Vol. 44, No. 1, Summer 2015
IN THIS ISSUE
Sheedy Fellowship Supports Writing from Cultural Difference Gunther Schuller: Renaissance Man and 56th Medalist Meredith Monk Celebrates 50 Years of Performance Shop Reborn as Eastman Studio
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LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
❱❱ UPDATE
We Have Much to Celebrate
Chambers Fellowships Sustain Writers of Long-Form Journalism
We have a lot to celebrate at The MacDowell Colony this season. First and foremost we hope you’ll join us to honor Gunther Schuller with the 56th Edward MacDowell Medal during our public Medal Day ceremony on August 9. While Maestro Schuller’s wide-ranging musical genius, his seismic impact on both jazz and classical genres, and his lifelong contribution to our culture is more than enough reason to get together, we also look forward to marking the achievements of our artists-in-residence as they open their studios after the ceremony. We also honor our donors and volunteers who make Medal Day possible, and support the entire notion of providing a place in the world for artists so the world can benefit from their art. We’ve recently announced two exciting initiatives aimed at expanding the creative possibilities for artists. Our Art of Journalism Initiative, with a lead gift of $1.5 million from the Calderwood Charitable Foundation, including a challenge to raise another million, aims to endow 10 new fellowships for writers engaged in narrative nonfiction. Amos Kamil, Zahir Janmohamed, and Erin Sroka have been named Anne Cox Chambers Fellows, inaugurating the program. We also revealed last month that we accepted an anonymous gift in honor of literary agent Charlotte Sheedy, whose 40-year career championing new voices changed what America reads. We continue our celebratory mood by welcoming three new members to our board of directors. Christine Fisher brings a wealth of experience in business and management to our board, Julie Orringer is a fiction writer who has been in residence at the Colony three times, and Carol Ostrow is the producing director of The Flea Theater in Tribeca. We were also thrilled to add four new volunteers to the Fellows Executive Committee (FEC) in April. We welcome visual artist Rosemarie Fiore, interdisciplinary artist Larry Krone, composer Scott Wheeler, and writer Paula Whyman to the valuable group. Thank you to all the Fellows who have helped this past season in so many ways. We hope to see you all in Peterborough in August.
Cheryl A. Young, Executive Director
SHEEDY FELLOWSHIP SUPPORTS COMMITMENT TO LITERARY DIVERSITY Chairman and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon announced a new fellowship in honor of literary agent Charlotte Sheedy. Chabon credited Sheedy’s embrace of writers working from a place of cultural difference during festivities at MacDowell’s annual National Benefit in New York City on May 18. A $200,000 gift from an anonymous donor will fund an annual residency of up to two months at the Colony. The Charlotte Sheedy Fellowship will be awarded to writers representing populations across racial and cultural boundaries. In many ways, this award reinforces MacDowell’s commitment to inclusivity in support of those who would become great contributors to the literary canon, such as James Baldwin, Pauli Murray, Eileen Chang, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Louise Erdrich, Oscar Hijuelos, and 2014 National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson. “The MacDowell Colony commits itself, every day, to supporting, fostering, and nurturing diverse artists in their daily struggle to make art,” Chabon said. “That commitment is written into the Mission Statement. It’s been coded into MacDowell’s DNA from the day in 1954 that James Baldwin walked into Baetz Studio and got down to work.” Chabon pointed to like-minded values that characterize Sheedy’s career. While a student at Columbia University scouting for Dial Press, Sheedy attended the Columbia Women’s Liberation Conference and discovered the first book she’d usher into publication. The success of Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller, one of the earliest, explicitly lesbian literary novels to be published by a mainstream publishing house, led to her first client, black poet and activist Audre Lorde. It also led to her first bestseller, Marilyn French’s revolutionary feminist novel, The Women’s Room. Thus began a 40-year career championing groundbreaking writers. “Isolation, indifference, and lack of opportunity are the common lot of artists everywhere, but for an artist marginalized by cultural difference, as Charlotte Sheedy has always known, those effects are trebled by an inheritance of cruelty and injustice,” said Chabon. “They are intensified by mechanisms of discrimination both covert and plain as day. For these artists the struggle to make art takes a deeper toll and can lead to deeper despair. “The MacDowell Colony has always been, and will always fight to remain, an enemy of that despair, and of the indifference, isolation, and injustice that array themselves against so many working artists. This amazing gift, honoring a remarkable woman who has long been a staunch advocate for and nurturer of writers, will allow MacDowell to fight harder, and hopefully to lasting effect, on behalf of those whose struggle has been so long, hard, and wearying.”
FELLOWS WIN 2015 PULITZER PRIZES IN MUSIC AND POETRY Congratulations to writer Gregory Pardlo for winning the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his collection Digest, his second volume of poetry. Pardlo, who was in residence in 2001 and 2009, saw his book rejected by most of the major publishers when he first sent it out in 2010. It was finally published in the fall of 2014 by the literary press Four Way Books. According to the Pulitzer jury, Digest is a collection of “clear-voiced poems that bring readers the news from 21st Century America, rich with thought, ideas and histories public and private.” Composer Julia Wolfe, who was in residence in 1989, was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her oratorio Anthracite Fields. The piece was premiered on April 26, 2014, in Philadelphia by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Gregory Pardlo in which she co-founded with MacDowell Fellows David Lang and Michael Star Studio in 2009 Gordon in 1987, and the Mendelssohn Club Chorus. It was cited as “a powerful oratorio for chorus and sextet evoking Pennsylvania coal-mining life around the turn of the 20th Century” by the Pulitzer jury in music. These two awards bring the total number of Pulitzers awarded to MacDowell Fellows to 77 since the award was first presented in 1917!
