Journalists Take the Long View at MacDowell Colony 2 Schwab

Vol. 43, No. 2, Winter 2014
IN THIS ISSUE
Journalists Take the Long View at MacDowell Colony Schwab Bequest Enriches Savidge Library
Betye Saar Delights Medal Day Crowd
Fellowships for LGBT-Themed Work Established
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ARCHITECTS | COMPOSERS | FILMMAKERS | INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTISTS | THEATRE | VISUAL ARTISTS | WRITERS
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LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
Avoiding a Content-Free Society
WINTER 2014 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
Artists
2
It’s gratifying to hear from artists how valuable they consider a
MacDowell Colony Fellowship to be, but when you announce a
new program and people applaud the move well before it’s officially in place, then you figure you’ve hit on something important.
That’s how it’s been ever since we started mentioning our Art of
Journalism Initiative. Everyone is excited, not just the writers.
Although we live in what many consider the great age of nonfiction, journalists are struggling. We all see that news outlets and
publishers are rapidly transitioning to new platforms in the digital
age, and while readership is expanding globally, journalists are
finding it difficult to earn a living in a paperless and “free-content”
society. Our aim in supporting creative nonfiction and long-form journalism is to avoid becoming a
“content-free” society by ensuring that writers have time to do in-depth reporting and analysis, and
find the best ways to present their stories. In this and future issues we will be providing updates on our
plan to double the number of fellowships for non-fiction. This is an important goal, especially when so
much of our modern culture seems predicated on getting everything fast, without emphasis on quality.
We owe it to our children and their children to make sure the important stories of our time are written
with the care they deserve, to increase their impact and reflect the nuances of our collective history.
Finally, I’d like to introduce you to two new MacDowell board members who are already making a
difference. Barbara Case Senchak has curated art collections for individuals and corporations, and is a
former syndicated radio interview host and producer with a focus on women in developing countries.
Barbara has graciously agreed to be chairman of the Friends of MacDowell program. Also new to the
board is Mollie Miller, a screenwriter who worked at various studios before moving into directing.
Most of her projects have been television movies for Disney, which aired on NBC and ABC. M
​ ollie
is co-chair of the New Hampshire Benefit and is also a member of the board Communications
Committee. Welcome Barbara and Mollie!
FELLOWS WORKS IN THREE BROADWAY THEATERS
The works of three MacDowell Fellows, Ayad Akhtar, Donald Margulies, and Terrence
McNally, were all on Broadway at the same time this fall, and Lisa Kron’s Fun Home as well
as Lisa D’Amour’s Airline Highway are scheduled to make their Broadway debuts this spring.
Not a bad testament to the continued creativity of MacDowell playwrights.
Akhtar’s Disgraced, which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, is currently playing at the
Lyceum Theatre and will be there through January 18 after sold-out engagements in Chicago,
London, and New York at Lincoln Center in 2012. The one-act play was first produced in
Chicago, where it won the 2012 Jeff Award for Best New Play.
Disgraced is about a successful Pakistani-American corporate lawyer who feels distanced
from his cultural roots. When he and his white wife host a dinner party, chitchat about art
eventually turns into a debate about religion, racial profiling, and 9/11, and the main character sees his carefully created
life begin to fall apart. The play currently stars Hari Dhillon and Gretchen Moll.
Donald Margulies
Margulies, also a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, is back on Broadway with The Country House, which features Blythe
Danner as the matriarch of a group of brooding artists. They gather at the family’s summer home in western
Massachusetts during the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and when the weekend’s events don’t go as planned, secrets
are unveiled and passions boil over.
The Country House is scheduled to run through December 9 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.
McNally’s It’s Only a Play, last produced in 1985 at Manhattan Theatre Club, is at Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre through
January 4. The TONY Award winner’s play about a neophyte playwright anxiously awaiting reviews of his Broadway debut
stars Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, F. Murray Abraham, and Harry Potter alum Rupert Grint.
SECOND ANNUAL MACDOWELL CHAIRMAN’S EVENING FEATURES
MICHAEL CHABON, IRA GLASS, AND ZADIE SMITH
As this edition of the newsletter was going to press, Chairman Michael Chabon was
about to sit down for a conversation with radio host Ira Glass and novelist Zadie Smith
(December 8) at the second annual MacDowell Chairman’s Evening. About 100 Friends of
MacDowell and their guests are expected to listen in to the discussion that will take place
on stage at New York’s New Museum of Contemporary Art.
Chabon has called his guests “two of our keenest, most restless, most open-hearted, and most inventive investigators
into the possibilities of narrative.”
Smith’s first novel, White Teeth, was sold to a publisher before it was completed. She finished the book while in her
final year as an English literature student at Cambridge. Glass is the host, creator, and executive producer of This
American Life, the National Public Radio program he initiated in 1995. The program has won several Peabody and
DuPont-Columbia awards.
Mollie Miller,
Filmmaker
Barbara Case Senchak,
Curator
❱❱ NEW FACES
Marissa Cinquanti,
Events Assistant
Ellen Gordon,
Housekeeping
A new wave of journalists is
turning to artist residencies,
and MacDowell in particular,
to find the time, space, and
inspiration for groundbreaking, long-form work.
In October, Amos Kamil came
to MacDowell to work on a
book based on his acclaimed story about the sex abuse
scandal at Horace Mann School. In 2012 when the article,
“Prep-School Predators,” ran as the cover story in The
New York Times Magazine, the author knew of three
Horace Mann School employees who had abused
students at the famed preparatory school. The story
earned Kamil a Pulitzer nomination, but more importantly
it prompted abused alumni to come forward, and it
inspired yet others to offer support and counsel to their
affected classmates.
Amos Kamil
Kamil, also a Horace Mann alum, says that eventually,
22 people were identified as predators in incidents from
the late-1960s to the mid-1990s.
“As the numbers kept expanding and as the school
doubled down that it was all in the past,” says Kamil, “I
knew there was a bigger story there.” As a result, Kamil
launched the investigation that would become his book,
Great is the Truth—not coincidentally, the school’s motto.
Ultimately, Great is the Truth is about how institutions
should treat survivors of such scandal. One of the bright
spots in the tale is that in the wake of Kamil’s original
magazine story, some 2,500 school alumni have formed
the Horace Mann Action Coalition made up of nonabused alumni rallying around their abused classmates.
Cheryl A. Young, Executive Director
❱❱ NEW BOARD MEMBERS
Journalists Take
the Long View at
MacDowell Colony
Ann Putnam,
Admissions Assistant
MacDowell is making a place for powerful non-fiction
like Kamil’s to take shape. Starting in 2015, a new Art of
Journalism Initiative will eventually double MacDowell’s
support of journalists to 20 annually. In addition to
expanding outreach, the initiative is designed to help
sustain in-depth reporting and literary journalism at a
time when news organizations are investing less in
longer work. Small project grants will be available,
based on financial need, to help cover the extra costs
journalists often pay out of pocket.
