Environmental Learning Center where the company provides educational tours about resource conservation to thousands of children and adults annually. In collaboration with Metro, ReClaim It, and Recology colleagues, Munk played a key role in establishing the GLEAN Program in Portland, OR, as well as the COAR Program in Astoria, OR, and the King County Recology AIR Program in Seattle, WA. She has also helped guide the implementation of several other AIR programs at Recology facilities in California and Oregon. Prior to joining Recology as AIR Program Coordinator in 2000, she was the assistant editor of Art/Women/California 1950-2000: Parallels and Intersection, published by UC Press. She is a graduate of San Francisco State University and holds an MA in Educational Technology focusing on art and media.

Advisory Board Emeritus

Catharine Clark
Gallery Owner
Catharine Clark is owner and director of the Catharine Clark Gallery established in San Francisco in 1991. The gallery represents contemporary artists working across media, and hosts changing exhibitions of both static and time-based media. In addition to presenting regular exhibits in San Francisco, Clark began quarterly programming of a pop-up exhibition space in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood in March of 2009. Clark is a San Francisco native, but ventured to Philadelphia in 1985 to attend the University of Pennsylvania where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Art, returning to San Francisco in 1989. Since then she has guest lectured and taught at art schools, universities, museums and other institutions. In 2006 Clark authored an essay for and edited the monograph, Ascending Chaos: The Art of Masami Teraoka 1966-2006, published by Chronicle Books. She is a member of the San Francisco Art Dealers Association, and a trustee of ZER01, the art and technology network.

Josephina (Josie) Dominguez-Chand
Environmental Education Coordinator, SF Department of the Environment
Josie Dominguez-Chand is the Environmental Education Coordinator at the San Francisco Department of the Environment, where she oversees outreach to K-12 public and private schools that reaches more than 15,000 students annually. She also runs the Food to Flowers! school composting program, lauded as a national model. Before joining SF Environment in 2010, she was a volunteer English Teacher in China with WorldTeach. She received her Master’s Degree in Environmental Earth Resource Management. When she isn’t inspiring and motivating students to protect nature, she enjoys backpacking around the world.

Paul Fresina
Former Director, Recology Artist in Residence Program
Paul Fresina served as Director of the Recology San Francisco Artist in Residence Program from 2000 to 2007, and was Director of the company’s Hazardous Waste Programs from 2004 to 2007. Before coming to Recology, Fresina was the Business Program Manager at the San Francisco Hazardous Waste Management Program at the San Francisco Department of the Environment. He was an instructor of Instructional Technologies at San Francisco State University from 1991 to 2006. He currently serves as the Vice President of Operations at SCRAP (Scrounger’s Center for Reusable Art Parts) and is a self-employed handyman.

Diana Fuller
Curator
Diana Fuller is a free-lance curator, producer, editor, and arts administrator. Currently she serves as a consultant to artists and filmmakers and is researching a documentary film on the subject of garbage, recycling and landfill, RACING TO ZERO. She is the on-going, program director for the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Screenwriting Program. In 2003, Fuller produced Art/Women/California 1950-2000: Parallels and Intersections, which involved a book, published by University of California Press, and a traveling exhibition originating at the San Jose Museum of Art. She has served as the President of the Film Arts Foundation board, was a founding board member of the Headland Center for the Arts, and is currently on the executive board of the Roxie Theater. From 1960 to 1990, she owned and directed one of the foremost galleries in the West, in tandem with several partners: Hansen Fuller, Hansen Fuller Goldeen, Fuller Goldeen, Fuller Goldeen Gross and finally Fuller Gross.

Dee Hibbert-Jones
Artist (AIR Program Alumnus)
Dee Hibbert-Jones is a former Recology artist-in-residence (2002). Her cross-disciplinary art projects range from participatory practice, installations, video and most recently an animated film project. Her work explores political feelings, social connectedness, and emotional affect. Hibbert-Jones is an Associate Professor of Art and Digital Art New Media at UC Santa Cruz and founder/co-chair of the Hub Social Practice Research Institute at UCSC.

Tamar Hurwitz
Environmental Education Manager, SF Department of the Environment
Tamar Hurwitz is the Environmental Education Manager at the San Francisco Department of the Environment, where she oversees outreach to K-12 public and private schools that annually reaches more than 15,000 students. Before joining SF Environment in 2003, Hurwitz was the Education Outreach Director at Rainforest Action Network for eight years, where she developed programs and curriculum, and produced an award-winning children’s video. Hurwitz has worked internationally in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme, and is an active Committee Member on the San Francisco-Bangalore Sister City Committee and San Francisco-Barcelona Sister City Committee.

