The MacDowell Colony newsletter, summer 2010 by The MacDowell Colony

Vol. 39, No.1 Summer 2010

In this Issue

Artists 2 Remembering 5 10 Gifts of a MacDowell Studio 6 News 14 Events 15

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

Opening the Door to Possibility MacDowell provides two essential things to the more than 250 artists it supports

The MacDowell Colony

Artists

yet at MacDowell time and space are transformed. And the Colony’s 32 studios are at the heart of this transformation. No studio is within sight of another, affording a privacy that makes a residency of two to eight weeks feel like exponentially more. When it comes to the work space, MacDowell makes a concerted effort to provide not only enclosure but also an ideal work environment that is adaptable and welcoming. In this issue, we look at some of the many gifts artists have cited in relation to their stay in a MacDowell studio and their experience of the place. Built, for the most part, between 1907 and 1937, all of the buildings have unique character as well as three common traits: a desk, a cot, and a large window or porch to provide a portal into nature. And of course, there are the planks of wood we affectionately call “tombstones” hanging in each studio, which artists-in-residence sign at the end of their stay. Carefully designed, equipped, and maintained to meet the anticipated needs of the artists that work within them, the studios are a hallmark of the MacDowell residency experience. With history as a driving force, the board and staff are passionately commited to caring for and protecting these vital work spaces so that future generations of artists will have the pleasure of opening the door to their studio to find a whole new world of possibility. In closing, I would like to note the departure of Communications Director Brendan Tapley, who acted as editor of the newsletter for the past eight years. Brendan did a wonderful job establishing a professional communications office at MacDowell, and we will miss him. I would also like to acknowledge Communications Associate Karen Sampson, who has contributed to the newsletter as an associate editor for the past six years and delivered this one in fine style.

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each year: time and space. The concept is simple,

Medal of Arts for Tilson Thomas In early 2010, composer and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas was named one of 12 recipients of a 2009 National Medal of Arts. The award was presented by President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama in a ceremony held at the White House on February 25th. Established by Congress in 1984 and managed by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Medal — the nation’s highest award for artistic achievement — is given to artists and arts organizations based on their contributions to the creation, growth, and support of the arts in the United States. “I receive this award with gratitude to President Obama, the National Endowment for the Arts and to my many musical colleagues throughout the country whose devotion makes all this possible,” said Tilson Thomas about the honor. Currently the music director of the San Francisco Symphony, he joins an impressive list of past National Medal of Arts recipients, including MacDowell Fellows Aaron Copland, Hume Cronyn, David Diamond, Anthony Hecht, Donald Justice, Stanley Kunitz, and Virgil Thomson. MacDowell — one of only 19 arts organizations to have been given this honor since it was estab-

Cheryl A. Young Executive Director

lished in 1984 — received a National Medal of Arts from President Clinton in 1997.

MANUEL HARLAN

A Play-by-Play

Above: A scene from Samantha Ellis’s (pictured below, left) play Cling to Me Like Ivy. Below, right: Young Jean Lee in Calderwood Studio in 2008.

Characters grappling with such issues as war, marriage, and cultural identity have been commanding center stage at theaters near and far in recently produced plays written and directed by MacDowell Fellows. Helen Benedict’s The Lonely Soldier Monologues (Women at War in Iraq) is an intimate portrait of women serving in the military. Created from interviews and correspondence in connection with Benedict’s recently released book The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq (Beacon Press, 2009), the play premiered at the Theater for the New City in New York in 2009, and was produced at La MaMa Club Theatre in February. Meanwhile, across the pond, Samantha Ellis’s Cling to Me Like Ivy — a comedic tale about an Orthodox Jewish bride-to-be and her struggle to retain her identity — was staged from February 11th–27th at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company in the United Kingdom. Ellis worked on the play during her 2008 residency at MacDowell. Another play that took shape at MacDowell in 2008 — Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment — has been connecting with audiences around the world. An experimental take on issues of race in the modern world, The Shipment has traveled to such venues as The Kitchen in New York; the Hebbel Theater in Berlin, Germany; the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh; and the Sydney Opera House in Australia. A journalist from the future takes a different kind of trip — one back in time — to interview writer Willa Cather in a new play by Toni Schlesinger. Created for the Metropolitan Playhouse’s “Living Literature” festival inspired by 19th-century women writers, When the World Broke in Two: A Visit with Willa Cather ran through January 26th in New York. A James Lapine-conceived and -directed Broadway musical, Sondheim on Sondheim, opened in New York on March 14th. Written and composed by Lapine’s longtime friend and collaborator, Stephen Sondheim, the play — an intimate self-portrait of one of the best-known artists in American theater — ran at Studio 54 through June 13th.

COurtesy Gagosian Gallery, NEW YORK

Above: Visual artist Nene Humphrey, whose work was featured in the National Academy’s 185th Annual, in Cheney Studio. Above, right: Dust Tail II, 2008, by Sarah Walker. Right: Better Dimension (detail), ink and tape on glass slide from an installation of silkscreened wood panels, 2010, by Edgar Cleijne and Ellen Gallagher.

The 2010 Whitney Biennial, a preeminent survey of the latest — and greatest — in American art, featured the work of MacDowell Fellows James Casebere, Ellen Gallagher, Suzan Frecon, Sharon Hayes, and Lorraine O’Grady. Practitioners of various artistic mediums and aesthetic styles, the artists selected for this year’s show reflected “diverse responses to the anxiety and optimism of the past two years,” according to the show’s curators, with contemporary artworks ranging in genre from film and video, to photography, painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, performance, and architecture. A total of 55 established and emerging artists from all over the country were selected for inclusion in the show, which took over New York’s Whitney Museum from February 25th through May 30th. MacDowell friends and supporters were treated to an insider’s view of the Biennial on March 6th, when Casebere, Frecon, and Hayes led them on a special tour of the exhibition. Another New York exhibition focused on today’s cuttingedge artistic practices, The 185th Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, was held at The National Academy Museum from February 17th through June 8th. A total of 11 MacDowell Fellows — whose work embodied such diverse visual mediums as painting, drawing, digital art, mixed media, photography, and video — were invited to participate in the biennial exhibition by a jury of National Academy members. Dotty Attie, Gianna Commito, Elise Engler, Sandy Gellis, Kathy Grove, Nene Humphrey, Charles Ritchie, Jane South, Sarah Walker, Nina Yankowitz, and Emna Zghal were chosen from more than 400 applicants to represent the finest American artists working today.

Guggenheims for 23

New and Notable We gratefully accept donations of Fellows’ artwork, books, music, films/videos, photographs, and other work for the Colony’s Savidge Library collection. Below is a selection of books that were recently donated and/or created in whole or in part at the Colony. Cara Diaconoff

Unmarriageable Daughters: Stories, fiction

Monica Ferrell

Beasts for the Chase, poetry

Peter Godwin

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun, nonfiction

Pamela Harrison Out of Silence, poetry Tim Johnston

Irish Girl, fiction

Brad Matsen

Titanic’s Last Secrets, nonfiction

Barbara Moss

Little Edens, fiction

Anne Sanow

Triple Time, fiction

Brian Teare

Sight Map, poetry

Jonathan Treitel The Beijing of Possibilities, fiction Kenneth Turan

Free for All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the

Greatest Theater Story Ever Told, nonfiction Philip Van Keuren Monody, poetry Wendy Walters

Longer I Wait, More You Love Me, poetry

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced the recipients of its 2010 fellowships on April 14th. Among the 180 men and women selected to receive a monetary grant intended to provide as much creative freedom as possible were the following 23 MacDowell Fellows: Luca Buvoli, Blane De St. Croix, Jill Downen, Angie Estes, Nell Freudenberger, Peter Godwin, Barbara Hamby, Joel Harrison, Daniel Heyman, Cynthia Hopkins, Holly Hughes, Mark Kilstofte, Franziska Lamprecht (jointly with Hajoe Moderegger), Victor LaValle, Mary Lum, Philipp Meyer, Seung-Ah Oh, Lothar Osterburg, Patrick Phillips, Salvatore Scibona, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, and Monique Truong. More than 3,000 mid-career artists, scientists, and scholars applied for this year’s grants, which were given with no special conditions attached.

Above: Visual artist Mary Lum at work in Shop Studio in 2007. Left: Writer Victor LaValle in Sorosis Studio in 2008.

Quotable “Having

all those uninterrupted hours each day to deal with my manuscript enabled me not only to get an enormous amount of work done, but also to go considerably deeper into the material than I would have thought possible. I realized things about my project I had never realized before. In my 40 years of nonfiction writing, I’ve never had an experience like this.” —Writer and theater critic Kenneth Turan, talking about his 2006 residency, during which he worked on Free for All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told. A nonfiction book examining how Joseph Papp influenced American theater by founding the New York Shakespeare Festival and the Public Theater, Free for All was released by Doubleday in January.