Another story that fits the category is being written by
Zahir Janmohamed. During his first residency at
MacDowell in October and November, the freelancer
worked on the difficult narrative of his and others’
experiences in India during the Gujarat riots of 2002.
Janmohamed, the son of Muslim Indians from Tanzania,
grew up in California. At the age of 25, disillusioned by the
racism he saw in the U.S. in the aftermath of 9/11, he
decided to explore his Indian heritage and had the bad
luck of being in the Indian state of Gujarat when three
days of violence resulted in the
deaths of more than 1,200
people, most of them Muslims.
By taking the long view of the
story, Janmohamed hopes to
paint a bigger picture than one
focused on three days of grisly
religious extremism. He’s
Zahir Janomohamed
working on a story about
identity, trauma, and memory. And being in James
Baldwin’s studio has been helpful. “When someone like
James Baldwin puts into words these complex painful
experiences,” he explains, it can be inspiring for readers
and writers alike.
Having the time at MacDowell has been a key part of the
process, giving him the space to step back from the
events, transcribe his interviews, and dig into the
reasons for his original trip to India. And having the
perspectives of fiction writers and other artists has also
been helpful in seeing the long view.
Arnold T. Schwab Bequest
Enriches Savidge Library and
Creates Poetry Fellowship
NEW AND NOTABLE PROJECTS:
Charlotte Meehan was in residence in
2008 when she wrote 27 Tips for
Banishing the Blues. Her darkly comic
look at how one woman attempts to cure
her own depression had its world
premiere in Boston in 2014 at the Boston
Playwrights’ Theatre. The Boston Globe
called it, “a thoughtful look at our
struggle to balance despair with hope.”
Artists were already aware of the difference that Dr. Arnold T.
Schwab made in their MacDowell experience even before his
death earlier this year. They could sit in the new reading room of
Savidge Memorial Library and see his name freshly engraved in
the wall, honoring his support of the library expansion that he
designated in his will. The space, well-lit with a panoramic view of
the surrounding forest, provides a peaceful place for them to explore and share new ideas outside of their studio walls.
Soon, Schwab’s legacy will grow even more. A three-time MacDowell Fellow, Schwab set aside a remainder of his
estate to endow a fellowship for poets.
The fellowship will memorialize Schwab’s love and practice of poetry. Schwab wrote many poems, lectures, and
scholarly articles in his days as a professor of English at California State University and in his retirement. Many of
those papers chronicled the lives of Marian and Edward MacDowell.
Schwab’s commitment to the Colony started with his interest in Edward and Marian MacDowell, sparked by a
biography he was writing on the critic James G. Huneker, a great admirer of Edward’s music. Schwab spent years
collecting letters, reminiscences, and other papers related to the MacDowell’s and the Colony, and in the 1970s
he went straight to the source, spending three residencies working on a MacDowell biography, which was never
finished. In 2000, Schwab’s collection was donated to the Library of Congress.
Schwab’s generosity to MacDowell as a scholar and more recently a donor will continue to benefit future
generations of Colony Fellows.
For more information on making a planned gift to MacDowell and joining the Marian MacDowell Society,
contact Director of Development John Martin at jmartin@macdowellcolony.org.
Chabon Delivers 2014 Keynote
for NH Humanities Council
MacDowell Fellows David
Lang and Alvin Singleton
Selected to American
Academy of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters
named MacDowell Fellows David Lang and Alvin
Singleton to its membership for 2014. The two
composers, who were inducted during a ceremony in mid-May, join seven other new members in the 250-person organization.
Beth Galston, visual artist, three
sculptures in “Branching Out” at the
Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA
through Sept 20, 2015.
Tangle, red oak
acorn caps and
string, 300 feet, 2014
OTHER NOTABLE PROJECTS:
Alvin Singleton
Singleton, a member of MacDowell’s Board of Directors, said being nominated is special because in
the course of composing he would often “wonder what my peers are going to think about my work.
Then you realize that someone’s been listening all these years.... It’s wonderfully gratifying.”
Fellow composer and nominee Lang echoed Singleton’s thoughts. “I’m incredibly happy about it,”
said Lang, explaining that he considers the nomination a motivator to push his curiosity about music
even further than it’s been in the past. “Now maybe it’s my obligation to ask harder questions.”
National Benefit
Monday, May 18, 2015 For tickets, call 212-535-9690.
Joan Linder, visual artist, solo exhibition
at the Charles Benenson Gallery at OMI
International Art Center in Ghent, NY
called “Drawn Home.” It runs through
Jan 12, 2015.
BETH GALSTON
Chairman Michael Chabon talked about mystical experiences, the wonder of libraries, the importance of arts
education, and most importantly, the inevitable connections between human beings during a lyrical address to 800
people at the New Hampshire Humanities Council Annual Dinner in Manchester, NH, September 30.
Chabon’s inspiring address—titled “Interlibrary Loons: Meaning, Purpose, Connectedness and Other Useful
Delusions”—began with a story about discovering Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel as a child being raised in
Flushing, NY, and ended with a nod to the magic that takes place at The MacDowell Colony.
His aim, he said, was to point out the most important attribute, or “most central importance,” of a library. The
following are two excerpts from his address.
On the child’s mind and heart:
“It’s a commonplace to say that children arrive in the world preinstalled with faithful, credulous and believing hearts ... but
I think you could just as easily argue that the opposite is true. Children come into life and spend their first few years seeing
everything for exactly what it is ... and then undergo years of often painful and confusing indoctrination, obfuscation and
mythification at the hands of adults.”
On the importance of arts education:
“In a time when primary- and secondary-school arts and music education programs are routinely sacrificed and abandoned,
... when a populace ... now lines up, logs on or kicks back on the couch to receive its daily dose of corporate sponsored
art-like product, it’s important to remember that [of] all the ways we’ve devised for increasing our sense of connectedness
to other human beings ... the most reliable is the experience of creating and partaking in works of art. Art, for artist and
art-lover alike, is still very much of some use.”
SAVE THE DATES
New Hampshire Benefit
Coming soon... Check our Facebook page and macdowellcolony.org for the announcement.
Michael Ashkin, visual artist, Long
Branch published
Margaret Brouwer, composer, Featured
Contemporary Composer on WFIU,
Indiana’s Classical NPR station, month
of September 2014.
Christian Bruno, filmmaker, debuted
short work Ed & Pauline, at the Telluride
Film Festival over Labor day Weekend.
Leah Carroll, writer, Down City published.
