An at-home artist residency?
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the idea of an artist residency? It is basically time spent away from the familiar to focus on the work. Often in beautiful quiet places that inspire and offer peaceful surroundings that nourish creative processes. As an artist, you can go on your own or join a group, perhaps coming together with painters, writers, film-makers, musicians, thinkers. Each person is given studio space and time to pursue their own projects, coming together at the end of the day to share progress and problems. I’ve always loved the residency idea since reading Anne Truitt’s account of her time at Yaddo in Daybook (see below). When I had the opportunity to create a version at Cinepoetics in Berlin, it was an experience rich in ways I could not have imagined.
I’ve often used winter break time to work in this absorbed way, to rest and think and make art, focussing on painting and writing that I’ve been longing to do but not had time or concentration for. This year, most of us can’t go somewhere different but maybe we can reframe yet another week at home into a kind of Poetic Life At-Home Residency to shift how it feels and what we do?
As an experiment, I’m inviting a small group of people to join me in this Residency for five days, beginning Monday 4 January 2021. In the first week of this precious new year for which we hold such hope, we’ll commit to spending each day, on our own, with the projects and activities that enrich us most, and to being virtually alongside each other in the explorations we undertake. No pressure to achieve or complete, just time to attend to what matters, to reflect, to breathe, to refresh.
I’ll send out some activities in advance to help prepare, and each day a short email will arrive to support your day ‘in the studio’. There will be a zoom call to meet up with a cup of tea or glass of wine at the end of the day.
I’ll offer two online ‘Studio Interlude’ sessions during the week where you can join me in my studio space to see what’s happening here and join in, if you want to, with writing and art-making.
If we want to, at the end of our Residency, I will put together an online exhibition space to share what we produce.
As a new and untried idea, there won’t be any charge. If you’d like to join us, send me a message via the Contact form below, and maybe invite a friend?
monoprint, acrylic paint on paper, Lynne Cameron 2020