Artist Lecture: Residencies

On Thursday (Happy Halloween!), I went to the PCAC to hear the presentation from a number of professors about Residencies and their benefits to aspiring and established artists.

We were first introduced to a series of websites about residencies that would help anyone to find residencies, with the given example of Community Service residencies in New York City. The idea of a community service residence is intriguing to me, and if I decide to pursue this after school I might look into that.

The first professor to speak was Grant Drumheller, who spoke of his time spent in Rome. He specified that after school was the perfect time for a residency, and that they were typically more for single people. Surprisingly, almost every speaker brought up the fact that a lot of these residencies had a lot of parties and "socializing," and it was put about that subtly.

After Grant, Jenifer Moses talked about Roswell and Seratoga. I personally think I would go a little crazy if I lived a full year in the middle of the desert by myself, and no amount of judging alien dog contests would be able to reprieve my sanity. But the Seratoga Springs residency interested me, specifically because of the history of the program, with so many famous artists going through there, and the history of the manor itself.

Next was Julee Holcomb, who spoke mostly about Skowegan. I found that this presentation was the one I connected to most, because I am mainly a photographer, and she was the only professor there who went with that medium. Some of the other residencies couldn't even be done with photography, so this gave me at least an example of someone who was able to go through a residency in my medium.

Rick Fox was after Julee, and he talked about C-Scape, where he lived on the dunes for several weeks, alone and without any power or freshwater or food (besides what he brought with him). I would love to do this just for the experience (and the fact that I might go a little crazy), but it did not sound like I could do anything like that as a photographer, especially a digital one.

I don't think the second to last professor introduced himself? But he talked about wine and New England beauty a lot so that was cool.

Finally, Leah Woods talked about her residency in Africa where she carved ornate wooden coffins in crazy designs (like a twix wrapper). Her experience was pretty interesting, and I would love to go to Africa to do photography, especially when one of my future dream jobs is working as a Nat Geo photographer.

Despite the fact that I don't think I will ever be able to do a residency, be it for monetary reasons or lacking the artistic ability to do so, I think I learned a great deal about what one can do with art after college, considering I didn't really know what a residency was before. If I ever did want to pursue a more artistic career with my photography, a residency would be a great help and would be a lot of fun (probably).

More Works In Progress

Decided to put the mask on myself for a bit. Its just as creepy from the inside. Also started playing Night of the Living Dead and put the mask in front of that, and the effect is disturbing at best.