Matt King, visual artist, solo show
“Stowaway” at Reynolds Gallery in
Richmond, Va.
Manfred Kirchheimer, filmmaker, saw
his 1981 film, Stations of the Elevated—
worked on in residence—restored and
remastered for its U.S. theatrical
premiere in October courtesy of
BAMcinématek.
Judith McBrien, writer, third edition of
Pocket Guide to Chicago Architecture
released.
Alice Miceli, visual artist, presented new
photographs at Museum of Modern Art,
Rio de Janeiro.
Rosalind Solomon, visual artist,
released her latest book, THEM.
portablemacdowell.org
WINTER 2014 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
Joelle Khoury, composer, worked on the
music for her multi-media opera Palais
De Femmes while in residence. The
“feminine saga” had its world premiere
in Paris in October and was inspired by
the lives and works of women such as
Marguerite Duras, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia
Plath, Oum Koulthoum, Nina Simone,
Camille Claudel, Billie Holiday, Edith
Piaf, and many others. Khoury describes
the performance as a polyphony
between words, notes, sounds, images,
and dance with text in five languages.
Artists
3
2014
MEDAL
DAY
Assemblage and Installation
Artist Honored with 55th Edward
MacDowell Medal
Nearly 1,400 visitors watched assemblage and
installation artist Betye Saar accept the 55th
Edward MacDowell Medal from Chairman and
novelist Michael Chabon at a public ceremony
August 10. In kicking off the festivities, Chabon
described the three stages of the making of a
work of art: The Hunt, the Transformation, and
the Release. The following is the transcript of
his opening remarks:
BROCK STONEHAM
Good afternoon!
Forgive me if I seem to have a bit more swagger in my walk than
usual, if I seem a bit more, shall we say, swingin’. But I’ve been
working on a project related to Frank Sinatra for the past month,
immersing myself in the man and his music--and, well, you know,
they also call me “The Chairman of the Board.”
And what’s more, I actually am a Chairman of a Board.
This is my fourth Medal Day as Chairman: Edward Albee, Nan
Goldin, Stephen Sondheim, and now Betye Saar. I’m not sure it
would be possible to condense a greater sense of the range, intelligence, cunning, and fierceness of American art into a smaller span than
that. Or maybe it is: Within the confines of these 450 acres, as you
will see today when you tour the studios, 30-odd geniuses (and when
I say 30-odd, believe me, I know what I’m talking about.) from all
over the country and all around the world have been busy striking
just as deep, just as far, just as fiercely, and just as hard at the boundaries and foundations of art, as those four great pioneers.
I’m proud to have been a part of that incredible intensity, that smoldering focus, as a Fellow and as Chairman, for the past 18 year now.
I’m also proud to be the guy who in a few moments from now gets
to hand one of those medals to Betye Saar. The word “pioneer” does
not seem quite strong enough to describe the startling courage she
has shown, from the beginning, in making her presence known to
the world, and it’s neither a knock on the way in which medals get
awarded nor, God forbid, a comment on Ms. Saar’s age--it’s simply
the truth--to say this one is probably overdue.
While I was preparing for today’s ceremony I came across an
interview with Ms. Saar in which she told the interviewer that, in her
view, there are three stages to the making of a work of art: the Hunt,
the Transformation, and the Release.
I thought this was a fascinating model not just of her process, or of
the process of artists generally who work in assemblage and collage,
but of my own and perhaps that of most artists, in any discipline. I
hope that Ms. Saar will forgive me if I take hold of her framework
and run with it a little ways, the way my dog Mabel does when she
gets hold of somebody’s swim goggles.
Let us consider the three stages in reverse order.
The final stage, “The Release,” is the briefest, and the weirdest, part
of the whole business. It comes when the work--assemblage, poem,
canvas, short story--is surrendered to the tender mercies of the world:
put up for sale, given away, submitted for publication, abandoned
in a drawer. Consigned, at times after years of labor, doubt and confusion, to its fate. This is the weird part because, first of all, it often
involves money or questions of compensation, and money makes
everything weird. It’s weird because having your work exposed, at
last, is kind of like what I imagine it would feel like to be trepanned,
that moment when the tap of a very sharp chisel lets the light and
air of the outside world flood in, revealing what had until now lain
pulsing secretly in the dark. That has to feel pretty weird, right? “The
BROCK STONEHAM
WINTER 2014 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
4
Betye Saar: Mo
(Clockwise from top left) Medalist Betye Saar and Chairman Michael Chabon present the 55th Edward
MacDowell Medal; Brenda Garand, Daniel Kojo Schrade, and MacDowell Fellow Betsey Garand after the
ceremony; Lila, Caroline, and Laura Trowbridge head off to lunch before touring Medal Day open studios;
Michael Chabon addresses the gathered crowd.
“
I have been a
believer that
one can best bring
about change in the
world by cultivating
one’s own garden and
trusting that others will
do the same. Betye Saar,
by cultivating her own
garden through the art
that she has created has
played an important role
in showing the world
the beauty of African
American culture. What
a gift to the American
cultural experience!”
—PRESIDENT SUSAN DAVENPORT AUSTIN
Release” is also weird because it brings about situations like that of
a painter friend of mine, a former MacDowell Fellow himself, who
misses his paintings, once they’re sold and gone from his studio, who
kind of pines for them, and has even contrived, on rare occasions
when it gets really bad, to track them down and go and visit them
for as long as decency or their current owners will permit. I guess he
hasn’t quite yet grasped the whole “release” concept.
The middle stage of the process, the Transformation, is probably
what most people think of when they think of an artist making art:
the part where the artist turns tubes of pigment into haystacks at
sunset, the remembered details of a tour of duty in Vietnam into a
magic-realist epic, the notes of the diatonic scale into a sonata that
leaves hard men in tears, or--in the case of Betye Saar--an antique
washboard, an image clipped from an old magazine ad, a doll and a
pair of vintage ladies gloves into an assemblage that is both a stinging
indictment of, and a witty riposte to, a century and a half of pernicious pop-cultural racism.
The first stage of the artistic process that Ms. Saar talked about in
that interview, the Hunt, is the most important, I think, and the one
that tends to be misunderstood or completely neglected by non-artists
and even by artists themselves. It’s the part that people at bookstore
readings are unwittingly referring to when they raise their hands during
Q&A and ask an author--often an author who has not slept particularly
More Than a Pioneer
“
In all the
various
disciplines, artists tell
us stories. Some of
those stories are difficult
and some of them
are beautiful. But all
artists have a genius for
combining rational and
emotional intelligence
into something that
makes the hair on my
arms stand on end. That
kind of response means
Art is working its way
into us, helping us to
understand our deepest
selves. For young and old,
being opened up to ideas
through art, to think and
form an opinion about
what we believe, is the
best exercise we can get
and we are better for it.”
—EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CHERYL YOUNG
Of the 1,931 applications
in 2014, more than 75
percent were from those
who’ve not yet come to
MacDowell. Applications
came from 48 states and
62 countries. From that,
288 residencies were
awarded.
(Standing, from left)
Resident Director David
Macy, Executive Director
Cheryl Young, Chairman of
the Board Michael Chabon.
(Seated, from left)
President Susan Davenport
Austin, Medalist Betye
Saar, and Presentation
Speaker Lowery
Stokes Sims.
Museum of Arts and Design Curator
Lowery Stokes Sims introduces
55th Medalist Betye Saar
Joining Sims on the selection committee were
visual artists Nene Humphrey and Richard
Haas, Leslie King-Hammond, art historian and
founder of the Center for Race and Culture at the
Maryland Institute College of Art, and the late
Susan Sollins-Brown, executive producer and
curator of PBS’s Art in the Twenty-First Century.
I’m entitling this A Praise Song for Betye Saar.
One of the things that Betye Saar and I have done together in the past,
and have not done enough of in the present, is to shop. I recalled that
fact a few years ago when at the behest of the Michael Rosenfeld and
Halley Harrisburg I wrote a brief personal reminiscence about Betye. I
rely on that reminiscence here with some recent embellishments.
I suppose I was shopping with Betye Saar even before I met her.
When I first encountered her work in the late 1970s—in the notorious
exhibition of black American artists organized by Robert Doty at the
Whitney Museum of American Art in 1971, and later in the basement
gallery in SoHo of Monique Knowlton—I had just embarked on what
turned out to be an occasional hobby of collecting black memorabilia. I
sought out dolls, figurines, photographs, salt shakers, twine holders, fly
swatters and whisk brooms in expected and unexpected places. I would
later realize that I was shopping along with Betye in spirit.
Betye’s engagement of and challenge to commercial black imagery,
which had been an irksome presence since the Reconstruction era,
was a never-ending source of fascination for me. As a young black
person I had grown up with the expected unease with and disgust
for black stereotypes such as Stepin Fetchit, Uncle Tom, Sapphire,
Amos and Andy, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Mose, and Uncle Ben, and a
whole other panoply of characters. These were certainly not the types
of images in which one expected to find a new and positive black
assertiveness. What Betye’s art work did was to let me and others
in on another reading, another consideration of those images, their
historical reality, and their social impact, and to begin to recognize
that they could be mechanisms for survival, and a means to coopt the
distortions of racist ignorance.
Because of the fact of her work, therefore, my avocational passion—which some of my family and friends viewed as a transgressive
pleasure—was given context and meaning, and the objects in my
collection shed their controversial pasts as symbols of shame and
ridicule. They were resurrected as instruments of liberation for me as I
strove to define myself in the world.
At times I also realized that the dialogue I could have with Betye’s
work could take on the character of an inside joke, or a nod and a
wink of those in the know. This was the case when I engineered the
acquisition of one of Betye’s boxes, Whitey’s Way (1970-1996) for
the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I was on their staff. This piece
shows a series of identical white figurines of alligators aligned on a
mirrored surface. I realized that my colleagues at the Metropolitan
initially saw this as an expression of ethnic serial imagery. At the time
it was brought into the Museum, a postcard that Betye had put into
the lid of the box had gotten loose and it was only when it was recovered that the true meaning of the work was evident. The post card
showed a popular image of a young black boy half in the mouth of
an alligator referring to the actual, though thankfully not widespread,
use of black babies as alligator bait.
So in light of my affinity for mementoes from the past, and Betye’s
need to replenish her stock of images to make her art when we got together we would shop whether in a flea market or swap meet or places like
5
WINTER 2014 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
well for several nights in a row--that dreaded question “Where do you
get your ideas?” The fact that writers dread and despise this question
so thoroughly may be proof that the Hunt is the least understood, and
most important stage in an artist’s process. And one of the many, many
wondrous things about Betye Saar’s work is that it exposes the importance of the Hunt to making art in a way that is readily grasped.
At its simplest, the Hunt might be defined as the period during
which the artist assembles, accumulates, organizes, and prepares the
raw materials that will, during the next phase, be transformed. For
Betye Saar the Hunt is often, in part, quite literal: she haunts garage
sales, secondhand stores, junk yards. I can actually report that she sent
out some emissaries this morning to a local swap meet. She trains her
gaze on curbsides and trash bins, rescuing what has been discarded or
neglected to obtain material for her pieces.
But I would argue, and I hope Ms. Saar would agree, that the
Hunt, properly understood, begins long before the first trip to the
Salvation Army or the hardware store, before the first research is undertaken or the first interview conducted, before the canvas is bought
and stretched and the paints mixed--long before the commission is
ever received. The Hunt for the raw materials out of which art can be
made begins before we even know we might want to spend our lives
making it. The Hunt begins before we are born, with the experiences
and memories, the skills and the scars accumulated by our parents,
grandparents and great-grandparents, and it carries on, in earnest,
from the day we are born, through all the years of our education
(both in school and out), through the streets and houses of our hometown, through the pages of the books we read and the flicker of the
movies we see and the endless hours of music we listen to. All of that
provides us with raw material for the Transformation; they are all the
spoils, and the quarry, of the Hunt.
When the time comes for the Transformation, if you’re, say, Betye
Saar, you are holding not just bits of glass and pottery, old furniture to
reconfigure and old books and magazines to repurpose, but particular
memories: of seeing Simon Rodia’s magical towers rise from the alleyways
of Watts, of your relatives’ conversations and tribulations. You hold the
expertise you gained by making enamel jewelry to sell at fairs when you
were young, and that you gained by raising three bi-racial daughters in a
racially fraught city. You hold your history of pain and love and sorrow,
of slavery and emancipation, hope and disappointment, exclusion and
marginalization, your history as a woman, your history as a reader of
magazines and fairytales. All of that, taken together, is where you get your
ideas. And now the Hunt is over, and it’s time to get to work--no time
to consider the mysterious possibility that all along it was not you who
was doing the hunting, that in fact you are just the container, the basket
in which some unknown hand has gathered all that raw material, that it
is not the bits of flotsam or cans of paint or skeins of words but yourself
that must now be transformed. And as for the Release...? Let’s burn that
bridge when we come to it. Thank you.
WINTER 2014 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
6
the Terminal Market in Philadelphia, a trendy boutique on the upper
west side of Manhattan, or in a new mall she insisted that I see in Los
Angeles. We hunted for presents for ourselves and friends, ate in the hottest restaurants and where possible took in the drop-dead gorgeous views.