Andrew Junge
Artist (AIR Program Alumnus)
Andrew Junge is a former Recology artist-in-residence (2005). Junge grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the son of a historian and a teacher. He earned his BFA in painting from Boston University in 1990 and twelve years later received an MFA in painting and drawing from California College of the Arts. He and his wife Ashley, a photographer, live in San Francisco with their son Walker, born in 2007. Junge enjoys a variety of artistic pursuits including, printmaking, sculpture, illustration, design, and murals. In the last few years however, the work that has occupied most of his attention is his current job as Chair of the Visual Art Department at Oakland School for the Arts.

Bette McKenzie
Co-chair, St. Vincent de Paul’s Discarded to Divine
Bette McKenzie is currently the co-chair of St Vincent de Paul’s Discarded to Divine and is an active volunteer at the Fund Development Office for Oakland School for the Arts. She served as VP of Special Events and Public Relations for Macy’s from 1978 to 2009 and was the creator of Passport, which brings together corporate sponsors, foundations, and major donors to benefit nonprofits and medical research. Passport has raised close to $30 million for HIV/AIDS organizations and has educated thousands of teenagers on HIV/AIDs awareness. McKenzie lives her life with the desire to reuse, recycle and repurpose and has helped contribute to a more sustainable community through art, fashion and education.

Hector Dio Mendoza
Artist (AIR Program Alumnus)
Hector Dio Mendoza was an artist-in-residence at Recology in 2005. He has exhibited widely including at the Berkeley Art Museum, the 2010 ZERO 1 Biennial in San Jose, California, and the El Paso Museum of Art, as well as internationally in Spain, Mexico, Germany and Switzerland. He is a recipient of a Eureka Fellowship Award and his work is included in the di Rosa Collection in Napa, California. He holds an MFA from Yale University School of Art, and a BFA, Summa Cum Laude, from the California College of the Arts. He is currently a lecturer in the Visual and Public Art Department of the California State University, Monterey Bay.

Rachel Pomerantz
Environmental Education Coordinator, SF Department of the Environment
Rachel Pomerantz is the Environmental Education Coordinator at the San Francisco Department of the Environment, where she oversees outreach to K-12 public and private schools that reaches more than 15,000 students annually. She also runs the Food to Flowers! school composting program, lauded as a national model. Before joining SF Environment in 2007, Pomerantz co-founded and ran Nomad Backcountry Adventures, a wilderness adventure program for teens. She received her Master’s Degree in Postcolonial Anthropology with an emphasis on education and environmental justice and has worked in the education field for nearly two decades—from within gardens to Superfund sites and classrooms. Her highest ongoing achievement is parenting two children who love nature and inquire about the world around them.

Kate Rhoades (2019 guest advisory board member)
Artist (AIR Program Alumnus)
Kate Rhoades lives and works in Oakland, California. Her videos, paintings, and publications employ humor to probe systems of power. Her work has been presented in the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Santa Fe International New Media Festival. Rhoades has participated in exhibitions at Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn, Southern Exposure in San Francisco, and various venues, publications, hotel rooms and alley ways across the globe. Since 2014 she has co-hosted the Bay Area’s number one arts and culture podcast, Congratulations Pine Tree. Rhoades was also one of the Fleishhacker Foundation’s Eureka Fellowship grantees in 2018.

Shawn Rosenmoss
Fundraising/Grants Manager, SF Department of the Environment
Shawn Rosenmoss is a Senior Environmental Specialist with the San Francisco Department of the Environment, where she oversees Development and Community Partnerships. In addition to raising funds for specific environmental initiatives, she is responsible for developing environmental partnerships with myriad entities not driven by an environmental mission, such as Greenstacks, an award-winning collaboration with the City’s Public Library system. Rosenmoss also oversees programming and exhibits for the Department’s EcoCenter and supports its annual grant-making process. Prior to joining SF Environment, Rosenmoss ran a Bay Area circus whose mission was to provide equitable access to the performing arts and use the arts as an avenue for social change.

Weston Teruya (2018 guest advisory board member)
Artist (AIR Program Alumnus)
Weston Teruya is a former Recology Artist-in-Residence (2016). He has exhibited at Mills College Art Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Longhouse Projects & the NYC Fire Museum in New York, and the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. He has received grants from the Creative Work Fund, Artadia, and the Center for Cultural Innovation and been an artist-in-residence at Montalvo Arts Center, Ox-Bow, the deYoung Museum, and Kala Art Institute. He is the producer & host of (un)making, a podcast through Art Practical, and one-third of Related Tactics, a collective of artists/writers/curators of color. www.westonteruya.com

Steven Wolf
Gallery Owner
Steven Wolf is a writer and an art dealer based in San Francisco. His gallery, Steven Wolf Fine Arts, specializes in art that questions its own right to exist; his blog, theoffbrand.com, covers the world of discarded objects that are resurrected at the flea market and elsewhere.