The inaugural Anne Cox Chambers Fellowships in Journalism have been awarded to writers Zahir Janmohamed, Amos Kamil, and Erin Sroka. Part of the recently launched Art of Journalism Initiative, the fellowships were established in honor of Chambers’ generosity to The MacDowell Colony and the Cox family’s legacy in the media industry. Chambers has served on the MacDowell board of directors since 1987. A collaboration with news organizations, journalism schools, and others in the field, the Art of Journalism Initiative is responding to the shifting media economy, which in this era of fast news and free content often squeezes out writers who go deeper in reporting the news. From the days when James Baldwin was in residence, MacDowell has long been a champion of literary non-fiction. That support continues today with writers like Janmohamed, Kamil, and Sroka, whose 2014 residencies were supported by the Chambers Fellowships. At the Colony, Janmohamed worked on his book about the 2002 riots in Gujarat, India, and the experience of living as a Muslim minority. Kamil finished a book based on his Pulitzer Prize-nominated New York Times Magazine cover story on the Horace Mann School sexual abuse case. Sroka completed a magazine excerpt of her book about the for-profit bingo business. Another recent MacDowell Fellow, Michael Paterniti, notes that it’s becoming rare for writers to get the green light to dig into stories like these. He points to the need for new models of support like MacDowell’s. “In this moment, it’s vital,” says Paterniti, a regular contributor to GQ and author of the recently released Love and Other Ways of Dying. “This ... is the burgeoning form of our time. All writers working in this form are experiencing a constant fight for survival.” With a goal of investing $4.5 million in projects like these, the Journalism Initiative will double the Colony’s support of journalists by endowing 20 fellowships to be awarded annually. So far, $2.1 million has been raised, including $600,000 from Chambers, which helped seed the initiative. Every gift received going forward will be matched up to $1 million by the Stanford Calderwood Charitable Foundation. The value of this support is immeasurable, according to MacDowell’s Executive Director Cheryl A. Young. “We don’t want to lose what the best journalists can teach us about the world,” she says. “Well-written stories can inform how we view politics, new scientific discoveries, social justice, and the environment. They can show us what it means to be human, our failures and our triumphs. We hope this new support for journalists will help keep that profound exploration going and make the world a better place.” To learn more about this initiative, visit: macdowellcolony.org/giving-SpecialProjects.html
Advocating for the Arts on Capitol Hill On March 23 and 24, MacDowell joined more than 85 national arts organizations in Washington, D.C. as a cosponsor of Arts Advocacy Day, which brings together a broad cross section of America’s cultural and civic organizations, along with more than 500 grassroots advocates from across the country each year. Hosted by Americans for the Arts, MacDowell Development Associate Jessica Viada spent the first day engaged in advocacy training with other participants. On Tuesday she joined other New Hampshire arts personnel to visit with Senators Kelly Ayotte and Jeanne Shaheen, and Representatives Annie Kuster and Frank Guinta. Discussions focused on the the importance of National Endowment for the Arts support and how its impact on MacDowell’s programs for first-time Fellows and The Portable MacDowell resonates throughout southern New Hampshire and across the country.
MEDAL DAY 2015
Pioneer in Music to Receive 2015 Edward MacDowell Medal
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COMPOSER, PULITZER PRIZE WINNER, AND CLASSICAL-JAZZ PIONEER GUNTHER SCHULLER TO ACCEPT AWARD
“As a composer and as a teacher he has inspired generations of students ... as a conductor, performer, historian, author, and producer, he has preserved and shared countless important works with millions.” Augusta Read Thomas
French Horn Prodigy
COURTESY OF NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Schuller was born in New York on November 22, 1925. His professional career began at the age of 15 playing French horn for the American Ballet Theater (ABT), and he later recorded with Miles Davis on Birth of the Cool (1949-50) before making an indelible mark as a composer, conductor, and educator. He has composed such works as Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959), Of Reminiscences and Reflections, which earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1994, and An Arc Ascending (1996). “Since my late teens, he’s been a hero of mine,” said composer Alvin Singleton, who served with Thomas on the selection committee. “When I was growing up in New York, I used to listen to his radio program, and learned so much about music in general from that program. Schuller talked about the organization of the music, and how pieces fit together in jazz and classical contexts.” Serving with Thomas and Singleton on the selection committee were five other composers, all of whom, like Singleton, are MacDowell Fellows: Sebastian Currier, Aaron Jay Kernis, Paul Moravec, David Rakowski, and Melinda Wagner.
ANDREW HURLBUT/NEC
The MacDowell Colony will pay tribute to one of the most influential forces in music over the last 70 years on August 9, when we award the 56th Edward MacDowell Medal to composer, conductor, and educator Gunther Schuller. He’s been called a true Renaissance man, having had success in all aspects of the music industry, and is considered a pioneer in the realms of both jazz and classical music. “It was easy for the selection committee to choose Gunther,” said Augusta Read Thomas, chair of the Edward MacDowell Medal Selection Committee and a member of the board of the American Music Center. “He’s a composer’s composer with laser-sharp ears, a sensitive, fertile, creative mind, endless energy, and a generous, humane soul.” “As a composer and as a teacher of composition he has inspired generations of students, setting an example of discovery and experimentation,” said Thomas, who is also a professor of musical composition at The University of Chicago. “As a conductor, performer, historian, author, and producer, he has preserved and shared countless important works by classical and jazz artists with millions of music lovers.” Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and pianist Yehudi Wyner will join public radio host Terrance McKnight in introducing Schuller, giving the Medal Day audience a bit of context on Schuller’s influence.
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In addition to playing French horn with the ABT, Schuller was principal horn in the Cincinnati Symphony (1943-1945) and with the Metropolitan Opera (1945-1959). He also composed and conducted for jazz greats John Lewis and Dizzy Gillespie, and recorded with Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and Charles Mingus. He once said that he might be the only person to have played under the batons of both Toscanini and Ellington. As an educator, Schuller taught at the Manhattan School of Music and Yale University before teaching at the Berkshire Music Center (at Tanglewood) in 1963 at the request of Aaron Copland, eventually serving as its artistic director. From 1967-1977, Schuller served as president of the New England Conservatory, where he formalized NEC’s commitment to jazz by establishing the first degree-granting jazz program at a major classical conservatory. He also instituted the Third Stream department (subsequently named the Contemporary Improvisation department) to explore and fuse the musical regions where classical and jazz come together, insisting that contemporary music have equal billing next to the acknowledged classical masterpieces and that students be equally adept at performing both. During one of Boston’s most notorious periods of racial unrest, he created community outreach programs that sent young, eager musicians to bring the gift of music into some of the city’s most troubled and marginalized neighborhoods.