3 The MacDowell Colony

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Artistic Currency

Visual Compilations A body of creative work completed over an extensive period of time reveals much about the evolution of an individual artist. Surveying an artistic collection that spans decades enables us to not only understand the progression of the artist’s ideas and processes, but also to get a real sense of who the artist is and how he or she views the world.

The MacDowell Colony

Artists

Take, for instance, Doug DuBois’s recent photographic memoir, All the Days and Nights. A collection of 62 large-format color photographs, the book chronicles the trials and tribulations of DuBois’s family via a selection of snapshots taken over the course of 25 years. DuBois — whose work has been shown at such venues as the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, MoMA in New York, and the Langston in San Francisco — started working on the book in 2003 while in residence at MacDowell, where he met writer Donald Antrim. Conversations with Antrim led DuBois to conceptualize the project as a memoir, an idea that the book’s introduction — written by Antrim — reinforces. “I wanted someone who would place the book in the practice of Pictured on the cover of DuBois’s book is a memoir,” explains DuBois. “It has photograph titled My mother and father at no captions, no dates, and you the bar, London, 1990. begin to — I think, I hope — invent a narrative about these people.” The book was published by Aperture, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to photography, in 2009. Filmmaker and photographer Elisabeth Subrin’s latest solo show at New York’s Sue Scott Gallery, Elisabeth Subrin: Her Compulsion to Repeat, featured films, videos, and photographic stills shot over the past 20 years. Organized around the idea of the repetition and re-enactment of primal

Philip Van Keuren in Nef Studio in 2009.

scenes from the past, the varied offerings of the retrospective exhibition aptly reflect Subrin’s innate preference for working across narrative, documentary, and conceptual artistic practices. “There are many ways to create, just like there are many ways to make relationships,” says Subrin, who was a MacDowell Fellow in 2002 and 2003. “Some are light and immaterial, and some go deeper and therefore are both harder and more rewarding.” Included in the exhibit — which ran from January 23rd through February 26th — was Subrin’s 2008 two-channel projection Sweet Ruin, as well as the premiere of her new video installation, Lost Tribes and Promised Lands. She will have a solo show at PARTICIPANT Inc in New York in 2011. Four decades of Philip Van Keuren’s visual art was recently assembled in Philip Van Keuren: Forty Years of Works on Paper, 1969–2009, an exhibit held at The McKinney Avenue Contemporary (The MAC) in Dallas, Texas. Featuring collages, drawings, and photographs that reflect Van Keuren’s interest in the natural world and his affinity for poetry (he is also a poet), the show — which ran from November 14th to December 19th — also included a series of ink-saturated color diptychs entitled MacDowell Suites, which was created during a 2009 residency at MacDowell (see photo above). Also shown were selections from the photographic series Night Cometh, which Van Keuren began in 1991 and added to considerably while working in Nef Studio last year. Monody, a selection of his poetry written from 1978–2009, was published concurrently with the exhibit.

Artist Awards, Grants, and Fellowships Joan Acocella

ona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing ~ National Book N Critics Circle Awards

Natalia Almada

J acqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award ~ International Documentary Association, El General

Daniel Asia

Academy Award in Music ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Laura Battle

Art Purchase Program ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Leonard Bernstein*

GRAMMY Award, Best Musical Show Album, West Side Story

Richard Bloes

Pollock-Krasner Grant for Visual Artists

Philippe Bodin

Goddard Lieberson Fellowship ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Steve Bognar

cademy Award Nomination for Best Documentary Short, The Last A Truck: Closing of a GM Plant

Andrea Clearfield

American Academy in Rome Fellowship ~ American Composers Forum

Scott Coffel

Mary Karr

National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalist for Autobiography, Lit

Jonathan Keats

Sophie Brody Medal ~ American Library Association, The Book of the

Unknown: Tales of the Thirty-Six YOung Jean Lee

Academy Award in Literature ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Dan LeFranc

New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award, Sixty Miles to Silver Lake

Gaspar Libedinsky

Beca Kuitca Award for Artists

Andrea Loefke

Pollock-Krasner Grant for Visual Artists

Michael Lowenthal

James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelists’ Prize

Paula Matthusen

Walter Hinrichsen Award ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Heather McGowan

Rome Fellowship in Literature ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Stephen Nguyen

Pollock-Krasner Grant for Visual Artists

Norma Faber First Book Prize ~ Poetry Society of America, Toucans in

Lothar Osterburg

Academy Award in Art ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

the Arctic

Jayne Anne Phillips

National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalist for Fiction, Lark and Termite

Kara Lee Corthron

Paula Vogel Playwriting Award ~ The Vineyard Theatre

James Primosch

Academy Award in Music ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig

avid Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize ~ Marin Theatre D Company

Julia Reichert

cademy Award Nomination for Best Documentary Short, The Last A Truck: Closing of a GM Plant

Steve Erickson

Academy Award in Literature ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Hilary Sample

Academy Award in Architecture ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Heide Fasnacht

Pollock-Krasner Grant for Visual Artists

Daniel Scott

Joan Frank

Richard Sullivan Prize in Short Fiction ~ University of Notre Dame

hristopher Isherwood Fellowship ~ The Christopher Isherwood C Foundation

Press, In Envy Country

Bruce Smith

Academy Award in Literature ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

John Grade

Academy Award in Art ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Anita Thacher

P ollock-Krasner Grant for Visual Artists

Pollock-Krasner Grant for Visual Artists

Michael Tilson Thomas

Elliott Green

Art Purchase Program ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

RAMMY Award, Best Choral Performance, Mahler: Symphony No. 8; G Adagio from Symphony No. 10

Michael Houston

USA Fellowship in Visual Arts ~ United States Artists

Colson Whitehead

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Finalist, Sag Harbor

Michelle Huneven

National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalist for Fiction, Blame

Natasha Wimmer

Academy Award in Literature ~ American Academy of Arts and Letters

Dan Hurlin

USA Fellowship in Theater Arts ~ United States Artists

Kevin Young

USA Fellowship in Literature ~ United States Artists

*Deceased For Guggenheims, see page 3.

QUOTABLE “Having

the space and time for reflection within a landscape overflowing with the stunning beauty of winter fading into spring gave me the freedom to explore new territories and create whole worlds in my quiet studio. Those simple and significant gifts — space and time — have led me to leave this magical place with more than 60 new pages that didn’t exist before I arrived.”

—Playwright Kara Lee Corthron, whose play A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick, had its off-Broadway world premiere at Playwrights Horizons’s Peter Jay Sharp Theater in March.

Architects Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller at MacDowell in 2009.

Irving Kriesberg_Figurative Expressionist painter and sculptor Irving

Kriesberg passed away on November 11, 2009, in Manhattan. A graduate of the School of Art Institute of Chicago and New York University, he was admired for his abstract paintings that combined intense colors with evocative images of people and animals. His work is included in collections at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of Modern Art, and at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. A Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim fellow, he wrote several books and taught at Columbia, Yale, and Pratt. He had six residencies at MacDowell from 1970 through 1982. He was 90.

A Gift for All Time Artists need the uninterrupted time a MacDowell residency gives them. And they need your support. You can help artists who come to work at the Colony through two exciting giving options that transcend the bounds of time. The first option, MacDowell’s planned giving program, offers a variety of ways for donors to provide residency

Evelyn Stefansson Nef_Philanthropist, psychotherapist, photographer,

opportunities beyond their lifetimes while enabling them to retain their current assets and enjoy tax benefits. Donors support MacDowell in their estate plans by making bequest provisions in their wills or by setting up trusts to provide annual income to the Colony. Creating the Future — a new brochure outlining MacDowell’s planned giving program — is now available by mail or on the Colony’s Web site. The second option — a recurring gift plan — automatically renews support for the Colony, sustaining artist residencies throughout the year. Recurring gifts save mailing costs and eliminate the hassle of remembering to give. Scheduling donor gift renewals in regular cycles (monthly, quarterly, or annually) ensures that the Colony has a reliable income stream to sustain its

With more flexible ways to give, it is easier than ever to partner with MacDowell in supporting the artists who are creating the groundbreaking work of tomorrow. For more information on making a planned or recurring gift, please click on “Give” at www.macdowellcolony.org or contact Britton Matthews at 212-535-9690 or bmatthews@macdowellcolony.org.

“I think of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own but also of the importance of time — cleared time, unburdened time, undistracted time — to make one’s work. It is a gift to get to live like this and think only of the art and not of the countless little tasks that go into the daily grind of earning one’s keep.”

