DEPARTISTGet your first read

Hi, my name's
Matt.

I'm an artist, and I hate searching for what to apply to.

So I made an email service that reads your actual work, studies what you make, and every two weeks brings you a tailored briefing of calls built around your read. (example below)

If you want them more often, or something's changed, or the vetted library isn't doing its job, just ask the email. Treat it like an art call assistant, because that's what it is.

The whole point is to make the calls find you.

your first read is free
Get your first read ↓

Nothing generative, nothing trained on your images, nothing kept beyond your profile, nothing sold.

01 · The problem

Built
backwards.

The way artists find opportunities is a dinosaur. Make the work, then stop making it to go search for somewhere to send it. Departist flips that direction. The calls come to you. The format is flipped, artist first.

02 · The read

Departist reads
your work first.

Departist reads your portfolio (or you explain your art to us) then matches your style, medium, and agenda to the top calls in our heavily vetted library.

Nothing generative, nothing trained on your images, nothing kept beyond your profile, nothing sold. The full pledge, in writing: departist.com/pledge

The field is worldwide: calls from any country, gated against yours. If you can't enter it, you never see it.

03 · The vetting

Most calls
die here.

We trash every call that is not acting in the artist's best interest. Fee farms, dead ends, fake calls. We read them all and filter what survives into a channel directed at your individual artwork.

3,000+
Calls read since July
1,233
Trashed for cause
584
Verified end to end
6
Reach your briefing

04 · The honest part

We tell you
why not.

This is what lands in your inbox: a consultant who has actually seen your work, arguing each room's case.

CLOSES MAR 15
2THE GIFT OF TIME · RESIDENCY · ELITE
Roswell Artist-in-Residence
RAiR Foundation · Roswell, New Mexico
WHAT A year of unobstructed studio time for six artists, with an optional solo exhibition
WHO Open internationally. Artists with families welcome. You clear it.
COSTS $26 application
GIVES $1,100 monthly stipend, fully furnished housing, studio space
HOW LONG Twelve months on site, maximum six weeks total absence
ODDS Jury selected. Six residencies per cycle
Apply. The deadline is March, so this one is patience, not panic.
WHY YOU
Their program pays a monthly stipend, furnishes the house, and asks for nothing but that you work. Twelve funded months is more studio time than five years of nights and weekends, and the desert Southwest sits inside your own subject matter.
Families welcome is in their own guidelines. This is the rare year-long door that does not ask you to choose between the work and your life.
AGAINST YOU
A year in Roswell with six weeks of allowed absence is a full life transplant, commissions and all. Six slots per cycle means world-class odds against you no matter how good the pool feels.
They ask for the work and the willingness to move your life for a year. Send one cohesive series and let the year argue for itself. Your call which pieces carry it.
VIEW THE CALL

A real card, built against a real member’s work, facts verified on the program’s own pages in August 2026. The night block belongs to the call. The verdict and the arguments are ours, made against that member’s actual portfolio. Every card carries an AGAINST YOU.

05 · The rhythm

Every two weeks.
Or sooner.

Your briefing lands every two weeks: six calls, argued honestly. But when a call opens that fits your work and its deadline can't wait, you get one card, immediately.

Briefings every two weeks. Alerts when a deadline demands it. Silence otherwise.

06 · The assistant

Just reply.

Your briefing answers back. Reply in plain words and your assistant reads it: “more residencies.” “nothing under $1,000.” “any calls in sunny places?” Your next briefing obeys, or the answer comes back in minutes, in the same cards.

No dashboard. No app. No settings page. An assistant that lives where you already are: your inbox.

07 · Who pays us

Artist funded.

Here's the entire business model: you pay us five dollars a month, and nobody else pays us anything. That five dollars pays for the reading itself: your work studied, the field vetted, the calls tailored to what you actually make.

No listing fees from orgs, no cut of entry fees, no sponsored picks. So when a call is a fee farm or a dead end, cutting it costs us nothing.

The five bucks is the firewall.

Three things we will never do — in writing

08 · Start here

Get your read.

One free read per artist. We read your work once, free, and email you the read.

Membership

Already had your read? Membership is $5 a month, founding price: a fresh Scout Report every two weeks — or however often you’d like it — an assistant that answers when you reply, deadline alerts when something big fits you, cancel anytime in one click.

Become a founding member →

Or take the founding year. $50 once, twelve months covered, price locked for good. Grab the year →

The receipts

Every week we publish what our library actually looks like: how many calls are live, how many are already dead, what entry really costs.

Read the Field Report →

Got your
email.

If nothing lands in your inbox within a few minutes, write us at [email protected] and a human will sort it.

Check your
email.

Your portfolio form just went out. Open it, show us your work, and we'll email back your read.

We've already
read you.

Your free read is done, and it doesn't expire. What you're missing is what's new: a fresh Scout Report every two weeks, matched to your work.

Become a founding member →

You're in
already.

You're a member. Your Scout Reports come straight to your inbox, and every briefing has your manage-membership link in the footer.