Always Composing Schuller has composed more than 180 works, spanning all musical genres including solo works, orchestral works, chamber music, opera, and jazz. In addition to those listed above, among Schuller’s orchestral works are Symphony (1965), Four Soundscapes, and Shapes and
Designs. Schuller’s large-scale work Of Reminiscences and Reflections was composed as a tribute to his wife of 49 years, Marjorie Black. The Boston Symphony Orchestra recently performed Schuller’s Dreamscape (2012). Other recent commissions are From Here to There (2013) for the New England Conservatory, and Four Chromatic Adventures (2014) commissioned by Contempo. Schuller has also written several books, including the cherished manual Horn Playing (London and New York, 1962), the landmark studies Early Jazz: Its Roots and Development (London and New York, 1968), and The Swing Era: the Development of Jazz 1930-45 (New York and Oxford, 1989). In 1997 he collected his years of experience conducting many of the world’s leading ensembles and premier orchestras in The Compleat Conductor. His autobiography, Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of Music and Beauty, was published in 2011. Schuller is the recipient of two GRAMMY Awards (1974 and 1975), the William Schuman Award from Columbia University (1988), the MacArthur Foundation Genius Award (1991), the Gold Medal for Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1997), the Downbeat Lifetime Achievement Award, and an inaugural membership in the American Classical Music Hall of Fame, an honor he shares with Edward MacDowell. He was also named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2008. In 1980 Schuller founded the record company and label, GM Recordings to provide discerning and open-minded listeners with innovative composers and musicians who might otherwise go unrecorded. Schuller joins a notable list of past Medal recipients: Aaron Copland (1961), Robert Frost (1962), Georgia O’Keeffe (1972), Leonard Bernstein (1987), Stephen Sondheim (2013), and Betye Saar (2014).
PUBLIC INVITED TO MEDAL PRESENTATION Medal Day is free and open to the public. The ceremony on Sunday, August 9, 2015, begins at 12:15 p.m. at the MacDowell Colony grounds in Peterborough, NH. MacDowell artists-in-residence will open their studios from 2 to 5 p.m. For more information and to order picnic lunches, visit macdowellcolony.org.
NEW AND NOTABLE PROJECTS:
Meredith Monk Celebrates 50 Seasons Coast to Coast EXTRAORDINARY SERIES CROSSES THE COUNTRY FROM CARNEGIE HALL TO YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS IN SAN FRANCISCO
Guy Klucevsek Presents Six-Night Stand at The Stone Accordion maestro and composer Guy Klucevsek completed a six-night retrospective of his 42-year composing career in March at New York’s premier new music club, The Stone. Klucevsek, who was in residence in early winter 2015, presented a different project with a different set of musicians on each night. He used his MacDowell stay to work on arrangements for different groupings of instruments, wrote different orchestrations for many of them, edited, and made revisions in preparation for the shows at John Zorn’s not-for-profit performance space.
Boden and Fleck
Nine Fellows Present New Works at the Sundance Film Festival Nine MacDowell Fellows presented work at The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah this past winter. They include: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck: Mississippi Grind Donald Margulies: The End of the Tour Michael Almereyda: Experimenter Matthew Rankin: Mynarski Death Plummet Jennifer Reeves: Color Neutral Jennie Livingston: Paris is Burning Dave Eggar: The Way of the Rain Matt Wolf: It’s Me, Hilary: The Man Who Drew Eloise, which premiered on HBO on March 23.
JULIETA CERVANTES
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Composer, performer, vocalist, director, choreographer and MacDowell Fellow Meredith Monk concluded her 50th season of performing with an anniversary concert at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall on May 2. The six-month celebration began in New York on November 20, Monk’s 72nd birthday, with a concert of her Piano Songs performed by Ursula Oppens and Bruce Brubaker at Le Poisson Rouge. The celebration also coincided with Monk’s holding the 2014–2015 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall and continued into May, with performances highlighting Monk’s ongoing work as a composer and performer. “It’s been an extraordinary year,” she said of the time spent preparing and performing, “and I’m so fortunate that each concert has exemplified a different aspect of my work. It’s been a chance for me to share the range of my music.” The concerts have featured repertoires that reflect the work undertaken during her seven MacDowell Colony residencies. “Mostly at MacDowell I’ve begun things,” said Monk, who was last here in 2007. “It’s a perfect place for searching and experimenting.” Performances since November have included members of her Vocal Ensemble with the American Composers Orchestra performing Night, written at MacDowell in 1996 in Watson Studio. The Vocal Ensemble also performed selections from Songs of Ascension, which was begun at MacDowell in the winter of 2007, selections from Mercy (2002) and a duet from Volcano Songs (1997), both of which she counts among her MacDowell compositions. Her performances included friends such as composers John Hollenbeck and Missy Mazzoli. “MacDowell is always a kind of paradise. I love having time alone to work, but it’s very inspiring to come to dinner and find out what a writer or visual artist is working on,” she said. “It’s really an ideal place for artists. When you do something out of love and you give that to the world, it has a healing element, and the Colony has been very, very generous to artists in making that possible.” While the 50th Anniversary celebration highlighted the breadth of Monk’s creativity since 1972, it was not simply a retrospective. The concerts featured new works, including her meditation on the fragility of the earth’s ecology, On Behalf of Nature, which received its New York premiere at BAM’s Next Wave Festival, as well as Backlight, written for seven instruments and one voice for Ensemble ACJW — a collaboration between Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, the Weill Music Institute, and the New York City Department of Education. The celebration of Monk’s musical achievements coincided with her recently being named Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Republic of France, and the November 2014 publication of a book of interviews, Conversations with Meredith Monk, by arts critic and Performing Arts Journal Editor Bonnie Marranca.
MacDowell Authors Earn Impressive Prizes NATIONAL BOOK AWARD TO JACQUELINE WOODSON Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson’s collection of vivid poems about what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. According to the judges, Woodson uses words “that sing with both the complexity and simplicity of a symphony, and memori-
MORE NEW AND NOTABLE PROJECTS Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ busy season with An Octoroon and Gloria
es that both sting and inspire.” The award citation also noted Brown Girl Dreaming is an “intimate journey of victory, sorrow, and discovery,” and called it a commentary of a country’s struggle to live up to its ideals through the eyes of a young writer of a “memoir in verse.”
Aaron Jay Kernis will direct Nashville Symphony Composer Lab & Workshop
2014 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS TO TWO FELLOWS Congratulations to MacDowell Fellows Claudia Rankine and Ellen Willis on their
Ellis Ludwig-Leone released a new album called Jackrabbit under the aegis of San Fermin
2014 National Book Critics Circle Awards. Rankine, who was at MacDowell in both the spring of 1995 and summer of 2002, was chosen for her latest book of poetry,
Lea Bult’s ongoing “Out of Sight” project
Citizen: An American Lyric. Published in 2014 by Graywolf Press, Citizen has already
Mark Campbell and Kevin Puts together again for The Manchurian Candidate
been listed as a New York Times Best Seller and won the NAACP Image Award. The Essential Ellen Willis won in the criticism category for the National Book Critics Circle
Sascha Braunig at the New Museum’s 2015 Triennial
Award. Published by the University of Minnesota Press, Willis’ incorporates feminism, radicalism,
James Kennedy, visual artist, solo exhibition of paintings and drawings at Southern New Hampshire University
1980, and 1982. Four other MacDowell Fellows were named finalists for the award, including:
Jo Yarrington, visual artist, exhibited commissioned work in “CT (un)Bound” in New Haven, CT.