—Sarah Lambert, playwright

Ellen Foscue Johnson

commitment to artists and creativity.

and long-time MacDowell board member Evelyn Stefansson Nef died on January 10, 2010, in Washington, D.C. She was 96. A proponent of living life to its fullest, she had a spirit of generosity as varied as her life pursuits. Her background included such diverse things as puppetry, singing, Arctic research and exploration, teaching, writing, and a passionate support of the arts. The recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Alaska and a Doctor of Fine Arts Honoris Causa from the Corcoran School of Art, she received the Icelandic Order of the Falcon Medal of Honor in 2001. A longtime member of the Society of Women Geographers, she was president of the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Foundation, and was a member of the board of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Washington Opera. An active member on MacDowell’s board since 1991, the same year she funded the building of Nef Studio (see “A Dream of a Studio,” page 11), she was elected as a vice chairman in 1995. A MacDowell Fellow who had a residency in Banks Studio in 1993, she left a $1 million bequest to the Colony in her will.

Rachel Wetzsteon_Poet and teacher Rachel Wetzsteon passed away on December 24, 2009, in Manhattan. Known for its striking examination of the lives of single women and widely praised by critics, her poetry appeared in such places as The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and The Nation, as well as The New Republic, where she was named to the post of poetry editor last fall. Her published work also includes three volumes of poetry: The Other Stars (1994), Home and Away (1998), and Sakura Park (2006). A member of the faculty of William Paterson University, she previously taught at the 92nd Street Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center. Wetzsteon had two residencies at MacDowell, one in 1998 and one in 2006. She was 42.

5 The MacDowell Colony

William Berry_Artist, illustrator, and author William Berry died on January 3, 2010, in Columbia, Missouri. Known for his pencil figure illustrations and still lifes, he was the author of the widely used textbook on figure illustration Drawing the Human Form: Methods, Sources, Concepts. His work was shown around the world in more than 500 juried exhibitions and solo shows at numerous venues, including the Rhode Island School of Design; the Palazzo Cenci in Rome, Italy; and the USIA Gallery in Athens, Greece. He was the recipient of a Citation of Merit from the Society of Illustrators, and 32 of his drawings were featured in a three-year traveling exhibition sponsored by the Mid-America Arts Alliance in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. His design and illustration work was widely published in magazines such as Newsweek, Esquire, Harper’s, Sports Illustrated, and Texas Monthly. A professor emeritus of art at the University of Missouri, Columbia, at the time of his death, he also taught previously at the University of Texas, Austin; Lacoste School of the Arts, France; Wesleyan University; and Boston University. Born in Jacksonville, Texas, in 1933, he had a residency at MacDowell in 1984.

Remembering

In April, the American Academy in Rome announced the winners of the 2010–2011 Rome Prize. Awarded annually through an open national competition juried by leading artists and scholars, the Rome Prize fellowship includes a stipend, a study or studio, and room and board for a period of six months to two years in Rome, Italy. Included in the 33 recipients named this year are architects Ersela Kripa and Stephen Mueller, interdisciplinary artist Fritz Haeg, and writer Heather McGowan. Their fellowships in Rome will begin in September.

Kevin Dingman

Four Fellows Receive Rome Prizes

10 of a

F T S

MacDowell Studio

The MacDowell Colony

A room of one’s own, a cabin in the woods… These are the proverbial utopias of the artist

throughout history. MacDowell offers 32 of them. But does the studio system still hold up in an age of relentless engagement, when even being alone at our computers means being with the world at large? At a time when peace and quiet is scarcer than ever, the MacDowell studio has never been never more sought after and never more needed. With the number of applications for a MacDowell residency having doubled since 2001, the idea set forth by Edward and Marian MacDowell has remained transcendent, outlasting trends by favoring universal truths. We all — and artists, in particular — deserve uninterrupted time to focus on the big questions of our lives. The breadth and resonance of art that emerges from such focus is firmly rooted in the tranquility and seclusion that enable the artist to wrestle with ideas, grapple with emotions, and delve into the unknown. Trying to define the tangible virtues of the studio experience — and why it enables artists to produce more, and better, work — is not easy. But in talking with our Fellows, we discovered 10 gifts of a MacDowell studio that explain why these spaces have been, and continue to be, a relevant refuge for all kinds of artists.

S pac e The precious, half-timber facade of Adams Studio belies the

bright, spare interior — a space large enough so I had room to move back and forth between writing and drawing on the computer at the south end, and drawing and painting in the abundant north light. The Colony staff found me four long tables, which I arranged in a big U so I could pursue several watercolors at once. It looked a little like an assembly line, but it resulted in delicate new work because I was able to let the colors just seep and blend on one page while I diverted to the next. On the opposite wall, I set up my computer and pinned up my entire 15-week theory course with key readings, projects, and lecture slides in order of their presentation. With the semester arrayed as a single work on one wall, I could manipulate it and write about what I saw and what was needed. I think I was driven to set up my workstations when I arrived as a kind of defense — confronting all that quiet in the woods with my urban productivity. But arranging these activities in one private, secluded place allowed for unexpected directions and new rhythms for regarding and pursuing my work that have sustained me ever since. Richard Griswold is associate provost, dean of students, and a faculty member at Boston Architectural College (BAC). He is working to turn his lecture course, Design Principles — a threshold into design thinking for all BAC undergraduates — into a book. In July of 2010, he will lead a study abroad program in Florence, Italy. He also works for a design firm part-time and paints when he can.

Alexander Studio was built over the course of six years using stones quarried on Colony property.

F A C T S

studio Adams Studio was the first studio — and is one of only four — designed with a second story.

off that my agent panicked, but neither was I at the mercy of her alwaysplugged-in work habits. Building a fire provided just the meditative activity that I, on occasion, needed. The simplicity of the studio was like a whetstone that honed my attention to a razor-sharp edge. The cumulative result was the ability to squeeze three days of work out of every 24-hour period. The world that “is too much with us” fell away. In New York, I write before noon but by lunch I feel like I have to plug my phone back in and start returning calls. MacDowell has a different pace, and noon simply became the time when I could retrieve my lunch basket. My only company when I ate was four walls, two large windows, and those uncluttered desks. As I began my afternoon shift, my writing became focused — more alert to itself. Dinnertime arrived just when it needed to and then later, buoyed by the company of powerful artists at the communal meal, I returned to my cabin and worked yet again before retiring. I slept blissfully, in sight of my notebooks, knowing I could resume work when my eyelids opened and the day announced itself.

When I first entered Star Studio, I noted immediately — and with

relief — how pared down its contents were. Two desks were just the number I needed. A dictionary was the only book I wanted, and there it was. The studio was gloriously devoid of Internet access yet within walking distance of a wireless network. This arrangement meant I was not so cut

7 The MacDowell Colony

F O C U S

Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas’s awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His plays include Maleta Mulata, Sleepwalkers, and Blind Mouth Singing, which was praised as having “visionary wit” by the Chicago Tribune and called “beautiful and strange” by The New York Times. Cortiñas is on the faculty at Lehigh University and belongs to the New York Theatre Workshop and New Dramatists.

L I G HT My wonderful experience at MacDowell was heightened by the

Calderwood Studio, built in 2000, is the most recent studio constructed on Colony grounds.

Barnard Studio was moved from its original location on Union Street in 1910.

Chapman Studio, located at the end of a gravel lane, is the farthest studio from Colony Hall.

Karen Sampson

Baetz Studio was built in memory of Edward MacDowell’s nurse, Anna Baetz. Karen Sampson

Karen Sampson

Banks Studio is part of the structure known as “Mrs. MacDowell’s folly” because it took 11 years to complete.

Karen Sampson

Claire Sherman has had solo exhibitions at Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago; DCKT Gallery, New York; Houldsworth Gallery, London; Aurobora Press, San Francisco; and Hof and Huyser Gallery, Amsterdam. Recent group shows include the Neuberger Museum of Art in New York; the Bodybuilder and Sportsman Gallery and Western Exhibitions, Chicago; Samson Projects, Boston; and Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco. Her work is included in the collections of UBS Bank; The Margulies Collection, Miami; and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas.

natural light in Heinz Studio. With two sets of double doors that open to the woods on opposite ends and windows lining the top end of the tall studio walls, it was as though I was working in the woods. The shift in filtered light throughout the day provided a tempo by which to work and measure time, while the crispness of the air and sun allowed for greater visual and mental clarity.

C ross - P ollina t ion My creative interests have always been divided between writing/ directing and composing music, and my studio at MacDowell catered to both impulses in a way I’ve never experienced before. Delta Omicron had what I had only fantasized about previously: an ocean-sized desk, a beautiful grand piano, and quiet. What happened during my five weeks was an effortless, fluid interchange between writing and music. I would write for an hour, then move over to the piano and work on a piece of music, then move back to my computer. The two disciplines excite different parts of the brain, and I found myself continually refreshed by this pendulum swing between the two. Better yet, each practice began to inform the other. Sometimes I found musical accompaniments to the moments I was writing about; sometimes my perambulations along the keyboard created new tonal contexts for the scenes I was considering. Other times, music was simply an escape from the structural contingencies of screenwriting — a dose of free impulse that led me down an occasionally fantastic rabbit hole. I left MacDowell with a finished screenplay and a host of musical pieces that may find their way into my future films, as they did in my first feature.