I hope that I’ve indicated how Betye Saar and I have long had
a multi-layered relationship: artist/curator, teacher/ student, black
women across generations.
As a curator I’ve had to privilege of writing about her work, and
being able to do so from a highly personal point of view. I have observed how she creates a visual dialogue between real and manufactured
images, particularly of black women. How she exploits the racially
charged metaphorical meanings of colors such as white and black.
How she affirms our spiritual essence as African peoples as well as our
empirical challenges in the world. After all she emerged as an artist in
the 1960s and 70s as black Americans were involved in a movement
to assert their right to economic, social, and political equality in this
country. One of the crucial strategies in this effort was the recasting of
the self-image of the black American.
In this context, as Susan Scott indicated yesterday, Betye’s legendary
work The Liberation of Aunt Jemima of 1972 burst onto the landscape
of American art like a molotov cocktail. This boxed assemblage of modest proportions gathered “found” objects into a “mojo” (i.e. an amulet
or charm that works with the strength and conviction of the user) that
transmuted the mythical stereotype of Aunt Jemima from some fantasy
of the good-natured black servant to a dedicated terrorist outfitted with
a grenade and rifle, ready to reclaim her power and her dignity.
As a student I learn from her every time she exhibits her work. I
see how artifacts from vernacular life and personal histories can be
brought together and result in works of great visual acuity and political acumen. At times the effects are breathtaking even in their simplicity. I think specifically of a small sculpture of a kneeling African
woman set in a gilded cage that was part of her exhibition Cage at the
Rosenfeld Gallery a few years ago. It was a heart-stopper, metaphorically capturing the experience of women caught in a cage—albeit
gilded—but caught in a cage nonetheless.
As a student I also learn how she brings to her work certain qualities that are key elements of her vision: improvisation, emotional
engagement, nature, and her own personal presence and energy.
A primary encounter with Betye’s work is on an intimate scale
where one can meditate quietly and privately on her transformative gestures. But even as the assemblages and collages gave way to
larger altar-type works and eventually installations, the context for
the object in Saar’s work grew richer and more profound in nuance.
While this enlargement of scale and space would seem to deprive the
viewer of the experience of the quintessential intimacy and concentrated energy of the early works, Saar has never lost her primary connection to the innate and accumulated aura of the individual object.
Through the artful evocation of nostalgia, shamanism, autobiography,
and reconstruction in these works Betye has been able to consistently
and directly engage her audience.
Her installation work, which has been a part of her oeuvre since
the 1970s, has given her a vehicle by which she could “travel” her
art and engage a larger number of people—particularly art students.
She revels in the improvisational mode in which she has had to create
these works in the past. Often it was not feasible to transport a cache
of objects from her studio, so she would find herself creating the
work on site in conjunction with others. On occasion even visitors
to the exhibition might be invited to leave their own contribution on
a work, accumulatively altering the form and substance of the work
during the exhibition. In this way Betye brings her work squarely into
the realm of communal expression that characterizes the work of the
tribe—i.e. the familial group—and the magical and occult aspects of
the objects are refocused again.
But the roots of that expression are multi-variant. Betye thinks of
herself not only as a woman artist, but as a California artist. As she
has noted the first consideration has given her access to an intuitive
gift that was nurtured and sustained through the multi-ethnic gene
pool into which she was born. The second consideration has led her
to feel a particular cultural affinity to Asia and to appreciate the West
Coast environment where light and water are omni-present, reinforcing her particular connection with nature.
As women bridging generations, Betye and I have shared perspectives
on our experiences as black women, meditating on the conditions of
exploitation and servitude that for many of us are but one or two generations behind us. As our late great mutual friend Arlene Raven, the noted feminist critic and writer, observed about Betye’s work dealing with
(Top) Baxter and Bonnie
Harris enjoy a picnic lunch
with their daughter Molly
Herron. (Lower left) Visual
artist Emily Noelle
Lambert demonstrates
print making for a young
visitor in Graphics-Putnam
Studio after lunch.
“
Sometimes
from the
outside MacDowell
can be mistaken for an
isolation chamber for
creative work, a place
where artists are trained
on deadlines with
bleary eyes, endlessly
grinding out work in the
studios. But the reality
is that MacDowell is an
incredibly social place,
a rich community filled
with opportunities to
trade ideas and make
fast friends. Its open
admissions process
brings together a cast
of characters that could
never be assembled
here or anywhere else
without the striving of all
those who are seeking
the time to make their
work…and to discover
what it’s like to make
it on an organic time
schedule.”
—RESIDENT DIRECTOR DAVID MACY
2015
The MacDowell Medal is
rotated among the artistic
disciplines practiced at the
artist colony established
in Peterborough in
1907. Next year’s medal
will be awarded to an
individual who has made an
outstanding contribution
to the realm of music
composition.
black female labor: She is able to “[intensify] the irony inherent in her
materials, exaggerating beyond satire to black humor,” while demonstrating “the involuted and unfinished nature of American apartheid.”
I cannot conclude my remarks without acknowledging the influence
that Saar has had in the art world on generations of younger artists. Her
gift as a manipulator of texture, color, image, shape and contour informs the work of a host of artists for whom she paved the way for their
positive reception in the art world. A few who readily come to mind:
Joyce Scott, master beader and glass artist, who is a comparable
creator of commentary within the context of a highly aestheticized
sensibility and technical virtuosity.
Kara Walker, with whom Betye has disagreed, but who would never
have been able to pursue her artistic ambition without Betye Saar.
Performance and installation artists from Kaylynn Two Trees,
to Sengue Nengudi and Maren Hassinger and Simone Leigh would
never have been able to see how their own existences could be potent
and viable subjects for art without Betye Saar.
And I can’t fail to mention the wonderful work created by her
daughters Alison and Lezley who have found their own voices within
the language she has created. And Tracye, whose engagement with
language complements those of her siblings and of her mother.
Betye Saar is an artist for all ages. At a time in human history
where individual responsibility on all planes, especially the spiritual,
is increasingly abrogated, she reaffirms the validity and power of the
individual and shows us the way to tap the best qualities in ourselves
and reach our highest good. She is a guru, a griot and a masterful
materialist. She is also feisty, feminist, mystical, and race affirming.
Therefore this year’s MacDowell medal committee, which also included Richard Haas, Leslie King Hammond, Nene Humphrey and
Susan Sollins (under the stewardship of Cheryl Young and Michael
Chabon), is honored to present the 2014 MacDowell Medal to Betye
Saar for her outstanding achievement and continuing effervescence in
the arts of the United States and the world.
Betye Saar Delights Crowd as She
Accepts Edward MacDowell Medal
Thank you.
