Cuyama Action Fellowship
“The Cuyama Action Fellowship is a creative fellowship program facilitated by Blue Sky Center in collaboration with Cuyama Valley organizations, businesses, and communities.”
About Our Fellowship Model
The Fellowship is a program that began in 2016 as a way to invite creatives for extended, project-based residencies to build the capacity of our organization and facilities. We’ve facilitated a handful of residencies with varying structures, from hosting artist cohorts to designers-in-residence with predetermined projects. Our current Fellowships seek to further align our residency program with the opportunities and creative interests of our communities.
Recently, Blue Sky Center collaborated with Quail Springs to host the 2025 Cuyama Water Justice Fellowships. These fellowships were an opportunity for artists to engage the residents of the Cuyama Valley on issues of groundwater and water justice that directly affect their lives. Since 2022, we have partnered with Amplify Arts Project to host the Cuyama Valley Teaching Artist Residency, working with local schools.
Fellows receive a stipend along with a travel allowance and materials/expense fund, along with some family-style meals and free lodging on Blue Sky’s campus.
Recent Fellows
Ash Hanson and Alex Barreto Hathaway, PlaceBase Productions
May 2025, Water Justice Fellowship
The vibrant Celebrate Agua Parade brought the community together through the townsite of New Cuyama to create songs, chants, handmade drums, and giant puppets who embody the River Saint, and the Thirsty Monster. Local youth dressed as Water Protectors and Dust Devils to celebrate, respect and share this precious resource for Cuyama. The process and event were documented with photos and a zine.
Sean Huntley and Alex Brown
March 2025, Water Justice Fellowship
Through the fellowship, the artists created Act 1 of the Dry Horizon documentary film with community voices on the current water issues in Cuyama. Screening was held at Blue Sky Center in October 2025 with a community focus group attending. For the film, artists commissioned an original poem by Cuyama cowboy poet Dick Gibford. They continue to produce Acts 2 and 3 to create a feature-length documentary with other funding.
Rae Garringer
January 2025, Water Justice Fellowship
Rae created the podcast The Battle Over Water Rights in Cuyama, CA. During their time in Cuyama, Rae interviewed local residents in both English and Spanish (with the help of interpreters) to learn about their experiences with the Valley's water crisis. Rae edited these powerful testimonies into an episode for their Country Queers podcast.
Venecia Prudencio
September 2024
Focused on townsites beautification and wayfinding, Venecia worked with Cuyama students and community members on a collective printmaking project called “Bello Valle Cuyama.” This project explored a Cuyama superbloom and all the beauty that goes with it.
Renée Reizman
June 2024
During her residency, Renée focused on exploring Cuyama's relationship to Internet access and net neutrality. The Internet has become an essential resource for people around the globe, however, lack of broadband in the Cuyama Valley makes Internet access unreliable. From conversations with residents, Renée was able to put together a useful cheat sheet detailing the pros and cons of each satellite internet option for residents.
Nhatt Nichols
May 2024
During her fellowship in the Cuyama Valley, graphic journalist Nhatt Nichols interviewed a number of residents and students deeply invested in Cuyama's water and food ways. Each interview was framed by the question, “What will the Cuyama Valley be like in 50 years?” Nhatt compiled these interviews into an illustrated zine distributed to the community and stakeholders.
Daniel Melo Morales
May 2023
During his three weeks in the Cuyama Valley, Daniel developed a collaborative sound map of Cuyama. Residents were given the prompt “Imagine there’s someone who wants to visit New Cuyama but who won’t be able to until next year. They’re excited to know what life sounds like here now,” and asked to record a sound that they felt encapsulated Cuyama.
Josué Muñoz
March 2023
Josué Muñoz focused their time in the Cuyama Valley around what they call "Mindful Media," which is the practice of consuming digital content in thoughtful ways and with the use of clear boundaries. Josué worked with students at the school to develop mindful media practices. From these sessions, Josué created a pamphlet that was distributed throughout the community to share what they learned together.