Judaism, drugs, pornography, and music into her work. Willis was in residence three times, in 1978, Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman, fiction; Lily King, Euphoria, fiction; Lynne Tillman, What Would Lynne Tillman Do?, criticism; Christian Wiman, Once in the West, poetry.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS FICTION AWARD TO LOUISE ERDRICH
Michael Ashkin, visual artist, Long Branch published
Louise Erdrich has won the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, which honors an
Margaret Brouwer, composer, Featured Contemporary Composer on WFIU, Indiana’s Classical NPR station, month of September 2014
ity of thought and imagination. She is the third person to receive the honor, after E.L. Doctorow and
American literary writer whose body of work is distinguished for its mastery of the art and its originalDon DeLillo.
Suzan-Lori Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks Wins Kennedy Prize
Suzan-Lori Parks, who was in residence in 1989, 1991, and 1995, has won the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for a theatrical work inspired by American history for her critically acclaimed epic play Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3). The award was announced in February. According to The New York Times, Father Comes Home depicts sacrifices and soul-searing moments in the Civil War through the eyes of a slave, Hero, who goes off to fight with his plantation master and, with echoes of The Odyssey, eventually returns to his loved ones as a transformed man. Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner for the drama Topdog/Underdog, is now working on the remaining Parts 4 through 9 of her epic, which will follow descendants of her Civil War characters as the plot unfolds through the 20th century to present day.
Fellows Head to American Academy in Rome, Others Return MacDowell Fellows Thaisa Way, an architect, and Lysley Tenorio, a writer, have each been awarded 2015-2016 Rome Prizes by the American Academy in Rome while Rob Giampietro, an architect, and composer Paula Matthusen have returned from their 2014-2015 fellowships. Each year, through a national competition, the Rome Prize is awarded to some 30 individuals who represent the highest standard of excellence in the arts and humanities. Prize recipiLysley Tenorio Thaisa Way ents are provided with a fellowship, which includes a stipend and living and working space, and are invited to live in Rome for six months to two years to immerse themselves in the Academy community. Way won in the landscape architecture category for a project that is entitled “Drawing Histories of Landscape Architecture.” She was in residence in the spring of 2013 completing her book on Richard Haag and the design of urban postindustrial landscapes. She is an historian of landscape and architecture, most interested in urban designs and projects. Her first book, Unbounded Practice: Women and Landscape Architecture in the Early 20th Century, won the JB Jackson Award from the Landscape Studies Foundation. Tenorio, who has been in residence four times, was last at MacDowell in the summer of 2012 and is the author of Monstress. He’ll be working on an untitled novel during his Rome residency. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, The Pushcart Prize anthology, and on NPR. He is the recipient of an NEA fellowship and a Whiting Writer’s Award. Giampietro, a 2013 MacDowell Fellow, won in the 2014-2015 design category for a project called “Walk with Me: Responsive Guides to Rome.” His plan was to develop a mobile website that will provide audio guides and GPS maps for areas all around Rome. Matthusen, a 2009 MacDowell Fellow and winner of the 2014-2015 Rome Prize in musical composition, planned to complete several different recordings of the pathways of ancient waterways in Rome that she encountered to be used to create an original multi-movement work for percussion, liveelectronics, and fixed media. Matthusen planned to help connect ancient and modern Rome through her research and recordings, as well as reflect on the history of the city.
Five Fellow Authors Named to New York Times Notable Book List A handful of MacDowell Fellows were featured among the holiday season’s 100 Notable Books of 2014 as chosen by The New York Times. Lawrence Osborne’s The Ballad of a Small Player, Lily King’s Euphoria, and Susan Minot’s Thirty Girls were among the titles of fiction and poetry, while Sandra Tsing Loh’s The Madwoman in the Volvo and Olivia Laing’s The Trip to Echo Spring were part of the nonfiction group.
Filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu (above) is among 14 MacDowell Fellows who’ve recently won 2015 Guggenheim Fellowships. A total 175 winners, ranging from many different fields of study and achievements, were named on the basis of “prior achievement and exceptional promise.” This year’s winners were chosen from among more than 3,100 applicants. Owusu was chosen based on the project she was working on at MacDowell during the summer of 2013: the screenplay for her first feature, Black Sunshine. The project was awarded a Creative Capital grant in 2012 and was nominated for the Tribeca Heineken Affinity Award in 2013. The Guggenheim means she can continue working on the script that she hopes to shoot in Ghana in 2016 for release in 2017. Of her residency in Heyward Studio, she said, “It kind of inspired me just being in that space. It was just so surreal and the journey from that point has really been a dream.” Other Fellows who won 2015 Guggenheims are: Darcy James Argue, composer, 2011 Maud Casey, writer, 2009 Meghan Daum, writer, 2011 Stephen Davis, interdisciplinary artist, 1985 Jeff Dolven, poet, 2011 Thomas Sayers Ellis, poet, 1997 Cathy Park Hong, poet, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014 Barbara Hurd, writer, 2002, 2003 Cate Marvin, poet, 2008 Andreia Pinto-Correia, composer, 2011 Iva Radivojevic, filmmaker, 2013 Zoe Scofield, interdisciplinary artist, 2010 Pinar Yoldas, interdisciplinary artist, 2010, 2012
More Awards, Grants and Fellowships ❱❱ A CADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS AWARDS Twelve MacDowell Fellows were chosen by members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for 2015 awards of varying amounts. Six in music, five in literature, and one in architecture: J. Yolande Daniels, architect, 2006 Annie Baker, playwright, 2009, 2014 Vijay Seshadri, poet, 1998, 2004 Jeffrey Skinner, poet, 2009 Amy Rowland, writer, 2000 Lysley Tenorio, writer, 2001, 2005, 2008, 2012 Jason Eckardt, composer, 1996, 2003 Erin Gee, composer, 2013 Kevin Puts, composer, 2005 Kurt Rohde, composer, 1996 Adam Gwon, composer, 2009 Sarah Hammond, composer, 2007, 2009, 2012 ❱❱ N EW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM AWARDS DIGITAL/ELECTRONIC ARTS: Peter Burr, 2008 and Heather Bursch, 2009 NON-FICTION LITERATURE: Jonathan Blunk, 2008, 2009, 2010; Suki Kim, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2010; and Luc Sante, 2014 POETRY: Amanda K. Davidson, 2009 PRINTMAKING/DRAWING/ARTIST BOOKS: Linda Herritt, 1995, and Kakyoung Lee, 2003, 2005 ❱❱ C REATIVE CAPITAL AWARDS MOVING IMAGE: Lorelei Pepi, 2008, Michael Almereyda, 1993, 1999, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013 VISUAL ARTS: Lorraine O’Grady, 1995 and Amie Siegel, 2002, 2007
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MacDowell Fellow and filmmaker Laura Poitras (at right) won the 2015 Oscar for best documentary for her film about Edward Snowden’s NSA spying allegations. Her nonfiction film, CitizenFour, documented Snowden’s detailed account to journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill about how the NSA was collecting massive amounts of data on U.S. citizens from emails, text messages, and other means. The film, beginning with an interview in Hong Kong, chronicles Snowden’s allegations about the NSA to the journalists. The Guardian and The Washington Post simultaneously reported on Snowden’s allegations and leaks in the summer of 2013. Both news publications won a Pulitzer Prize the next year for Public Service journalism based on reporting by Poitras, Greenwald, MacAskill, and Barton Gellman. Poitras, who was in residence in 2010 and was initially contacted by Snowden, who told her she chose herself for the task of telling his story because of her previous documentary work, which had earned her a spot on the Department of Homeland Security’s “watch list.” CitizenFour’s title derives from the pseudonym Snowden used when he first anonymously contacted Poitras.
GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIPS TO 14 MACDOWELL FELLOWS
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Laura Poitras and CitizenFour Win Oscar for Best Documentary
Jill Claster I Writer Jill Nadell Claster died November
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14, 2014 at home in New York at the age of 83. Professor Claster was predeceased by her husband Judge Millard Midonick and daughter Elizabeth. She was a scholar, teacher, author, mentor, theatre and opera-lover, aspiring actress, and world traveler. She was in residence in 1991. Jill was professor emerita of medieval history at New York University and was still teaching her course on Renewal and Expansion in Europe in the Twelfth Century until two weeks before her death. She received her B.A. and M.A. from NYU and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and taught at the University of Kentucky before coming to NYU in 1964. At NYU she served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1978 to 1986 and director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center of Near Eastern Studies from 1991 to 1997.
Jytte Jensen I Jytte Jensen, who worked for more than
30 years as a film curator at the Museum of Modern Art and had been a MacDowell board member for 12 years, died March 23, 2015 in New York. She was 65. Jensen, who served as chair of New Directors/New Films, spent the last 15 years helping build the film program at MacDowell, first as a panelist, then in 2003 as panel chairman, and continuing on the board as an advisor. “The variety and caliber of what we see now in film applications is a direct result of her ambassadorship,” said Executive Director Cheryl Young. “Jytte was a truly brilliant personality. Her smile preceded her into any room, and then she would catch your attention with her bright blue eyes.... She tirelessly traveled all over the world in search of great films, and was a great advocate for independent and international filmmakers. She loved to be surprised by a new filmmaker and helped the careers of many long after they first arrived on the scene.” Jytte held a master’s degree in cinema studies from NYU. She joined the staff at MoMA in 1982, and in 2003 was named curator in the Department of Film and Media.
Willy Lenski I Visual artist William Thomas Lenski died on October 20, 2014 at
his home in Arkville, NY at the age of 61. Willy graduated from Cairo Central School in 1970 and earned his B.F.A. from Pratt Institute in 1974. He attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in the early 1970s and was a MacDowell Colony Fellow in both 1987 and 1991. Willy lived for most of his life in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and will be especially remembered for figurative paintings with symbolic overtones. The themes and motifs he took up in his oil painting often reflected his interest in film and camera effects. He exhibited his work in the 1980s and 1990s at New York’s Artists Space, White Columns, and the Parrish Art Museum. He was represented by Neo Persona Gallery and the O’Hara Gallery. His paintings hang in museums, cultural centers, and private collections throughout the world.
George Nicholson I MacDowell board member George
Nicholson died February 3, 2015 in New York at the age of 77. George, who was on the MacDowell Board for 24 years, was a literary agent and innovative publishing executive credited with introducing high-quality paperback publishing to the children’s book industry. He embarked on his publishing career in 1959, eventually leading the charge at Dell to publish paperbacks of “literary merit.” When he secured the rights from Harper to reprint Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little by E.B. White, the breakthrough spurred Harper to open its own paperback imprint, HarperTrophy. George guided S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and the works of Judy Blume into paperback at Dell and saw their books become popular classics as a result. Among his many clients were Tony Abbott, Betsy Byars, Lois Duncan, Patricia Reilly Giff, Alice Provensen, Peter Lerangis, and Zilpha Keatley Snyder, and the literary estates of Don Freeman, Hardie Gramatky, Marguerite Henry, and Lois Lenski.
Stanley T. Noyes I Writer Stanley Noyes died December 24, 2014 at home in
Sante Fe at the age of 90. He was in residence in 1967. He wrote Los Comanches: The Horse People, 1751-1845, two novels and five collections of poetry. His Alles Kaputt was selected one of the top 10 books of 2007 by the Kansas City Star. He served in the U.S. Army in World War II in the Ruhr campaign in a reconnaissance troop and was awarded a Bronze Star. He returned to attend Cal Berkeley and married fellow student Nancy Black in 1949 and earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees.
Stewart Stern I Stewart Stern, the screenwriter of Rebel Without a Cause, The
Last Movie, and Sybil, died February 2, 2015 in Seattle at the age of 92. After graduating from the University of Iowa, he served in the U.S. Army during World War II and received a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, and Combat Infantry Badge. The two-time Oscar-nominated screenwriter and Emmy-winning television writer was in residence as a playwright in 1954, the year before the iconic James Dean drama Rebel Without a Cause was released. He also wrote the documentary feature on the late actor, The James Dean Story (1957), and the notorious counterculture indie drama The Last Movie, co-written and directed by Dennis Hopper. Stewart wrote several other screenplays and movies for television, including the 1976 miniseries “Sybil,” starring Sally Field, which earned Stern an Emmy.
NEA Chairman Jane Chu (seated at right) asks artists in residence how her organization can help improve arts infrastructure as (from left) New Hampshire Department of Cultural Resources Arts Commissioner Van McLeod, MacDowell Colony Executive Director Cheryl A. Young, and NH State Council on the Arts Director Ginnie Lupi, look on.