Eighty-eight revolutions around the sun. Eighty-eight revolutions
around the sun, and what do I have to show for it?
All the hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. All of those
behind me and yet here I am hunting and gathering, collecting, finding objects, images, materials, imprints, impressions, ideas, memories to recycle. To recycle, to reinterpret, to mix, to match. To recycle
all the trash and treasure that I have with the obligation to reinterpret,
to connect, to transform by cutting, tearing, nailing, painting, gluing,
with fabric, paper, and paint.
My creative process, which is my art: collages, assemblages, installations. I guess that’s what I’m leaving behind. But anyway, I feel that
I’m creating herstory, my story.
The MacDowell Colony encourages and supports creativity, just as
all of us right here in this space are doing our part to encourage and
support creativity.
And here I am a few weeks into my Eighty-ninth revolution around
the sun. Here I am receiving this medal as my reward, and I feel that
this medal says for me, ‘You go, girl!’
(applause and laughter)
And my reply is, ‘Thank You.’
(applause)
New Fellowships for
Artists Working on
LGBT-Themes
Bill Knott_ Poet Bill Knott, a prolific writer, died on
Artist Awards, Grants
and Fellowships
Playwright Robert Schenkkan’s All the Way won a Drama
Desk Award for outstanding play, while Louise Erdrich
and Donald Margulies won PEN awards.
Other awards and their recipients include: Alpert
Award in Film and Video to Deborah Stratman;
Radcliffe Institute Fellowship in Literature to V.V.
Ganeshananthan, Radcliffe Institute Fellowship in
Literature to ZZ Packer, PEW Fellowship in the Arts
in Literature to poet Laynie Browne, PEW Fellowship
in the Arts in Literature to poet Thomas Devaney.
National Endowment for the Arts Grants in creative
writing went to Amy Quan Barry, Catherine Chung,
V.V. Ganeshananthan, Michelle Hoover, Alexandria
Marzano-Lesnevich, Daniel Mason, and Raj
Parameswaran.
Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants were awarded to 12
MacDowell Fellows: Mixed-media artist Golnar Adili,
Installation artist Shimon Attie, Interdisciplinary artist
Helene Aylon, Sculptor Zigi Ben-Haim, Writer Judith
Braun, Painter Ray Ciarrochi, Painter Joe Fyfe, Painter
Jim Gaylord, Painter Tom Judd, Visual artist Lindsey
Landfried, Painter Tabitha Vevers, and Sculptor
Tamara Zahaykevich.
Westminster, CA at the age of 92. Schwab, who was in residence three times, last
in 1978, wrote several books including the recently published One Night Stand and
Other Poems. Schwab earned his undergraduate degree from UCLA in 1943. After
serving three years in the U.S. Navy he received his master’s degree and then his
Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1951. He taught at California State University
Long Beach until he retired in 1980.
Pati Hill_ Author and visual artist Pati Hill, who was acclaimed for her work in
fiction in the 1950s and 1960s and then turned to making visual art with a photocopier, died in her home in Sens, France on September 19, 2014. She was 93. Hill,
who was in residence six times, the last in 1977, published her first book, The Pit
and The Century Plant, in 1955. It told stories about her life in the French countryside and was followed quickly by a novel, The Nine-Mile Circle.
Susan Sollins-Brown_ Susan Sollins-Brown, MacDowell Colony Board
Two MacDowell Fellows, fiction writers Olivia Clare and
T. L. Khleif, have received 2014 Rona Jaffe Foundation
Writers’ Awards. Two Lucille Lortel Awards went to
playwright and actress Lisa Kron. She won outstanding
musical for Fun Home, and outstanding featured actress
in a musical for her part in Good Person of Szechwan.
Interdisciplinary artist Mimi Lien won outstanding scenic
design for Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.
The National Book Award in Young People’s Literature
was awarded to fiction writer Jacqueline Woodson for
Brown Girl Dreaming.
Arnold T. Schwab_ Poet Arnold Schwab, died on July 1, 2014 at his home in
member for 13 years and executive director of ART21, Inc., died suddenly on
October 13, 2014 at home in Rye, NY. She was 75. Sollins-Brown was the producer,
director, and curator of the groundbreaking Peabody Award-winning documentary
television series, Art in the Twenty-First Century, broadcast nationwide on PBS and
now in its seventh season. Her feature-length film, William Kentridge: Anything is
Possible, also received a Peabody Award. Sollins-Brown was the co-founder, with
the late Nina Sundell, of Independent Curators Incorporated (ICI), now Independent
Curators International, and was president of the Earle Brown Music Foundation
named for her husband, composer Earle Brown, who died in 2002.
Kit Carson_L.M. Kit Carson, a filmmaker dedicated to independent film and
7
perhaps best known for co-writing the screenplay for Paris, Texas and the 1983
remake of Breathless, died on October 20, 2014 in Dallas. He was 73. Carson, who
also worked as an actor, producer, and director, was in residence three times,
most recently in 2008. Before launching into filmmaking, Carson wrote about his
discipline for Esquire and Rolling Stone, among other journals. He co-wrote and
played the title character in David Holzman’s Diary in 1968, a film credited as being
one of the first mockumentaries. Described as a Texas film legend, he later
became a mentor to Wes Anderson as well as Owen, Luke, and Andrew Wilson.
Galway Kinnell_Galway Kinnell, a poet noted for his
plain-spoken verse, willingness to teach, and his political
activism, died October 28, 2014 at his home in Sheffield, VT.
He was 87. Kinnell, who was in residence seven times
between 1959 and 1992, was a great presence among the
artists in residence at MacDowell. He was named the
Vermont State Poet in 1989, wrote more than a dozen books
of poetry, won the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award,
and wrote simply, eschewing the modernist poetry of the masters publishing as he
came of age. Kinnell wrote about street life in New York, love, and death in a lyrical
style that has ensured that all his poetry published since 1960 has remained in
print. In 1983, his Selected Poems won the Pulitzer as well as the National Book
Award. He was married to Board Member Barbara K. Bristol.
Community Engagement:
MACDOWELL IN THE SCHOOLS
Non-fiction writer Leah Carroll met with 20
advanced writing students at ConVal Regional
High School in May. Later that month, composer
Orlando Garcia discussed composition at ConVal.
In June, poet James Arthur led students in
writing exercises, and fiction writer Devika Rege
conducted a series of workshops in crime
writing. In July, interdisciplinary artist Gregory
Sale joined Devika to talk to the class about his
work with men and women incarcerated in U.S.
prisons. He also visited the Concord Corrections
Center for a workshop on communicating
through art. Filmmaker Mike Estabrook visited
ConVal art classes twice to talk about and
demonstrate his techniques. Composers Andrew
Norman and Yotam Haber met with 45 Walden
School students in Savidge Library in July.
