Craft Your Creative Career, Your Way.
Experience Meraki Art Institute fully online — or elevate your growth with our virtual + in-person residency pathway.
Our Distinct Pathways
At Meraki Art Institute, every artist begins with the same core mentorship model—yet we recognize that each creative journey requires a different level of immersion, structure, and ennvirnment. That’s why we offer two pathways designed to meet you where you are in your season of growth, while giving you the clarity, mentorship, and professional support to build a sustainable creative career.
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Enrollment opens four times a year on the following dates:
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January 2
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April 1
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July 1
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October 1
Each cohort includes 30 virtual seats and 10 hybrid artist spots, filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Once seats are full, applications roll to the next opening.
01. Virtual Mentorship
Designed for creatives who prefer a fully virtual mentorship experience and need flexible access from any location.
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✓ Lifetime access to the complete Meraki Art Institute curriculum
✓ 2 years of mentorship
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✓ Weekly live virtual mentorship calls
& guidance from working artists
✓ Creative mastery, brand strategy & business development training
✓ Studio development tools, assignments & checkpoints
✓ Private online community for feedback, support & collaboration
✓ Flexible pacing to fit your schedule
✓ Ideal for artists anywhere in the world who want structure without in-person residency
starting at
$299/ a month for 14 months
02. Virtual Mentorship + Artist Residency
For artists who want to combine online learning with in-person immersion.
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✓ Everything included in the Virtual Pathway
✓ 12 month residency inside Meraki Spaces in San Diego, CA
✓ Access to art, photo, and content studios
✓ Hands-on creation time in a professional creative ecosystem
✓ Opportunities to collaborate with local artists & creative entrepreneurs
✓ Real-world experience building portfolio pieces in-studio
✓ Onsite support, community events & creative activations
✓ Ideal for artists ready to embody their growth and work in a physical creative environment
starting at
$450/ a month for 12 months
Our Pillars.
Our curriculum is built upon three core pillars that form the foundation of a sustainable, empowered, and fully expressed creative career.
These pillars guide every lesson, mentorship call, assignment, and activation within the program, ensuring that each artist receives a holistic, future-focused education designed for today’s creative landscape.
1 / Creative Mastery
This pillar focuses on helping artists discover their creative identity, refine their craft, and deepen their artistic voice. We guide students in developing consistent studio practices, expanding their technical range, and cultivating the confidence required to create work that feels authentic, embodied, and distinctly their own. Creative mastery is about understanding who you are as an artist—and creating from that place with clarity and intention.
2 / Brand Strategy
Artists are brands, and in today’s world, a clear brand identity is essential. Through this pillar, students learn how to translate their story, style, and values into a visual and emotional brand that resonates. We teach personal branding, visual strategy, audience development, and storytelling through content, presentation, and positioning. This empowers artists to be recognized, remembered, and sought after in their unique artistic lane.
3 / Business Development
This pillar provides the systems, structure, and strategy that allow artists to build careers with longevity. Students learn the fundamentals of entrepreneurship—pricing, sales, marketing, collector relations, offer creation, launches, financial planning, and sustainable growth models. Our business development education is designed to help artists create opportunities rather than wait for them, cultivating the mindset and practical know-how to generate income doing what they love.
Meet Your Mentors.
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At Meraki Art Institute, your mentors are artists who have carved their own path in creative entrepreneurship. Each mentor brings over 5+ years of lived experience in fields such as fine art, photography, creative direction, design, content creation, and event production. We have each built our craft into a career, learning through practice, intuition, and the courage to create opportunities where none existed.
What makes our mentors unique is the way we teach from the heart of our own journeys. We understand the quiet determination it takes to pursue your art, the discipline behind building a sustainable practice, and the bravery required to share your story with the world. We don’t offer instruction from theory; we offer guidance grounded in real stories, real clients, real collectors, and the real momentum that comes from showing up for your craft and business.
Meraki is built by artists, for artists—and that means we meet you where you are, see your potential clearly, and help you step into the career you’re meant to grow. Our mentorship is less about rules and more about transmission: of perspective, resilience, confidence, and possibility. We’re here to help you rise into the most empowered and fully expressed version of the artist you already are.
Sara Leadbetter, Lake Tahoe CA
“Before joining Meraki I struggled to show up & share my work consistency. Melissa has done an amazing job coaching me through these things. I am so thankful for Meraki, I have found so many opportunities that I wouldn't have found had I kept my work to myself."
Camryn Shulsinger
"Before starting with Meraki I had a really hard time owning the expansive identity as a photographer. I was still new to photography but knew I had a strong passion for it. Being able to have the strategy streamlined, clear & direct by my mentors was a game-changer. And I just said yes to shooting my first paid retreat in Thailand. Had I not joined Meraki, I would not be in this place."
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Shezel Babar, San Diego CA
“What I really love about this program is you not only have access to your mentors, but also an entire network of artists & creative entrepreneurs. Both Olivia & Melissa gave me so much confidence- I saw an instant shift from a finanical prospective as well. I joined Meraki in July, and August has been my biggest month since I launched my brand in December.”