NEA Chair Visits on Heels of Grant for First-Timers National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu visited the Colony early in June and met with artistsin-residence to ask how the NEA could strengthen the infrastructure for artmaking. The informal discussion took place in Old Savidge after a tour of the Colony, and gave Chu the opportunity to meet a number of first-time Fellows. Back in December, Chu announced that MacDowell was one of 919 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive an NEA Art Works grant. Ten diverse artists of various disciplines from across the United States will be able to work at the Colony for the first time this year, thanks to that grant. “The arts foster value, connection, creativity and innovation for the American people and these [NEA] grants demonstrate those attributes and affirm that the arts are part of our everyday lives,” Chu said when announcing the support in December. On average, more than two-thirds of MacDowell Fellows are first-time residents, and for many MacDowell is their first artist residency anywhere. Cheryl A. Young, MacDowell’s executive director, says support for firsttime residencies helps the Colony continue as a leader in identifying new artistic talent. “The NEA has always been a champion of artists, and we appreciate their partnership in helping us to reach new populations of artists,” Young said. “The beauty of this grant, aside from its recognizing artists from various disciplines, is that it supports a diversity of geographies, cultures, gender, and ages that will add to the experiences of other artists-inresidence and enrich the surrounding region by way of our community engagement efforts.”
Eastman Studio: Bright, Weathertight Workspace BY RACHEL SHUNAMON A century-old farm building will soon be reborn as our most energy efficient studio thanks to a generous donation from MacDowell Fellow and board member Louise Eastman who was in residence in 2009. Shop Studio, located adjacent to the Hillcrest Barn, will be an ideal visual workspace, designed after listening to decades of artist feedback. Originally built in 1915 to provide supplemental storage, the space was hastily converted into a studio in 1956, but was poorly insulated and drafty. Beginning this month, it will be the first studio on the MacDowell grounds to be heated with an electric heat pump. Eastman will offer future artists nearly 400 square feet of creative work space beneath a cathedral ceiling 15 feet at its peak. In addition to generous natural light, indirect LED lights provide abundant work light and track lights will wash the walls. A live-in studio, the bedroom, and a full bath are small but complete. Groesbeck Construction of Peterborough is handling the renovation after a design drawn by Sheldon Pennoyer Architects of Concord. According to Resident Director David Macy, the renovation will not only be a model for future energy efficiency upgrades among studios, but its comforts and details aimed at supporting creative work will benefit artists for years to come.
National Benefit in New York City Raises the Roof
Spring came to the Colony just in time for our annual New Hampshire Benefit. On April 11th, Fellows Florent Ghys and Elna Baker performed at this sold-out event. Held in Savidge Library and Bond Hall, with dinner prepared by Colony Chef Scott Tyle, this annual event brings together artists-in-residence, board members, Friends of MacDowell, and business leaders from around the Monadnock region and beyond. Chairman Michael Chabon thanked attendees for raising more than $40,000 in support of the residency program. Medal Day Honoring Gunther Schuller Sunday, August 9, 2015 Order your basket by visiting macdowellcolony.org/events-MedalDay.html
SAVE THE DATES
Annual Fellows Party Friday, September 25, 2015 Don’t miss the Annual Fellows Party in New York City Third Annual Chairman’s Evening Monday, December 7, 2015 Enjoy cocktails and listen in as Michael Chabon converses with two artists at the New Museum, NYC
Members of the Friends of MacDowell sat in on an entertaining conversation at The New Museum in New York City on December 8, 2014 as Chairman Michael Chabon interviewed “This American Life” host Ira Glass and novelist Zadie Smith. During this lively exchange, which Chabon likened to the dinner conversation that takes place at the Colony each evening, Glass related a hilarious story about his most recent interview and Smith had the audience laughing with descriptions of her writing life. Chabon spoke about choosing topics for his stories and the assumptions readers make about the origins of fictional characters. Limited to an audience of 100, the hour-long conversation was followed by a cocktail reception during which Friends of MacDowell mingled with the three brilliant weavers of narrative as well as other guest artists. You can find video of the entire conversation as well as a three-and-a-half-minute highlight reel online at: https://vimeo.com/ themacdowellcolony
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To learn more about the Friends of MacDowell program, email Director of Development John Martin at jmartin@macdowellcolony.org or call 212-535-9690.
Community Engagement:
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: MEGHAN MOE BEITIKS; JONATHAN GOURLAY (2)
MACDOWELL DOWNTOWN Polish Filmmaker Katarzyna Plazinska kicked off the 2015 MacDowell Downtown season by presenting a sampling of her short films and discussing her current projects, which could not have been created without a painter’s eye for subject matter. The exquisite beauty of late-day sun raking prairie grasslands and the stunning artistry of human hands making paper are just two examples from short films screened at the Monadnock Center for History and Culture in March. In April, multidisciplinary artist Deke Weaver (left) created a “live cinema” experience drawing from his passion for the natural world. He talked about his process and gave the audience a peek into the latest installment of what he calls “The Unreliable Bestiary,” an undertaking highlighting the plight and myths surrounding the animals and habitats on our planet. Weaver is a writer, performer, designer, and media artist all rolled into one, creating multidisciplinary work that culminates with site-specific performances involving video, music, dance, and narration. In May, writer Michael Agresta (above, right), used slides to illustrate his discussion about the future of libraries and how they might evolve as information is increasingly being transferred and consumed digitally. He invited Peterborough
Library Director Corinne Chronopoulos to join him in the lively conversation and the two fielded questions both general and specifically targeted to the Peterborough Town Library’s future.
MACDOWELL IN THE SCHOOLS In November, visual artist Matt Northridge opened Cheney Studio (at right) to seven Contoocook Valley Regional High School students and three faculty members to share what he has been working on. He also described his life as a working artist in New York. Poet Michael Morse met with Mark Holding’s 12th grade AP English students on three consecutive days in December to read and discuss poetry. Morse also introduced a writing exercise focusing on tone. Composer David Rakowski met with nine Keene State College music composition students and two faculty members in February to discuss his development as a composer, his composition process and his composition style. He played some of his recorded works and fielded questions from the eager audience. ConVal High School convened a weekly faculty meeting in February in the Eugene Coleman Savidge Library. Resident Director David Macy spoke about the history of MacDowell as well as the MacDowell in the
Schools program, and the program’s coordinator, Ann Hayashi, discussed the various artists and classes she has worked with. In March, interdisciplinary performance artist Alexander Rosenberg met with approximately 50 students (Moira Milne’s honors chemistry students, Mary Goldthwaite-Gagne’s ceramics class, and Ben Putnam’s art students) in the Lucy Hurlin theater at ConVal High School to share his creative process as a glass and performance artist using photographs and videos. Poet Sharon Charde met with school counselor Emily Daniels’s group of at-risk girls for two sessions in March. Charde shared some poems written by at-risk girls that she works with in Connecticut and then led the ConVal students in a writing exercise. Playwright Mashuq Deen visited ConVal in April and spoke to students and faculty in the Lucy Hurlin Theater. He performed about 15 minutes of his play Draw the Circle, screened his YouTube video about being a transgender male, and fielded questions from students and staff.