Writer Sarah Deming taught boxing to a dozen
ninth grade students at High Mowing School in
September. She then joined playwright Boo
Killebrew to talk about writing with 25 seventh
grade students from World Academy in Nashua.
MACDOWELL DOWNTOWN
In May, Heather Robb told stories and sang
songs from her current project, a contemporary
musical called The Gig. In June, Tamar Ettun
introduced her sculpture and installations using
parachutes as inflatable performance spaces
before taking everyone out into the Monadnock
Center’s courtyard to inflate a demonstration
piece. Later that month Andrea Clearfield
talked about her new opera, shared recordings,
and showed images of two treks to record songs
of a rich but endangered Himalayan culture.
Visual artist Deborah Aschheim presented
drawings and sculpture that explored shared
cultural memory, and in September filmmaker
Yemane Demissie showed clips and talked
about his new documentary series examining the
social history of his native Ethiopia during the
reign of Emperor Haile Selassie. In October
playwright Boo Killebrew read from her recent
work and showed clips of her work The Play
About My Dad, and in November composer Guy
Klucevsek introduced the accordion as a
versatile concert instrument.
WINTER 2014 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
Over the next four years, the Arch and Bruce Brown
Fellowships will be awarded to artists inspired by
history and working on LGBT-themed theatre, music,
choreography, or interdisciplinary genres intended for
stage settings. While MacDowell residencies have
supported many works on these subjects, from the
essays of James Baldwin to the prize-winning theatre
work of Doug Wright, and Lisa Kron, this grant reflects
the Colony’s mission of fostering freedom of expression
and a diverse artist community. Candidates for the
Fellowships will be selected annually from artists who
have successfully completed the standard MacDowell
application process.
Remembering
New Fellowships from the Arch and Bruce Brown
Foundation will support MacDowell residencies for artists
working on lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender themes in
performance-based work. The $20,000 grant, which is
also the largest award the foundation has ever given, is
the first at MacDowell designated specifically for
LGBT-themes.
March 12, 2014 in Bay City, Michigan, at the age of 74. Knott,
who was in residence seven times, most recently in 1979,
published many works of poetry and loved to use social
media to connect his work to a wider audience. According
to The Boston Globe, Knott was a relentless reviser. He
would revisit his works, pulling them off the shelves in
libraries or stores, making notes on the pages, then leaving the revised books for
readers to find. His two epitaphs “Death” and “Goodbye” are considered some of
his best work and were published in his first book, The Naomi Poems, in 1968. Knott
taught at Emerson College and inspired students for more than 25 years.
❱❱ FELLOWSHIPS
From May 2014 through October 2014, The MacDowell Colony welcomed a total of 155 artists from 24 states and
six countries. This group includes 67 writers, 29 visual artists, 11 film/video artists, 10 interdisciplinary artists, 14
theater artists, 14 composers and 10 architects.
WINTER 2014 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
8
EMILY ABRUZZO, Architect
Brooklyn, NY
ANNE FADIMAN, Writer
Whately, MA
JOSEPH KECKLER, Interdisciplinary
Artist; Brooklyn, NY
IEDE RECKMAN, Visual Artist
Leiden, The Netherlands
JOAN ACOCELLA, Writer
New York, NY
MELISSA FEBOS, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
BOO KILLEBREW, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
DEVIKA REGE, Writer
Pune, India
BASMA ALSHARIF, Film/Video Artist
Chicago, IL
ROSEMARIE FIORE, Visual Artist
Bronx, NY
ALICE KIM, Writer
San Francisco, CA
MAURICIO ARANGO, Film/Video
Artist; Brooklyn, NY
DAN FISHBACK, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
MELISSA KIRSCH, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
JESSICA SARAH RINLAND,
Film/Video Artist
Surrey, United Kingdom
PENNY ARCADE, Theatre Artist
New York, NY
EDWARD FORD, Architect
Charlottesville, VA
NATE KLUG, Writer
Des Moines, IA
SOLEDAD ARIAS, Visual Artist
New York, NY
REBECCA FOUST, Writer
Ross, CA
KARLA KNIGHT, Visual Artist
Redding, CT
JAMES ARTHUR, Writer
Baltimore, MD
LISA FRANK, Visual Artist
Madison, WI
LISA KO, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
DEBORAH ASCHHEIM, Visual Artist
Pasadena, CA
RUTH FRANKLIN, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
EUN KOH, Writer
Mercer Island, WA
MICHAEL ASHKIN, Visual Artist
Ithaca, NY
DARCY FREY, Writer
Cambridge, MA
NICOLE KOLTICK, Architect
Andalusia, PA
JOSHUA ASTER, Visual Artist
Inglewood, CA
AMITY GAIGE, Writer
West Hartford, CT
NICHOLAS KOVATCH, Visual Artist
Minneapolis, MN
TEMME BARKIN-LEEDS, Visual Artist
Atlanta, GA
ORLANDO GARCIA, Composer
Miami Beach, FL
ANTONIA KUO, Visual Artist
Brooklyn, NY
ANN BAULEKE, Writer
Minneapolis, MN
ELIZABETH GREENWOOD, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
EMILY LAMBERT, Visual Artist
Sunnyside, NY
JAMIE BAUM, Composer
New York, NY
YOTAM HABER, Composer
New Orleans, LA
FÁBIO LEAO, Visual Artist
São Paulo, Brazil
JO ANN BEARD, Writer
Rhinebeck, NY
ALEX HALBERSTADT, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
DAVID LEVINE, Interdisciplinary
Artist; Brooklyn, NY
SILVIA BENEDITO, Architect
Cambridge, MA
SARAH HALPERN, Film/Video Artist
Brooklyn, NY
MARK LEVINE, Writer
Iowa City, IA
REBECCA BENGAL, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
ZACHARY HARRIS, Writer
Pittsburgh, PA
CYNTHIA LIN, Visual Artist
New York, NY
MARIE-HELENE BERTINO, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
