The Cedar Blend Line residency is not a retreat. There is no countryside, no isolation, no chef. It is a studio in the back of a working gallery on a busy tourist lane in Higashiyama, Kyoto, and on Friday and Saturday afternoons the door is open and visitors walk through. That is the point. We are interested in artists who can work in that condition, and in the conversations that happen when someone who has never thought about art before watches a person making it.

The studio space

The studio is about 25 square metres with a north-facing skylight, a workbench, a small electric kiln rated to 1,280 degrees Celsius, a deep sink, and a wall of open shelving. It connects to the main gallery through a narrow corridor. The resident has access to the studio from 8:00 to 20:00 daily. The gallery team is present during gallery hours, Wednesday through Sunday, and largely leaves the resident alone outside of the Friday and Saturday open sessions.

What past residents have made

Hana Fujiwara, the 2023 resident, came in with a question about how wood-ash glaze behaves on low-fire clay bodies. She spent the four weeks running tests, failing repeatedly, and eventually producing a series of small bowls with a glaze surface she had not seen before. Those bowls became the foundation of a show she mounted in Kanazawa six months later. Daisuke Ono, the 2024 resident, spent his four weeks on a single large-format painting. He finished it on the last day of the residency. It sold to a collector from Berlin who had visited the gallery on a Saturday afternoon and watched him work.

The terms

The residency is unpaid. Cedar Blend Line provides the studio space and materials storage at no cost. The resident keeps all work made during the residency period. Cedar Blend Line takes no commission on any sales that result from residency work, including works sold during or after the residency. We do not provide accommodation, but we can help with introductions to short-term rentals in the neighbourhood. Most residents find something within a ten-minute walk for between 80,000 and 120,000 yen for the month.

How to apply

Applications open each July and close on August 15. Send a brief description of the project you want to work on during the residency, a link to your portfolio, and a short note on why October in Kyoto is the right time for this particular project. We are not looking for general studio time. We are looking for artists at a specific point in a body of work who have a reason to be in this space at this time. Applications to hello@cedarblendline.com with the subject line 'Residency 2026'. We respond to all applications by September 1.

The 2026 residency application window is open now through August 15. If you have questions before applying, you are welcome to visit the gallery and see the studio space in person. We are open Wednesday through Sunday, 11:00 to 18:00.