SUMMER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
NEW HAMPSHIRE BENEFIT RAISES IMPORTANT SUPPORT FOR RESIDENCIES
SECOND ANNUAL CHAIRMAN’S EVENING FEATURES MICHAEL CHABON CHATTING WITH ZADIE SMITH AND IRA GLASS
Events
Program participants at The MacDowell Colony’s National Benefit in New York City on May 18 included (from left) Lauren Adams, John Hodgman, Michael Chabon, Michael Almereyda, John Palladino, Maya Beiser, Michael Harrison, and Ruben Santiago-Hudson. (photo by Steven Tucker)
Comedian and Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman made for a supremely entertaining emcee at MacDowell’s 2015 National Benefit on May 18. Chairman Michael Chabon hosted the annual event that raises critical operating funds for the Colony, which exceeded its fundraising goal of $425,000. The evening highlighted the work of nine extraordinary artists. Carrie Mae Weems’s magnificent photographs greeted an audience of 300 supporters, artists, and friends as they arrived at The TimesCenter, home of The New York Times, in midtown Manhattan. The Art of Journalism was brought to the fore with readings from the works of Sheri Fink, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, and Michael Paterniti. Filmmakers Michael Almereyda and Dee Rees shared their latest projects. Composer Michael Harrison and Filmmaker Bill Morrison presented their piece, Just Ancient Loops – a collaboration between the two Fellows and cellist extraordinaire Maya Beiser. Ruben SantiagoHudson read an excerpt from James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son, which Baldwin worked on during a 1954 residency.
❱❱ NEW FACES
Christine Fisher
DAN MILLBAUER (2)
CHRISTA PARRAVANI
❱❱ NEW BOARD MEMBERS
Julie Orringer, Author
Carol Ostrow, Producing Director
❱❱ FELLOWSHIPS
Karin Kraft, Financial and Human Resources Administrator
Billy Morse, Kitchen Assistant
Shaun Newport, Development Assistant
From November 2014 through April 2015, The MacDowell Colony welcomed a total 140 artists from 26 states and the District of Columbia, and from six countries. This group includes 63 writers, 24 visual artists, 20 theatre artists, 14 film/video artists,11 composers, six interdisciplinary artists, and two architects.
SUMMER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
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EMILY ABENDROTH, Writer Philadelphia, PA
TAMMY MARIE DUDMAN, Film/Video Artist; Warwick, RI
JEROME KITZKE, Composer New York, NY
IRINA PATKANIAN, Film/Video Artist Brooklyn, NY
CECILIA ALDARONDO, Film/Video Artist; Brooklyn, NY
MARK ALICE DURANT, Writer Baltimore, MD
GUY KLUCEVSEK, Composer Staten Island, NY
WILLIAM PATTEN, Writer Mount Desert, ME
HEPHZIBAH ANDERSON, Writer Lewes, United Kingdom
DANIELLE DUTTON, Writer St. Louis, MO
NICOLE KRAUSS, Writer New York, NY
JACK PERLA, Composer San Francisco, CA
JASON ANTHONY, Writer Damariscotta, ME
LANCE EDMANDS, Film/Video Artist Brooklyn, NY
GINGER KREBS, Interdisciplinary Artist; Chicago, IL
ANN PIBAL, Visual Artist North Bennington, VT
ELIZABETH ARNOLD, Writer Hyattsville, MD
LEE SUNDAY EVANS, Theatre Artist New York, NY
DEBORA KUAN, Writer Brooklyn, NY
KATARZYNA PLAZINSKA, Film/Video Artist; Iowa City, IA
DAVID AUBURN, Theatre Artist New York, NY
HECTOR FALCÓN VILLA, Film/Video Artist; Queretaro, Mexico
PAUL LaFARGE, Writer Red Hook, NY
SAM PLUTA, Composer New York, NY
MIRANDA AUSTIN, Visual Artist Brooklyn, NY
LINDA FENG, Writer Toronto, Canada
BRONWYN LEA, Writer Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
MATTHEW PORTERFIELD, Film/Video Artist; Baltimore, MD
ANNIE BAKER, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY
DANIEL FISH, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY
SAMUEL LEADER, Writer Brooklyn, NY
DAVID RAKOWSKI, Composer Maynard, MA
TERESA BAKER, Visual Artist Beaumont, TX
DAN FISHBACK, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY
DANIELLE LESSOVITZ, Film/Video Artist; Brooklyn, NY
PABLO RASGADO, Visual Artist Mexico DF, Mexico
SONIA BARRETT, Visual Artist Fürth, Germany
MELENIE FLYNN, Writer Truro, MA
KATHRYN LEVY, Writer Sag Harbor, NY
RUFUS REID, Composer Teaneck, NJ
MEGHAN MOE BEITIKS, Interdisciplinary Artist San Francisco, CA
RICHARD GALLI, Writer East Greenwich, RI
KARIN LIN-GREENBERG, Writer Watervliet, NY
GABRIELLE REISMAN, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY
DAGMARA GENDA, Visual Artist London, United Kingdom
ERICA LIPEZ, Theatre Artist Los Angeles, CA
FRANCES RICHEY, Writer New York, NY
JENNY GEORGE, Writer Santa Fe, NM
STEVE LOCKE, Visual Artist Boston, MA
MICHAEL ROBINSON, Film/Video Artist; Spencer, NY
MADELEINE GEORGE, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY
CYNTHIA LOWEN, Film/Video Artist Brooklyn, NY
JULIA ROMMEL, Visual Artist Brooklyn, NY
GARY GIDDINS, Writer New York, NY
TAYLOR MAC, Theatre Artist New York, NY
BRIAN GILLIS, Visual Artist Eugene, OR
BEN MARCUS, Writer New York, NY
ALEXANDER ROSENBERG, Interdisciplinary Artist Philadelphia, PA
LEAH GRIESMANN, Writer Asheville, NC
CHRISTOPHER MARIANETTI, Interdisciplinary Artist Jackson Heights, NY