WILL HERMES, Writer
New Paltz, NY
LEE MAIDA, Visual Artist
Brooklyn, NY
MIRIAM BLOOM, Visual Artist
New York, NY
ELLA HICKSON, Theatre Artist
London, United Kingdom
MIWA MATREYEK, Interdisciplinary
Artist; Los Angeles, CA
MICHAEL BROEK, Writer
Little Silver, NJ
MARIETTA HOFERER, Visual Artist
New York, NY
MICHAEL JONES MCKEAN, Visual
Artist; Richmond, VA
NICHOLAS BROOKE, Composer
Bennington, VT
RICHARD HOLETON, Writer
Montara, CA
PAULA MCLAIN, Writer
Cleveland Heights, OH
KRISTIN CALABRESE, Visual Artist
Inglewood, CA
JOHN HOLLENBECK, Composer
Binghamton, NY
MAUREEN MCLANE, Writer
New York, NY
JIBZ CAMERON, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
CATHY PARK HONG, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
ROSE MCLARNEY, Writer
Tulsa, OK
LEAH CARROLL, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
GARRETT HONGO, Writer
Eugene, OR
KIEL MOE, Architect
Cambridge, MA
CHRISTOPHER CASTELLANI, Writer
Boston, MA
LYNNE HORIUCHI, Architect
Oakland, CA
EILEEN MYLES, Writer
New York, NY
MICHAEL CHABON, Writer
Berkeley, CA
CAITLIN HORROCKS, Writer
Grand Rapids, MI
JEAN NATHAN, Writer
New York, NY
HARRIET CLARK, Writer
San Francisco, CA
RICHARD HOUSE, Writer
Nottingham, United Kingdom
DAVID NEUMANN, Interdisciplinary
Artist; Thornwood, NY
ANDREA CLEARFIELD, Composer
Philadelphia, PA
MAJA HRGOVIC, Writer
Zagreb, Croatia
ABIGAIL, NEWBOLD, Visual Artist
Somerville, MA
JENNIFER PAIGE COHEN, Visual Artist
Brooklyn, NY
CHING-CHU HU, Composer
Newark, OH
TSZ YAN NG, Architect
Ann Arbor, MI
MATTHEW CONNORS, Visual Artist
New York, NY
JEREMIAH HULSEBOS-SPOFFORD,
Visual Artist; Chicago, IL
ANDREW NORMAN, Composer
Los Angeles, CA
JACK DAVIS, Writer
Gainesville, FL
LARYSSA HUSIAK, Interdisciplinary
Artist; Jersey City, NJ
BENJAMIN NUGENT, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
SARAH DEMING, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
CATHERINE INGRAHAM, Architect
Brooklyn, NY
JANICE OKOH, Theatre Artist
London, United Kingdom
YEMANE DEMISSIE, Film/Video Artist
New York, NY
AARON JAFFERIS, Theatre Artist
New Haven, CT
SCOTT PENNEY, Writer
Bradford, VT
RACHEL DEWOSKIN, Writer
Chicago, IL
MAYA JANSON, Writer
Florence, MA
DAVID PETERSEN, Film/Video Artist
Brooklyn, NY
MARIE YOHO DORSEY, Visual Artist
Tierra Verde, FL
JOHN JESURUN, Theatre Artist
New York, NY
HEATHER PETERSON, Architect
Venice, CA
ELLEN DRISCOLL, Visual Artist
Brooklyn, NY
JILAINE JONES, Visual Artist
New Haven, CT
PAMELA PETRO, Writer
Northampton, MA
STEPHEN DUNN, Writer
Frostburg, MD
KEVIN JONES, Writer
Portland, OR
EVAN PLACEY, Theatre Artist
London, United Kingdom
MIKE ESTABROOK, Interdisciplinary
Artist; Brooklyn, NY
KIMA JONES, Writer
Los Angeles, CA
JOANNE POTTLITZER, Theatre Artist
New York, NY
TAMAR ETTUN, Visual Artist
Brooklyn, NY
AMOS KAMIL, Writer
Montclair, NJ
LAWRENCE RAAB, Writer
Williamstown, MA
AMELIA EVANS, Film/Video Artist
Wellington, New Zealand
KASUMI, Film/Video Artist
Cleveland, OH
MICHELLE RADTKE, Writer
Brooklyn, 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
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 Web site at
www.macdowellcolony.org.
Chairman: Michael Chabon
President: Susan Davenport Austin
Executive Director: Cheryl A. Young
Resident Director: David Macy
HEATHER ROBB, Composer
Brooklyn, NY
STEVIE RONNIE, Interdisciplinary
Artist; Hexham, United Kingdom
BEN RUSSELL, Film/Video Artist
Chapel Hill, NC
GREGORY SALE, Interdisciplinary
Artist; Phoenix, AZ
On the cover…
SARAH SANDER, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
LUC SANTE, Writer
Kingston, NY
SARAH SCHULMAN, Theatre Artist
New York, NY
ADAM SCHWARTZ, Writer
Newton, MA
RAVI SHANKAR, Writer
Chester, CT
HELEN SHAW, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
MacDowell Colony photographer
Joanna Eldredge Morrissey
captured this image of Edward
MacDowell’s log cabin after a new
snowfall. Built in 1898, the log
cabin highlights the tranquility and
natural environment offered to
artists to produce their
finest work.
ADAM SHECTER, Film/Video Artist
Long Island City, NY
JOAN SILBER, Writer
New York, NY
TAIJE SILVERMAN, Writer
Philadelphia, PA
BENNETT SIMS, Writer
Iowa City, IA
ERIN SROKA, Writer
Durham, NC
MELISSA STEIN, Writer
San Francisco, CA
KOTOKA SUZUKI, Composer
Chicago, IL
ALICIA SVIGALS, Composer
New York, NY
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.
CLARK THENHAUS, Architect
Ann Arbor, MI
TED THOMPSON, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
SARAH TORTORA, Visual Artist
Guilford, CT
JOVANNA TOSELLO, Film/Video
Artist; La Canada, CA
Editor: Jonathan Gourlay
ALEXANDER TURNER, Writer
London, United Kingdom
Design and Production:
Melanie deForest Design, LLC
PETER VAN ZANDT LANE, Composer
Gainesville, FL
All photographs not
otherwise credited:
Joanna Eldredge Morrissey
AYNSLEY VANDENBROUCKE,
Interdisciplinary Artist; New York, NY
Printer: Print Resource,
Westborough, MA
AMANDA VILLALOBOS, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
Mailing House: Sterling Business
Print & Mail, Peterborough, NH
PATRICIA VOLK, Writer
New York, NY
No part of MacDowell may be
reused in any way without written
permission.
LOU ANN WALKER, Writer
Sag Harbor, NY
STEWART WALLACE, Composer
Brooklyn, NY
© 2014, The MacDowell Colony
JING WANG, Composer
Dartmouth, MA
The names of MacDowell Fellows
are noted in bold throughout this
CARRIE MAE WEEMS, Visual Artist
Syracuse, NY
newsletter.
JOE WINTER, Interdisciplinary Artist
Long Island City, NY
MELORA WOLFF, Writer
Rock City Falls, NY
MARIO ALBERTO ZAMBRANO, Writer
Spring, TX
facebook.com/MacDowellColony
STEVE ZEHENTNER, Theatre Artist
New York, NY
The Colony is grateful for the generous support
of the following organizations:
TK