The MacDowell Colony

Derek Simonds is a screenwriter, director, and musician living in Los Angeles and New York. He wrote, directed, and composed original music for his first feature film, Seven and a Match. He recently adapted Andre Aciman’s acclaimed novel, Call Me By Your Name, for the screen and is preparing to direct the project in the coming year.

Kristine Diekman

N A TU R E

I arrived at MacDowell in early spring, intending to experi-

to the tender unfolding of the green leaves that saturated the peripheries of my world. The interiority of the studio, the verdant forest, the trace of a past severed from the flow of the emerging present . . . This altogether unexpected narrative of the natural world deeply affected my work, opening up new, sensuous, and unanticipated paths in my artistic process.

ment with making small scar-like surfaces that, when touched, told the story of traumatic injury. The first night I arrived late, and while driving down the dark, unfamiliar road to Mixter Studio, my headlights flashed across catastrophes of tangled limbs. These were the broken branches of trees suddenly severed during a recent ice storm. The violent trace of these breaks became the focus of my daily investigation in drawing and film, and I simultaneously found that the pace of my work was perfectly mirrored by the springtime experience of witnessing leaves slowly emerge, until there was a full, lush, green canopy outside Mixter’s windows. The membrane of my window became the screen through which experience passed. This dynamic tension of traumatic loss and measured regeneration embodied in the natural world deepened my studio work. The cracked debris spearing the ground and the damaged trees arcing overhead were a backdrop

Cheney Studio accommodated Porgy and Bess playwrights DuBose and Dorothy Heyward in 1927.

Kristine Diekman is a media artist whose work addresses institutionalization, language, sanity, somatic experience, and feminist identity through documentary, narrative, and poetic strategies. She is the recipient of grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Paul Robison Foundation, the Rhode Island State Arts Council, and the California State Council on the Arts. She is a professor of video at California State University (San Marcos) and serves on the board of directors of Media Arts Center in San Diego. She received her M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Firth Studio was converted in 1956 from a hay barn that was part of Hillcrest Farm.

Heinz Studio functioned as an icehouse until 1940; it was transformed into a sculptor’s studio in 1996.

Delta Omicron Studio was built with funding from Delta Omicron Sorority, which is now known as Delta Omicron International Music Fraternity.

Graphics Studio was reconfigured in 1972– 1974 after serving as Hillcrest Farm’s pump and power house.

Karen Sampson

Michael Malyszko

R i t u al bit older than I was in 1979.) There were distracting voices in my head, but they did not yet include the nag insisting I check messages on my cell phone or e-mail. In 1979, Colonists awaited their chance to use one of the two phone booths in Colony Hall — ghostly absences today in a beautifully renovated space. The rules of nostalgia make me grateful for the phone booths and also grateful they’re gone. My boyfriend of 1979 — now my husband of nearly 30 years — is unchanged: He wants me to work well at MacDowell. When I call from my cell phone these days, he always tells me the MacDowell ritual lie: Miraculously, for days — even weeks — no bills have arrived at home. But home for now is Mansfield. Some of the furniture has changed, but that’s the same pencil sharpener with the rusty handle, ancient as a crank phone, affixed to the wall right above the little bed. When I wake up from a nap later, I’ll scribble some notes, sharpen my pencil before it needs it. Some shavings will fall on the pillow, like snow. For now, I set the old rocking chair to face the fireplace. I turn my head from the tombstones. I turn over one of my emptied boxes of books (another ritual: I always bring too many books) for use as a footstool and coffee table. I turn on the teakettle. At home now, and once again, I turn to myself.

and relish the sound of gravel crunching — that’s the sound I’ll hear when lunch is delivered, too. That’s the sound of Blake Tewksbury, the man who drives the lunch truck, and who, when he comes today, will teach me all over again how to open the flue in the fireplace. (I know how, but I need the reassurance — one of my MacDowell rituals.) A bit later in the week, I know I’ll hear Blake or another MacDowell hero shoveling the snow off my doorstep. Nearly every time I’ve come here it’s been winter, and I depend on the snow falling. Poems seem to fall out of the sky when it does. I set down some boxes and before I even set up my computer and printer, I check the tombstones. Yes, I’m still there — one of the thankfully living dead. Mary Jo Salter: 1979, 1988, 2005, and now, 2010. I know how to fill the gaps among those dates. I’ve been to MacDowell 14 times, and have also signed tombstones in Delta Omicron, Phi Beta, Star, Baetz, and Monday Music. All of these studios are old friends. I can remember the titles of many of the poems I wrote in each of them; I can associate certain lines with the slant of trees from a particular window. But Mansfield is “my” studio because it was my first. I was 25; now I’m 55. Mansfield Studio is one of the few places in the world where I feel my age doesn’t matter, even to me. I am most myself here — whatever that is. When I first came to MacDowell, I brought with me a manual typewriter, hope, and fear. It’s easy to romanticize being young, easy to forget the fear. I was single, and had no children — I wondered if a serious writer should ever have children. (Now, my first child is a writer, too. She’s a

The MacDowell Colony

I’m back. Home. I pull the car up the circular drive to Mansfield Studio,

Mary Jo Salter is the author of six collections of poems, most recently A Phone Call to the Future (Knopf, 2008). She is the editor of the forthcoming Selected Poems of Amy Clampitt (Knopf, 2010), and teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

P R I V A C Y During my residency at MacDowell, I was developing new

work. Having the sense of privacy in Shop Studio was a gift that allowed me to focus on the subtleties that are important to my work. The private space enabled ideas to float into my head, which my creative mind could embrace (or not) and hold lightly. The privacy gave my ideas enough room to breathe and grow, and the lack of distraction in the studio generated unforeseen ideas and explorations, opening up a whole new approach to working. Free of my inhibitions and self-consciousness (which can easily stop me in my tracks), I was given the opportunity to take risks and get past the point to where the real stuff begins to reveal itself.

MacDowell Studio is named in recognition of support from a group of Edward MacDowell’s music students.

Heyward Studio was originally intended to be an apartment for a caretaker.

Kirby Studio, the only brick building at MacDowell, was built by a local mason in 1937.

Mansfield Studio has sheltered more than 200 writers since 1922, including James Baldwin, Mary Gaitskill, and Studs Terkel.

Karen Sampson

Irving Fine Studio was renamed for distinguished composer and Colony Fellow Irving Fine in 1972. >

Karen Sampson

Megan Biddle has been an artist-in-residence at The MacDowell Colony, the Jentel Foundation, The Creative Glass Center of America, Sculpture Space, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia, as well as the Czech Republic and Iceland.

S e cl u sion Since my residency at MacDowell, I have bought an upright

8 The MacDowell Colony

Karen Sampson

piano. The six weeks I spent in Watson Studio made getting a piano a must; complete seclusion with my two main instruments — voice and piano — was the opportunity of a lifetime that provided me with tremendous inspiration. In New York, I only had a keyboard, which I had to use with headphones so as not to disturb my neighbors. Having the ability to get up at any hour of the night and play without worrying about disturbing anyone — and without being disturbed — was a life-changing experience for me. Without interruptions, I was able to delve deep within my creative spirit. Being forced to be silent and still in one place was hugely important for me — it offered me a new way of being. No distractions and no selfconsciousness were the new discoveries in Watson Studio, along with a state of mind and memories I can now carry with me wherever I go.

of saxophonist pioneer Steve Coleman’s Five Elements for the past seven years, Shyu has collaborated with Sekou Sundiata, Mark Dresser, Dave Burrell, Bobby Previte, Mat Maneri, Ben Monder, Taylor Ho Bynum, and her band members David Binney, Miles Okazaki, Dan Weiss, Shane Endsley, David Bryant, and Thomas Morgan. She recently sang a featured role in the recording of Anthony Braxton’s Trillium E opera, which was completed in March. She is the recipient of fellowships and commissions from the Asian Cultural Council and the Jerome Foundation.