GON BEN ARI, Writer Brooklyn, NY CLAIRE BENNETT, Film/Video Artist Toronto, Canada ANNE BERESFORD CLARKE, Visual Artist; Leverett, MA MARINA BERIO, Visual Artist Brooklyn, NY LARISSA BORTEH, Visual Artist Chicago, IL MARTIN BRIEF, Visual Artist St. Louis, MO HANNAH BUCK, Film/Video Artist Brooklyn, NY LEA BULT, Visual Artist Ann Arbor, MI JAMES CANON, Writer Sunnyside, NY MICHAEL CHABON, Writer Berkeley, CA SHARON CHARDE, Writer Lakeville, CT CARO CLARK, Writer Seattle, WA MAGGIE-KATE COLEMAN, Theatre Artist; Brooklyn, NY SARAH CORNWELL, Writer Los Angeles, CA ADRIANA CORRAL, Visual Artist San Antonio, TX KIA CORTHRON, Theatre Artist New York, NY DARCY COURTEAU, Writer Washington, DC GORDON DAHLQUIST, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY STEPHANIE DANLER, Writer Brooklyn, NY
RACHEL HARPER, Writer Pasadena, CA JOHN HASKELL, Writer Brooklyn, NY JODIE HOLLANDER, Writer Minturn, CO ELLIOTT HOLT, Writer Brooklyn, NY ROBERT HONSTEIN, Composer Jamaica Plain, MA WILLIAM HUNT, Writer Brooklyn, NY JANG SOON IM, Visual Artist Jersey City, NJ GREG JACKSON, Writer Brunswick, ME BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS, Theatre Artist; Brooklyn, NY JULIA JACQUETTE, Visual Artist New York, NY ZAHIR JANMOHAMED, Writer Fair Oaks, CA LEN JENKIN, Theatre Artist New York, NY HILLARY JORDAN, Writer Brooklyn, NY
ALICE DARK, Writer; Montclair, NJ
HANSOL JUNG, Theatre Artist Shelton, CT
VLADIMIR DE FONTENAY, Film/Video Artist; Brooklyn, NY
HODA KASHIHA, Visual Artist Worcester, MA
MASHUQ DEEN, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY
BRENDA KENNEALLY, Visual Artist Brooklyn, NY
THOMAS DEVANEY, Writer Philadelphia, PA
MATT KENYON, Visual Artist Ann Arbor, MI
SEAN DOWNEY, Visual Artist Jamaica Plain, MA
HAVEN KIMMEL, Writer Durham, NC
The MacDowell Colony is located at 100 High Street Peterborough, NH 03458 Telephone: 603-924-3886 Fax: 603-924-9142 Administrative office: 163 East 81st Street New York, NY 10028
Telephone: 212-535-9690 Fax: 212-737-3803 Web site: www.macdowellcolony.org E-mail: newsletter@macdowellcolony.org
MIKE MCKAY, Architect Lexington, KY
KENT SHAW, Writer Huntington, WV
RYAN McLAUGHLIN, Visual Artist Sunapee, NH
EMMA SLOLEY, Writer New York, NY
MARISA MICHELSON, Composer New York, NY
EVAN SMITH, Writer Beacon, NY
CARMAN MOORE, Composer New York City, NY
BETH STEEL, Theatre Artist London, United Kingdom
DONALD MORGAN, Visual Artist Eugene, OR
LYNNE TILLMAN, Writer New York, NY
MICHAEL MORSE, Writer Brooklyn, NY
CORINNA VALLIANATOS, Writer Claremont, CA
MEGAN MURTHA, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY
GEOFFREY von OEYEN, Architect Los Angeles, CA
DINA NAYERI, Writer New York, NY
LOU ANN WALKER, Writer Sag Harbor, NY
RICHARD NELSON, Composer Brunswick, ME
TOMMY WALLACH, Writer Brooklyn, NY
JIMMY NEWBORG, Writer Brooklyn, NY
ELLEN WATSON, Writer Conway, MA
MATTHEW NORTHRIDGE, Visual Artist; Brooklyn, NY
DEKE WEAVER, Theatre Artist Champaign, IL
KATE NORTHROP, Writer Laramie, WY
DAVID WHELAN, Interdisciplinary Artist Marblehead, MA
JESSICA ORECK, Film/Video Artist New York, NY AMANDA PADOAN, Writer Barcelona, Spain JIEHAE PARK, Theatre Artist Sunnyside, NY
The MacDowell Colony awards Fellowships to artists of exceptional talent, providing time, space, and an inspiring environment in which to do creative work. The Colony was founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and pianist Marian Nevins MacDowell, his wife. Fellows receive room, board, and exclusive use of a studio. The sole criterion for acceptance is talent, as determined by a panel representing the discipline of the applicant. The MacDowell Colony was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1997 for “nurturing and inspiring many of this century’s finest artists.” Applications are available on our website at www.macdowellcolony.org. Chairman: Michael Chabon President: Susan Davenport Austin Executive Director: Cheryl A. Young Resident Director: David Macy
COURTNEY SENDER, Writer Montvale, NJ SOLMAZ SHARIF, Writer Oakland, CA
ELIZABETH OGONEK, Composer Bronx, NY
Echoes of Marian, C- print, printed in two sizes 72” x 60” and 42” x 36” in editions of 25 each, 2014, by Carrie Mae Weems. A special edition project created for the Foundation for Art & Preservation in Embassies. The title is in reference to the great opera singer Marian Anderson and her historic 1939 performance on the steps of the Lincoln monument before an audience of more than 75,000. Printed by Esteban Mauchi of Laumont Photographics with a Lightjet 500xl printer. Image courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery and the artist.
AMY SCHLEUNES, Writer Manitowoc, WI
LAURA MARRIS, Writer Brooklyn, NY
DENNIS NURKSE, Writer Brooklyn, NY
On the cover…
MacDowell is published twice a year, in summer and winter. Past Fellows may send newsworthy activities to the editor in Peterborough. Deadlines for inclusion are April 1st and October 1st. Editor: Jonathan Gourlay Design and Production: Melanie deForest Design, LLC All photographs not otherwise credited: Joanna Eldredge Morrissey Printer: Print Resource, Westborough, MA Mailing House: Sterling Business Print & Mail, Peterborough, NH No part of MacDowell may be reused in any way without written permission. © 2015, The MacDowell Colony The names of MacDowell Fellows are noted in bold throughout this
SUSAN WICKS, Writer Kent, United Kingdom
newsletter.
LAUREN WILKINSON, Writer New York, NY facebook.com/MacDowellColony
REBECCA WOLFF, Writer Hudson, NY RAPHAEL XAVIER, Interdisciplinary Artist; Philadelphia, PA SARA ZARR, Writer Salt Lake City, UT
The Colony is grateful for the generous support of the following organizations:
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