Michelle Glass
June 2020
Amor. Love. Tiempo. Time. Alegría. Joy. Unidad. Unity. Cuyama Milagros. The words that encompassed our bus stop shelter were determined through conversation between our June 2020 Desert Fellow Michelle Glass and the 26 community members she built relationships with during her rural artist residency. Tin “miracles” - designed during socially distanced community workshops - shake and swing in the desert wind. Blank tags on strings allowed for Cuyamans to come by and leave a wish, an intention, or a gratitude. Michelle says, “Public art is a conversation taking place over space and time.” Milagros (or miracles) can shift our perception from fear to love. The piece was inspired by the Mexican folk art traditions of nichos, three-dimensional display boxes used as portable shrines, and milagros, tin charms that are traditionally used for healing purposes. Made in a variety of shapes representing the body, animals and many other objects, milagros are used to assist in focusing attention towards a specific ailment, need, or wish based on the type of charm used. Milagros’ symbolism is not uniform and can take on individual meanings.
JM Nimocks
October 2019
Joyce Maria Nimocks, artistically known as ‘JOY MA’ is a speculative fiction writer, sound designer, and performer. JOY MA was raised in Chicago with roots in Sunflower, Mississippi. They are most concerned with constructing realities that are utopian and imaginative as a form of radical self-preservation and community organizing. JOY MA was recently the writer-in-residence at ChaNorth Studios in Pine Plains, New York, and is heading to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2020 as a Fulbright scholar.
While collecting sounds and conducting interviews in the Valley, JM asked, “What would Cuyama look like if they were a person?” We listened to our community’s responses at Cuyama Speaks Back!, where students from JM’s creative writing workshops shared their words. As the sun set and community members ate tamales, Cuyama’s middle school students settled into a circle on the grass. “Cuyama is an old man who knows a lot in books but more in hearts”; “She is the god of rainbows and she is the one who makes the rainbows.” Their voices carried through the night as we shared fellowship in the desert and listened to the future of Cuyama speak.
Mayela Rodriguez
June 2019
Mayela Rodriguez is an artist currently residing in Ann Arbor, MI. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, CA. Through sculpture, photography, and community engagement, Rodriguez’s work reimagines how we can collectively heal exclusionary archival practices. Rodriguez completed her B.A. in Art Practice at U.C. Berkeley in 2015 and received her M.F.A. in Art from the University of Michigan in 2019. Rodriguez has shown her work in the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Barbara, CA, and Detroit, MI.
During her fellowship, Mayela held cartonera-making workshops for the residents of the Cuyama Valley. Traditional to Latin America, cartoneras are brightly painted, cardboard-bound books filled with poetry and stories. With the Fourth of July nearing, participants decorated and filled their cartoneras with original stories, thoughts, and drawings about what “independence” means to them. Additionally, Mayela worked with the community to convert the display case behind New Cuyama’s C&H Market into a community art gallery. The cartoneras made during workshops were then exhibited in “Cuyama Cartonera,” the inaugural art show in the new gallery. During the opening celebration, community members nominated and voted on potential names for the art space and Art from the Heart Gallery won!
Claudia Borfiga
March 2019
Claudia Borfiga works across multiple fields, making illustration, design, and printed work. Screen printing is her go-to medium, and she enjoys the collaborative nature of teaching workshops, most recently for Girls Rock and Patagonia. She’s co-founder of the block printed textiles brand Chhipa and put together the project Print Power in Santa Barbara. Her recent practice has been exploring how creative workshops can be used as a tool to foster community.
While in residence, Claudia Borfiga began building a catalog of Cuyama Valley patterns—leading playful “‘pattern hunts” in partnership with our communities to uncover small moments and memory in the in-between spaces that make this Valley home. Weaving together her skills as an educator, screenprinter, and easygoing friend, Claudia’s Fellowship culminated in a screenprinted zine. This final publication, titled “Pattern Hunt / Buscando Patrones” and illustrated by New Cuyama youth, mirrors Claudia’s process as it guides readers through a poetic hunt for patterns of Cuyama.