Jen Shyu is vocalist, composer, improviser, performance artist, and multiinstrumentalist (piano, erhu, moon guitar). Aside from being a core member

F l e x ibili t y

( liv e - in vs . non - liv e - in ] liv e - in

For years, I’ve been a companion to 5 a.m., when it’s still dark, even in summer. Companion to a pot of tea and a halfway slouch on a semi-made bed, my begging bowl out, pen and paper ready. If only I am patient enough, empty enough . . . So all my poems begin. At least, that’s what wordlessly goes on before anything hits the page. But something else takes hold and continues seemingly without me — if I am lucky. At MacDowell, I’ve been enormously lucky, my studio both times being a live-in. Monday Music Studio allowed me to work as I most love to work: immediately upon waking, still partly sunk in dream, slowly coming out of sleep into what passes for a usual wakefulness. Hours of that, and after that still alone, well into early afternoon. Robert Lowell has called the poem “a controlled hallucination,” which seems about right. But did I hallucinate a grand piano, that haunted, blessed roommate I had? Or the deer that came hungry, to winter-graze on bare trees outside the big window? Or the snowstorm I watched as morning claimed a first light, and went furious with it? All these things entered my poems at MacDowell. Disturbed and happy, I couldn’t keep them out.

9 Marianne Boruch’s sixth collection of poems, Grace, Fallen from, appeared in 2008 from Wesleyan University Press. Her awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center.

N O N - liv e - in

I found the combination of having a dormitory-type room to sleep in and Baetz Studio to work in absolutely ideal. I look back on those days in my studio as almost perfect work times in a space devoted to working. And the natural beauty I saw when walking to the studio, both by day and by night, shaped my days.

New Jersey Studio was designed as a replica of Monday Music Studio.

Monday Music Studio’s roof was crushed by Hurricane Hazel in 1938.

New Hampshire Studio, originally called Peterborough Studio, was renamed in 1943. Karen Sampson

Karen Sampson

Nef Studio has been a creative haven for more than 70 photographers since it was built in 1993.

Karen Sampson

Mixter Studio, an ideal work space for filmmakers, is located across the road from Colony Hall on land Edward MacDowell donated for a public golf course.

Karen Sampson

Perri Klass is a professor of journalism and pediatrics at New York University. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, she completed her residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital in Boston, and her fellowship in pediatric infectious diseases at Boston City Hospital. She has written extensively about medicine, children, and literacy. Her short stories have won five O. Henry Awards, and in 2006, she was the recipient of the Women’s National Book Association Award. Her most recent books are Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters to a Young Doctor and The Mercy Rule, which was released in 2008.

F r e e dom For me, the most powerful art captures an emotional moment

11 The MacDowell Colony

in time. But to work with an emotion, I must first risk experiencing it. The beauty and isolation of Sprague-Smith Studio, in combination with the nurturing MacDowell environment, encouraged a profound freedom where anything was possible. With no food to cook, clock to watch, or neighbors to hear me, I was able to stay with my emotions and explore new ways of expressing them. Once, inspired by another Fellow’s work, I sang at the top of my lungs, banging out chords on the piano that I couldn’t even label. I was “fooling around,” and had I not been in a safe environment, I might have restrained myself to more careful composing methods. But the honor of being given a studio at MacDowell gave me the confidence to trust my instincts and fully embrace the mood. The result was a highly chromatic and dramatic song — quite a departure from my usual “folky” sound. The elation of this blur between “play” and “work” plunged me into a sea of details. I recorded layers of harmonics on the tenor guitar, and with collaborator Maggie Dubris’s guidance, I wrote poetry. I also spent an entire day with a digital delay pedal, tapping the bridge of my violin with a guitar pick. It sounded like hundreds of feet shuffling, and suddenly, I was crying. At MacDowell,

what might have felt overindulgent became a deep reveling in true art. And that is a gift to last a lifetime. Lisa Gutkin is best known as a fiddler and singer for the Grammy-winning Klezmatics, as well as the downtown Celtic group Whirligig. She’s been called “one hot fiddler” by Cyndi Lauper, and Pete Seeger described her song Gonna Get Through This World as “a piece of genius.” Her work can be found on more than 100 albums and film scores.

Visionary

A Studio for Interdisciplinary Art

ooking toward the future of creative freedom at MacDowell, the Colony hosted an evening exploring

contemporary artistic processes and crosspollination on March 5th in New York. A group Charles Rose Architects (2)

of 30 MacDowell artists, patrons, and guests enjoyed a showcase of works that challenge the conventions of form and discipline and demonstrate the breadth of creativity that will be made possible by the Colony’s planned interdisciplinary art studio. Chairman Robert MacNeil spoke about the

invited their artist peers to join them in

During dinner, award-winning architect Charles

leadership in innovation that has defined the

Peterborough. He also emphasized that this new

Rose presented his design for the new interdisci-

Colony since Edward and Marian MacDowell first

studio will allow the Colony to welcome choreog-

plinary studio, which has been developed based

raphers and other artists who require larger and

on input from many MacDowell artists. Focusing

more dynamic space than MacDowell can

on the need for an adaptive work space at the

currently offer. Board members Vallejo Gantner

Colony, Rose has incorporated a large black-box

and Dan Hurlin led a lively presentation of

theatre, a control room, an overhead grid, and an

contemporary art by video artist Chris Doyle;

outdoor space into the versatile layout of the

collaborative installation artists Andrew Ginzel

studio. This flexible and functional environment

and Kristin Jones; choreographer and composer

will enable collaborators to create simultaneously

Meredith Monk; performance artist Dean Moss;

while also allowing individual artists to work

and Kenneth Collins’s theater group, Temporary

freely on large-scale and multifaceted projects.

Distortion. Guests also experienced works by John Kelly, Ralph Lemon, and Karen Sherman, as well as a multimedia spectacle by the 2009 Spalding Gray Award-winning performance

realize this unprecedented work space for choreographers, visual artists, and collaborative teams, please contact Dona Lee Kelly at

Shop Studio, a visual arts studio, previously served as Hillcrest Farm’s woodshop.

Phi Beta Studio was home to composer Louise Talma 41 times over a 52-year period.

Schelling Studio, funded by Marian MacDowell, was the first studio built at the Colony for visiting artists.

Putnam Studio, originally an open woodshed, was converted to a printmaking studio in 1974.

Karen Sampson

212-535-9690 or dlkelly@macdowellcolony.org.

Karen Sampson

group, Radiohole.

Artists eagerly await this new studio. To help us

Sorosis Studio offered a spectacular view of Pack Monadnock when built on land cleared for farming in 1926.

Dream

A of a Studio Nef Studio in fall.

photographers the ability to experiment with new techniques. “In the last 20 years, photography has undergone huge changes, and many artists are combining traditional and digital processes. In Nef, there is enough space to accommodate both dark room and digital and the in-between combinations.”

12 The MacDowell Colony

Photography has a long history at the Colony, going all the way back to Edward MacDowell himself, who was an avid photographer. While numerous photographers like Zeke Berman and Francesca Woodman worked at the Colony early on, Nef Studio has proven to be fertile creative ground for James Casebere, Barbara Ess, Edward Grazda, Bill Jacobson, O. Zhang, and a myriad of other innovative photographers

s a puppeteer, an Arctic adventurer,

A longtime board member who died on December

since it first opened in 1993. One of Nef’s most

a scholar, and a psychotherapist,

10, 2009, at the age 96 (see Remembering, page

recent inhabitants, Dutch photographer Katja

Evelyn Stefansson Nef lived the

5), Mrs. Nef funded the first new studio built at the

Mater, insists the studio was a vital part of her

dreams of many lifetimes. But one of her very

Colony in nearly 60 years — Nef Studio — in 1991

residency experience. “Nef Studio was one of

first dreams was fulfilled by the photography

during Mary Carswell’s tenure as executive

the most perfect working contexts I have ever

studio she donated to MacDowell in 1993. A

director. Nef’s $500,000 gift — which enabled the

found myself in,” Mater said of her winter 2010

photographer herself, Mrs. Nef knew what it

Colony to improve its facilities for visual artists

stay. “My time in Nef has been very productive

was to be an artist making do in less than ideal

— was the largest MacDowell had ever received.

and inspiring, and I feel charged to continue

circumstances. She also understood that

It has since been augmented by her $1 million

working on the new projects I have started here

although the seed of creativity could be planted

bequest to MacDowell, which will help the Colony

when I return to Amsterdam.”

anywhere, an idyllic environment helps it

build its endowment and sustain the residency

flourish. “This is the studio that Evelyn

experience well into the future.

Stefansson Nef dreamt of in her young photographic days,” reads the plaque that adorns Nef Studio’s bluestone fireplace. “Providing it for new generations is a way of making the dream come true.”

Providing support to those who see the world through a different lens and as enduring as

MacDowell Fellow, photographer, and board

the light that shines through its windows,

member Olivia Parker, the first artist to work in

Mrs. Nef’s studio — and her generous

Nef Studio, credits the space for helping to spark

bequest — ensure that her dream will live

some of her most enduring work and for giving

on at MacDowell.

Start a Studio Fund The MacDowell Colony welcomes interest from individuals and organizations in supporting projects to preserve and improve artist studios. You can help by making a gift directed toward your favorite studio or artistic discipline. Your annual or endowed gift for a studio maintenance fund pays day-to-day costs and allows MacDowell to make building repairs on a regular basis, while a renovation grant helps fund one-time major capital improvements. Currently, only six of the Colony’s 32 studios are supported by designated studio funds. To initiate your own studio fund, please contact John Martin at 212-535-9690 or jmartin@macdowellcolony.org.

