Rebekah Bogard has been awarded a prestigious 3 month residency at John Michael Kohler Arts Center. 

Out of 349 applicants, she is one of 14 artists selected to attend.  The selection committee took great care to choose those artists whose exceptional work and character embody and echo the profound accomplishments of successful alum of the Arts/Industry residency program at Kohler. There is a forty-year legacy of innovation and imagination to uphold.  The artists were selected to augment and continue the progress of that legacy.

Founded in 1873, Kohler Co. has become the nation’s leading manufacturer of plumbing and specialty products as well as the third largest generator manufacturer of four-cycle gasoline and diesel engines. 

The Arts/Industry residency program is built into the industrial component at Kohler.  It is often cited as the most unusual ongoing collaboration between the arts and industry in the United States.  Conceived and managed by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center if Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the program is open to artists worldwide.  It makes industrial technologies and facilities available to artists through long-term residencies so that they may further explore their artistic explorations.  Major funding is provided by Kohler Co.

The primary component of Arts/Industry is a residency program in the industrial Pottery of Kohler Co.  Artists have the opportunity to spend two to six months creating works of art utilizing the industrial materials and equipment.  Participants are exposed to a body of technical knowledge that enables them to explore forms and concepts not possible in their own studios and to undertake fruitful new ways of thinking and working.

Artists-in-residents are given studio space in the factory that generally is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  In addition, they receive free materials, use of equipment, technical assistance, photographic services, housing, round-trip transportation, and, for American artists, modest honoraria.