Featuring an overhead crane and welding equipment for large-scale sculpture projects, Heinz Studio was converted from an icehouse, thanks to a 1996 gift from MacDowell board member Drue Heinz. Maintenance for Heinz Studio was endowed by a 2009 gift from the Drue Heinz Trust.

Veltin Studio has housed nine Pulitzer Prizewinners, including poet Edwin Arlington Robinson and playwright Thornton Wilder.

Sprague-Smith Studio, destroyed by fire in 1976, was rebuilt later that year using the original fieldstone.

Wood Studio is sided with large, overlapping pieces of hemlock bark harvested from trees on Colony property.

Star Studio was the first studio donated by an outside organization: music sorority Alpha Chi Omega.

Watson Studio, designed in the Classical style, boasts Doric pilasters and star-shaped, patterned windows.

On Sunday, August 15th, The MacDowell Colony will present its 51st Edward MacDowell Medal to jazz composer Sonny Rollins. Rollins joins an impressive list of past recipients, including Leonard Bernstein, Alice Munro, I.M. Pei, Merce Cunningham, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Beginning at 12:15 p.m., the award ceremony will take place on The MacDowell Colony grounds, which will be open to the public for the festivities and celebration. MacDowell Fellow and pre-eminent jazz writer and critic Gary Giddins, this year’s presentation speaker, will introduce Rollins and describe his life and work to the audience. Following the ceremony, guests can enjoy picnic lunches on Colony grounds by bringing their own or by pre-ordering lunch baskets. MacDowell artists-in-residence will then open their studios to the public from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. There is no charge to attend Medal Day. The MacDowell Colony is grateful for the support of Lincoln Financial Foundation, our Medal Day corporate partner. “I’m proud and pleased to be selected to receive this very special prize,” said Rollins. “Edward MacDowell’s spirit engaged me many years ago when, as a child, I was inspired by his composition To a Wild Rose. Later, I had the opportunity to make it a part of my repertoire, performing it on many occasions and eventually recording it. Somehow, I feel I’m getting to meet him again.” A live version of Rollins’s rendition of To a Wild Rose is available on his album The Cutting Edge, which was released in 1974. In naming Rollins the 2010 Medalist, Giddins, also the chairman of this year’s Medalist Selection Committee, said, “Much as The MacDowell Colony represents to countless artists a matchless paradise for inspired, uninterrupted creativity, this year’s Medalist represents the zenith of his art. Perhaps more than any other artist since World War II, Sonny Rollins has personified the fearless adventure, soul, wit, stubborn individuality, and relentless originality that is jazz at its finest. From the time he began recording at 19, he was recognized as a major talent; his innovative approach to the tenor saxophone was endlessly copied, and his original compositions frequently adapted. But in jazz, composer and performer are often one and the same, and perhaps his key achievement has been the forging of an improvisational method that has given the idea of theme-and-variations a renewed vitality. His singular music is at once reassuring in its fortitude and daring in its detours. Incapable of faking emotion or settling for rote answers to the challenges of creating music in the moment, he keeps us ever-alert to the power of the present.” Joining Giddins on the committee were composer and founder of the Skymusic Ensemble, Carman Moore; composer, musician, and noted professor Dr. Valerie Capers; and Dan Morganstern, GRAMMY Award-winning jazz historian, critic, and current director of Rutgers University’s Institute of Jazz Studies.

Called the “greatest living tenor saxophone player” by The New York Times, Rollins has had a profound impact on music. Born in 1930, he gravitated to the tenor saxophone in high school, inspired by the work of Coleman Hawkins. By the time he graduated, he was already working with such well-known musicians as Bud Powell, Fats Navarro, and Roy Haynes. In 1951, Rollins debuted with Prestige, the record label that produced his classics Worktime and Tenor Madness (with John Coltrane). Five years later, he went out on his own, ushering in a highly creative period that produced the records A Night at the Village Vanguard, Way Out West, and Freedom Suite. Taking the first of his well-known sabbaticals in 1959 — a period in which he could often be found practicing on the Williamsburg Bridge — Rollins returned to music in 1961 with The Bridge, which featured a collaboration with Hawkins, his longtime idol. In 1966, he received his first GRAMMY nomination for the film score for Alfie; his first GRAMMY win came in 2000 for This Is What I Do, followed by a second in 2004 for Without a Song (The 9/11 Concert). Rollins is the 14th Medalist in music composition, but the very first in the field of jazz. He follows such luminaries as Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Elliott Carter, and Lou Harrison. In its 102-year history, MacDowell has provided Fellowships to more than 950 composers, including Bernstein and Copland, as well as other wellknown artists such as Amy Beach, Anthony Davis, David Diamond, Lukas Foss, Osvaldo Golijov, Meredith Monk, Paul Moravec, Ned Rorem, Duncan Sheik, Alvin Singleton, Lewis Spratlan, Louise Talma, Virgil Thomson, Melinda Wagner, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. These composers are part of the more than 6,500 artists from all disciplines who have worked at the Colony.

Composer Yotam Haber is the recipient of the first ASCAP Fellowship.

Board Adds Two Members Elizabeth Gaudreau was elected to MacDowell’s board of directors in December. Having

CourtesY Photo

previously served on the Colony’s National Benefit committee in 2006 and 2007, Gaudreau has lent her time to fundraising and special event efforts for several boards in Boston, including the Boys and Girls Club, the Women’s City Club, and the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay. She has also served on the fundraising committee for the Cancer Research Foundation of Washington, D.C. An interior designer by trade, she is the president of Grand Design in Boston. Also named to the board in December was George Griffin. A three-time MacDowell Fellow, Griffin is an independent filmmaker, writer, flipbook artist, and commercial producer who has made more than 30 films that have screened at festivals around the world. He has received numerous awards, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His most recent film, The Bather, was shown at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. He is also the creator of MacDowell: A User’s Manual, one of a quintet of short films comprising the Colony’s Centennial film, Seasons of MacDowell.

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Mr. T, the Colony’s beloved pet and mascot, died peacefully in March after living happily at MacDowell for more than 15 years. The painting of him above was created and donated by visual artist Cynthia Daignault.

The MacDowell Colony

MacDowell Medal Goes to Sonny Rollins

The ASCAP Foundation has partnered with MacDowell to offer a new Fellowship for a composer in 2010. The ASCAP Fellowship covers all costs of a residency, including the exclusive use of a studio, all meals, accommodations, and the benefits of working in a dynamic multidisciplinary community of artists. Supported by a grant from the ASCAP Foundation’s Johnny Lange Fund, the first ASCAP Fellowship was awarded to Yotam Haber, who had a spring residency at MacDowell. The ASCAP Foundation is dedicated to nurturing the music talent of tomorrow, preserving the legacy of the past, and sustaining the creative incentive for today’s creators through a variety of educational, professional, and humanitarian programs and activities. Many ASCAP members — from Clarice Assad to Leonard Bernstein — have worked at MacDowell over the years, leaving behind a distinguished legacy of creative work.

News

John Abbott

Michael Jackson

ASCAP Foundation Gives Composer Fellowship

Chairman and President to Retire from Leadership; New President Named

Williams Tsien Commissioned for New Library Complex In February, architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien presented their design for a new library complex intended to serve the needs of Colony Fellows for the next century. Integrated with the existing Savidge Library, the design was the product of three site visits and six months of working with an ad hoc design committee comprised of members of the board.

Carter Wiseman

By utilizing passive solar gain, an extraordinarily tight building envelope, triple-glazed windows, and locally sourced building materials, the design minimizes the energy needed for both construction and operation of the new facility. This new space, which will house artists and their work for generations to come, will cost $2.2 million. Fundraising for this exciting project is just getting underway. For additional information, please contact Dona Lee Kelly at 212-535-9690 or dlkelly@macdowellcolony.org.

During his 11 years as president of MacDowell’s board of directors (and a total of 15 years as a board member), Wiseman was involved in numerous initiatives that enhanced the Colony’s mission. Acting as editor, he oversaw the completion of A Place for the Arts, the 240-page commemorative book MacDowell produced for its Centennial. He was also instrumental in developing architecture as a discipline at the Colony, and helped to spread the word to colleagues like Fred Clarke, Paul Byard, and Les Robertson. Wiseman was integrally involved in the design committee for the building of Calderwood Studio in 2000, and has lent his expertise to committees overseeing plans that are in the works for a new studio for interdisciplinary arts and an expansion to Savidge Library. “I’m going to miss being in touch with so many people, talking about important issues, and making a contribution,” said Wiseman.

Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (2)

The MacDowell Colony

News

The architects’ design envisions the new space as a series of intimate areas where Colony Fellows — alone or in small groups — will work, read, converse, browse, or engage with MacDowell’s multimedia collection. With a low roof line and refined granite facade, the asymmetrical, 3,000-square-foot media center will connect to Savidge Library’s southwest corner. A bank of floor-to-ceiling windows will set the library aglow after dark like a lantern in the woods. Also proposed is a massive outdoor fireplace that, when lit at night, will act as a beacon for Fellows finishing their evening meal in nearby Colony Hall. Savidge Library will continue to serve as a reading room and presentation space, as it was originally intended to be when designed and built in the 1920s.

President Barack Obama has appointed MacDowell board member Pamela Joyner to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Sworn in at a special ceremony at the Supreme Court on February 24th, Joyner — who is a current trustee of the San Francisco Ballet, The School of American Ballet, and Dartmouth College — was added to the 25-member committee of high-profile constituents representing the country’s private and public cultural sectors. Aimed at bridging the interests of the White House, federal agencies, and the private sector, the committee works to support arts and humanities efforts in arts education, cultural diplomacy, and community revitalization.

Wiseman’s presidency also coincided with several challenges in MacDowell’s history — including the legal battle to reaffirm the Colony’s tax-exempt status — as well as important milestones, the most notable being the celebration of the Colony’s 100th year in 2007. Wiseman is quick to distribute credit to the many board members he served with, especially Chairman Robert MacNeil. “My relationship with Robert has been so hugely productive. I may have the last name, but it is he who is the sage.” Wiseman’s decision to retire was motivated by a desire to infuse new blood into MacDowell’s leadership. A distinguished writer, architectural critic, and teacher, he plans to continue writing and is in the process of finishing a new book entitled Writing on Architecture. He will also maintain his teaching duties at Yale, as well as his volunteer work mentoring high school students.

Arts = Commerce in Monadnock Region As one of 18 members of the board of directors of Arts Alive! — a nonprofit organization working to sustain, promote, and expand access to artistic and cultural resources in the Monadnock region — MacDowell’s Resident Director David Macy participated in efforts to initiate and support an economic impact study aimed at quantifying the fiscal contributions generated by local arts organizations and activities. Authored jointly by Arts Alive! and Americans for the Arts, the 11-month study revealed that nonprofit arts and culture are a $16.6 million industry in the region — one that supports 477 full-time jobs and generates $1.3 million in local and state government revenue. The report found that Monadnock-area arts and culture organizations spend $13.1 million each year in their communities, which translates into an additional $3.5 million in expenditures by audiences and arts patrons. The study’s total measured economic impact was based on the direct and indirect spending of participating arts organizations and their audiences in relation to specific events in 2008–2009.

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Joyner Named to Presidential Committee

Chairman of the Board Robert MacNeil and President Carter Wiseman announced earlier this year that they will step down from their posts in 2010. Media executive Susan Davenport Austin succeeded Wiseman in May, and a new board chairman will be named later this year.

Of Austin, Wiseman says, “She is a fabulous choice. She’s smart, has a sense of humor, is incisive, and brings a new perspective to the organization. She’s experienced on the business side, which is a good thing to have at this particular moment.” Austin Susan Davenport Austin currently serves as a director and senior vice president and chief financial officer of Sheridan Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), and president of the Sheridan Gospel Network. Among other holdings, SBC is the majority owner and manager of American Urban Radio Networks, the only AfricanAmerican owned national radio network, with more than 300 affiliates across the country. Prior to joining SBC, she spent 10 years in investment banking with such firms as Goldman, Sachs, and Co; Bear, Stearns, and Co.; and Salomon Brothers, Inc. She graduated from Harvard University with a degree in mathematics and holds an MBA from Stanford. “I’m honored to have been elected president of MacDowell’s board of directors,” says Austin. “While I am a businesswoman and not an artist, I understand that the ‘business’ of MacDowell is the artists, and I am excited by the opportunity to help MacDowell grow in its nurturing of the arts.”

Save the Dates 51st Annual Medal Day Celebration Honoring Sonny Rollins Peterborough, NH Sunday, August 15, 2010

New York, NY Monday, December 6, 2010

MacDowell’s National Trip September 10–12, 2010 Join MacDowell friends and patrons for an art-filled fall weekend in Massachusetts featuring unique visits to MASS MoCA, The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, and the homes of major collectors of contemporary art in the Berkshires. Special exhibits at MASS MoCA will include Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective and the collaborative installation Material World by Colony Fellows Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen Nguyen. At the Clark, trip participants will enjoy an introduction by director Michael Conforti, tours of the special exhibition Picasso Looks at Degas and the new Stone Hill Center designed by Tadao Ando, and a private dinner in the penthouse overlooking the galleries. Space for this trip is limited. For an itinerary and more information, please contact Britton Matthews at 212-535-9690 or bmatthews@macdowellcolony.org.

MacDowell Downtown 11.6.09 Lady in the Wings, a 1954 Hallmark Hall of Fame film about the evolution and founding of the Colony, was screened. 4.1.10 Puppet and movement artist Luis Tentindo showed video excerpts from his puppet-theater piece The Mud Angels. He also demonstrated puppetry techniques and invited audience members to try their hand at this imaginative art form.

MacDowell in the Schools 11.20.09 Writer Adrian Nicole LeBlanc returned to Peterborough to conduct a daylong workshop with more than 200 students at ConVal Regional High School. The day was the culmination of a three-month project in which multiple classes

All-Star Cast Takes the Stage at The TimesCenter On December 7, 2009, more than 300 guests gathered at MacDowell’s National Benefit in New York City to pay tribute to the Colony’s influence on the worlds of Broadway, film, television, painting, and the arts. A group of Colony Fellow Richard Mayhew’s powerfully colored paintings were on view in the large windows of The TimesCenter on 42nd Street. Beginning with remarks from Chairman Robert MacNeil, the evening was hosted by The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi, who engaged Colony Fellows and their collaborators in live interviews. James Lapine and William Finn discussed their Broadway collaborations and introduced a special performance by actor Sherie Rene Scott from their new musical Little Miss Sunshine, a stage adaptation of the hit film. Food writer Ruth Reichl and actor Dianne Wiest talked about their new PBS television series Gourmet’s Adventures with Ruth, while filmmakers Michael Almereyda and So Yong Kim introduced scenes from their acclaimed feature films Hamlet and Treeless Mountain. The evening was capped off with an original musical sketch by Broadway collaborators Scott Frankel and Doug Wright with performances by Broadway and television stars BD Wong, Alison Fraser, and Sherie Rene Scott. Recent photographs by Stephen Shore were also projected in the concert hall. Very special thanks go to benefit cochairs Eleanor Briggs; Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida; Stephanie and Robert Olmsted; Barbara and Andrew Senchak; and Theresa M. and Charles F. Stone, III. MacDowell would also like to thank Ruth M. Feder and Helen S. Tucker, as well as all the honorary chairs for this event: Laurie Anderson, Richard Mayhew, Mark Morris, James Stewart Polshek, Roxana Robinson, and Stephen Shore. MacDowell appreciates the generosity of lead corporate sponsor Random House/Bertelsman, as well as Sara Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and Zone: Contemporary Art. The National Benefit in New York City raises funds to help support Fellowships at MacDowell.

at ConVal read LeBlanc’s award-winning nonfiction book, Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx, a meticulous chronicle of the struggles of an impoverished inner-city family. The book’s publisher, Scribner, donated 175 copies of the book to ConVal last summer, enabling teachers to work it into their curriculum. LeBlanc — accompanied by two individuals prominently profiled in Random Family, “Mercedes” and “Cesar” — met and talked with small groups of students throughout the day and at a large group assembly where the author, her guests, and Alice Truax (an editor who worked with LeBlanc on the book) took questions from students, faculty, and parents.

Top (left to right): Sherie Rene Scott, BD Wong, and Alison Fraser performing at the National Benefit. Above: Aasif Mandvi (right) talks with James Lapine (left) and William Finn (center).

The LeBlanc program at ConVal is one of more than roughly 200 artist presentations the Colony has initiated in area schools since it began its MacDowell in the Schools program in 1995. Over the past 14 years, MacDowell in the Schools has reached more than 3,000 students by bringing to area classrooms more than 150 accomplished artists in the fields of architecture, music composition, interdisciplinary and visual arts, film, theatre, and literature. 1.12.10 Writer Sam Swope visited The Well School, where he shared his work with pre-K through fourth-grade students. He also collaborated with students on a story, and talked about the writing process. 1.18.10 At a visit to a third-grade class at Peterborough Elementary School, writer Sam Swope read to students and engaged them in a collaborative writing exercise. He also talked to them about MacDowell and his career as a writer. 3.19.10 Nonfiction writer Perri Knize spoke to writing students at ConVal High School about the rewards and challenges of being a journalist.

Other Outreach 3.7.10 Poet Christian Barter shared his poems at a literary reading at Del Rossi’s restaurant in Dublin. Writer Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, pictured left and above in yellow, at her MacDowell in the Schools program.

Outreach

National Benefit Honoring Robert MacNeil

15 The MacDowell Colony

Peterborough, NH Saturday, October 9, 2010

Events

New Hampshire Benefit

100 High Street Peterborough, NH 03458-2485

From left to right: Writer Kimberly Cloutier Green, visual artist Robert Lyons, architect Jonathan Friedman, composer Wenhui Xie, and theatre artist Reginald Edmund.

The MacDowell Colony

Fellowships

From November, 2009, through April, 2010, The MacDowell Colony welcomed a total of 137 artists from 22 states and six countries. This group included 57 writers, 25 visual artists, 19 theatre artists, 14 composers, nine interdisciplinary artists, nine filmmakers, and four architects. Selena Anderson, writer Pearland, TX

Reginald Edmund, theatre artist Minneapolis, MN

Christian Barter, writer Bar Harbor, ME

Jesse Epstein, film/video artist Brooklyn, NY

Claire Barwise, writer Brooklyn, NY

Christine Farrell, theatre artist Cliffside Park, NJ

Caren Beilin, writer Missoula, MT

Michael Fiday, composer Cincinnati, OH

Hunter Bell, theatre artist New York, NY

Leigh Fondakowski,

Jesse Bercowetz, visual artist Brooklyn, NY

Brooklyn, NY

Ben Beres, interdisciplinary artist Seattle, WA Susan Blackwell, theatre artist New York, NY Amy Bloom, writer Durham, CT Jonathan Blunk, writer Crompond, NY Nancy Bowen, visual artist Brooklyn, NY George Brant, theatre artist Providence, RI Alan Burdick, writer Hastings-on-Hudson, NY

Bill Burns, interdisciplinary artist Toronto, CANADA Clayton Campbell, visual artist Pacific Palisades, CA Rachel Cantor, writer Philadelphia, PA Purcell Carson,

film/video artist

Jessica Francis Kane, writer New York, NY Jonathan Friedman, architect Glen Cove, NY Alina Gallo, writer Portland, ME Renee Gertler, visual artist San Francisco, CA Samantha Gillison, writer Brooklyn, NY Sigrid Gilmer, theatre artist Pasadena, CA Peter Godwin, writer New York, NY Meghan Gordon, visual artist New York, NY Amanda Green, theatre artist New York, NY Yotam Haber, composer Brooklyn, NY Alex Halberstadt, writer Brooklyn, NY Andrea Hart, theatre artist Berkeley, CA

New York, NY

Ted Hearne, composer New York, NY

Rebecca Chace, writer New York, NY

Lilah Hegnauer, writer Charlottesville, VA

Michelle Chang, architect Cambridge, MA

Sabine Heinlein, writer Sunnyside, NY

Andrea Clearfield, composer Philadelphia, PA

Nayef Homsi, visual artist New York, NY

Kimberly Cloutier Green, writer Kittery Point, ME

Laura Jacqmin, theatre artist Chicago, IL

Bonnie Collura, visual artist Bellefonte, PA

John Jesurun, theatre artist New York, NY

Matthew Connors, visual artist Brooklyn, NY

Roxane Johnson, writer San Francisco, CA

Meehan Crist, writer Brooklyn, NY

Hillary Jordan, writer Tivoli, NY

Zac Culler,

Kathryn Joyce, writer Astoria, NY

Seattle, WA

Gabriel Kahane, composer Brooklyn, NY

interdisciplinary artist

Cynthia Daignault, visual artist Brooklyn, NY Kelly Daniels, writer Rock Island, IL Amanda Davidson, writer San Francisco, CA Caitlin Delohery, writer Brooklyn, NY Stacey D’Erasmo, writer New York, NY William di Canzio, theatre artist Drexel Hill, PA Bronwen Dickey, writer Durham, NC Kerry Dolan, writer San Francisco, CA Mark Doten, writer New York, NY

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

Stephen Karam, theatre artist New York, NY Daniel Kellogg, composer Erie, CO Jerome Kitzke, composer New York, NY Cindy Kleine, film/video artist New York, NY Kevin Kling, theatre artist Minneapolis, MN Perri Knize, writer Missoula, MT Sarah Lambert, theatre artist Port Jervis, NY Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, writer New York, NY

Nathalie Rozot, architect New York, NY

Seoul, SOUTH KOREA

Helen Rubinstein, writer Brooklyn, NY

Dan LeFranc, theatre artist Brooklyn, NY David Licata, film/video artist New York, NY Jennie Livingston,

film/video artist Brooklyn, NY

Robert Lyons, visual artist Easthampton, MA Jan Mammey, visual artist Leipzig, GERMANY Nancy Manter, visual artist Seal Cove, ME Ben Marcus, writer New York, NY Katja Mater, visual artist Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS Paula Matthusen, composer Tempe, AZ Robinson McClellan, composer New York, NY Molly McNett, writer Oregon, IL Philipp Meyer, writer Newfield, NY Eve Morgenstern, visual artist New York, NY Kate Moses, writer San Francisco, CA Quince Mountain, writer Mountain, WI Nicholas Muellner, visual artist West Danby, NY Janine Nabers, theatre artist New York, NY Ziad Naccache, visual artist Brooklyn, NY Itty Neuhaus,

interdisciplinary artist

Fishkill, NY Susan Nisenbaum Becker, writer Middleboro, MA Danica Novgorodoff, writer Brooklyn, NY Morgan O’Hara, visual artist New York, NY Diana Park, writer Pikesville, MD Joanne Pasila, visual artist Brooklyn, NY Dane Patterson, visual artist Brooklyn, NY

Mary Jo Salter, writer Baltimore, MD Nora Salzman, visual artist Chicago, IL Adam Schoenberg, composer New York, NY Heidi Schwegler, visual artist Portland, OR Derek Simonds, film/video artist Los Angeles, CA Alvin Singleton, composer Atlanta, GA Becky Smith, film/video artist Los Angeles, CA David Soll, film/video artist Brooklyn, NY Jessica Stern, writer Boston, MA Scott Stossel, writer Chevy Chase, MD Patrick Stoyanovich, composer Bainbridge Island, WA Manil Suri, writer Silver Springs, MD John Sutton,

interdisciplinary artist Seattle, WA Sam Swope, writer New York, NY Louisa Thomas, writer New York, NY Daniel Tice, film/video artist West Hollywood, CA Patrick Tighe, architect Santa Monica, CA

On the Cover…

Lynne Tillman, writer New York, NY Jonathan Treitel, writer London, ENGLAND Kim Uchiyama, visual artist New York, NY Daria Vaisman, writer Brooklyn, NY Ayelet Waldman, writer Berkeley, CA Dan Welcher, composer Bastrop, TX

interdisciplinary artist

Rachel Perry Welty,

MacDowell Studio, one of the Colony’s 32 artist studios.

David Prince,

Gloucester, MA

Photo by Victoria Sambunaris.

South Pasadena, CA

Joan Wickersham, writer Cambridge, MA

interdisciplinary artist

Beth Raymer, writer Brooklyn, NY Amber Reed, theatre artist Brooklyn, NY

Crystal Williams, writer Lake Oswego, OR Kristina Wong,

interdisciplinary artist

Jacquelyn Reingold,

Los Angeles, CA

New York, NY

Joy Wood, writer West Bloomfield, MI

theatre artist

Suzanne Rivecca, writer San Francisco, CA Lacey Jane Roberts, visual artist Birmingham, MI Roxana Robinson, writer New York, 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 Marian 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 Web site: www.macdowellcolony.org. Chairman: Robert MacNeil President: Susan Davenport Austin Executive Director: Cheryl A. Young Resident Director: David Macy

Gabriela Salazar, visual artist New York, NY

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 11 Peterborough, NH

Michelle Burke, writer Brooklyn, NY

theatre artist

Soyung Lee,

interdisciplinary artist

Doug Wright, theatre artist New York, NY Wenhui Xie, composer Cincinnati, OH Cynthia Zarin, writer New York, NY

The Colony is grateful for the generous support of the following organizations:

MacDowell is published twice a year, in June and December. Past Fellows may send newsworthy activities to the editor in Peterborough. Deadlines for inclusion are April 1st and October 1st. Editor: Karen Sampson Contributing Editor: Brendan Tapley Design and Production: John Hall Design Group, Beverly, MA All photographs not otherwise credited: Joanna Eldredge Morrissey Printer: Shawmut Printing, Danvers, MA No part of MacDowell may be reused in any way without written permission. © 2010, The MacDowell Colony The names of MacDowell Fellows are noted in bold throughout this newsletter.