Sheedy Fellowship Supports Writing from Cultural Difference 2

Vol. 44, No. 1, Summer 2015
IN THIS ISSUE
Sheedy Fellowship Supports Writing from Cultural Difference
Gunther Schuller: Renaissance Man and 56th Medalist
Meredith Monk Celebrates 50 Years of Performance
Shop Reborn as Eastman Studio
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SUMMER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
Artists
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LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
❱❱ UPDATE
We Have Much to Celebrate
Chambers Fellowships
Sustain Writers of
Long-Form Journalism
We have a lot to celebrate at The MacDowell Colony this season.
First and foremost we hope you’ll join us to honor Gunther Schuller
with the 56th Edward MacDowell Medal during our public Medal
Day ceremony on August 9. While Maestro Schuller’s wide-ranging
musical genius, his seismic impact on both jazz and classical genres,
and his lifelong contribution to our culture is more than enough
reason to get together, we also look forward to marking the achievements of our artists-in-residence as they open their studios after the
ceremony. We also honor our donors and volunteers who make
Medal Day possible, and support the entire notion of providing a
place in the world for artists so the world can benefit from their art.
We’ve recently announced two exciting initiatives aimed at expanding the creative possibilities
for artists. Our Art of Journalism Initiative, with a lead gift of $1.5 million from the Calderwood
Charitable Foundation, including a challenge to raise another million, aims to endow 10 new
fellowships for writers engaged in narrative nonfiction. Amos Kamil, Zahir Janmohamed, and Erin
Sroka have been named Anne Cox Chambers Fellows, inaugurating the program. We also revealed
last month that we accepted an anonymous gift in honor of literary agent Charlotte Sheedy, whose
40-year career championing new voices changed what America reads.
We continue our celebratory mood by welcoming three new members to our board of directors.
Christine Fisher brings a wealth of experience in business and management to our board, Julie
Orringer is a fiction writer who has been in residence at the Colony three times, and Carol Ostrow is
the producing director of The Flea Theater in Tribeca. We were also thrilled to add four new volunteers to the Fellows Executive Committee (FEC) in April. We welcome visual artist Rosemarie Fiore,
interdisciplinary artist Larry Krone, composer Scott Wheeler, and writer Paula Whyman to the
valuable group. Thank you to all the Fellows who have helped this past season in so many ways.
We hope to see you all in Peterborough in August.
Cheryl A. Young, Executive Director
SHEEDY FELLOWSHIP SUPPORTS COMMITMENT TO LITERARY DIVERSITY
Chairman and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon announced a new fellowship in honor of literary agent
Charlotte Sheedy. Chabon credited Sheedy’s embrace of writers working from a place of cultural difference during
festivities at MacDowell’s annual National Benefit in New York City on May 18.
A $200,000 gift from an anonymous donor will fund an annual residency of up to two months at the Colony. The Charlotte
Sheedy Fellowship will be awarded to writers representing populations across racial and cultural boundaries.
In many ways, this award reinforces MacDowell’s commitment to inclusivity in support of those who would become great
contributors to the literary canon, such as James Baldwin, Pauli Murray, Eileen Chang, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde,
Louise Erdrich, Oscar Hijuelos, and 2014 National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson. “The MacDowell Colony
commits itself, every day, to supporting, fostering, and nurturing diverse artists in their daily struggle to make art,”
Chabon said. “That commitment is written into the Mission Statement. It’s been coded into MacDowell’s DNA from the day
in 1954 that James Baldwin walked into Baetz Studio and got down to work.”
Chabon pointed to like-minded values that characterize Sheedy’s career. While a student at Columbia University scouting
for Dial Press, Sheedy attended the Columbia Women’s Liberation Conference and discovered the first book she’d usher
into publication. The success of Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller, one of the earliest, explicitly lesbian literary novels to
be published by a mainstream publishing house, led to her first client, black poet and activist Audre Lorde. It also led to
her first bestseller, Marilyn French’s revolutionary feminist novel, The Women’s Room. Thus began a 40-year career
championing groundbreaking writers.
“Isolation, indifference, and lack of opportunity are the common lot of artists everywhere, but for an artist marginalized
by cultural difference, as Charlotte Sheedy has always known, those effects are trebled by an inheritance of cruelty and
injustice,” said Chabon. “They are intensified by mechanisms of discrimination both covert and plain as day. For these
artists the struggle to make art takes a deeper toll and can lead to deeper despair.
“The MacDowell Colony has always been, and will always fight to remain, an enemy of that despair, and of the indifference, isolation, and injustice that array themselves against so many working artists. This amazing gift, honoring a
remarkable woman who has long been a staunch advocate for and nurturer of writers, will allow MacDowell to fight
harder, and hopefully to lasting effect, on behalf of those whose struggle has been so long, hard, and wearying.”
FELLOWS WIN 2015 PULITZER PRIZES IN MUSIC AND POETRY
Congratulations to writer Gregory Pardlo for winning the 2015 Pulitzer
Prize in Poetry for his collection Digest, his second volume of poetry. Pardlo,
who was in residence in 2001 and 2009, saw his book rejected by most of the
major publishers when he first sent it out in 2010. It was finally published in
the fall of 2014 by the literary press Four Way Books. According to the
Pulitzer jury, Digest is a collection of “clear-voiced poems that bring
readers the news from 21st Century America, rich with thought, ideas and
histories public and private.”
Composer Julia Wolfe, who was in residence in 1989, was awarded the 2015
Pulitzer Prize in Music for her oratorio Anthracite Fields. The piece was
premiered on April 26, 2014, in Philadelphia by the Bang on a Can All-Stars,
Gregory Pardlo in
which she co-founded with MacDowell Fellows David Lang and Michael
Star Studio in 2009
Gordon in 1987, and the Mendelssohn Club Chorus. It was cited as “a
powerful oratorio for chorus and sextet evoking Pennsylvania coal-mining
life around the turn of the 20th Century” by the Pulitzer jury in music.
These two awards bring the total number of Pulitzers awarded to MacDowell Fellows to 77 since the award was first
presented in 1917!
The inaugural Anne Cox Chambers Fellowships in
Journalism have been awarded to writers Zahir
Janmohamed, Amos Kamil, and Erin Sroka. Part of the
recently launched Art of Journalism Initiative, the
fellowships were established in honor of Chambers’
generosity to The MacDowell Colony and the Cox
family’s legacy in the media industry. Chambers has
served on the MacDowell board of directors since 1987.
A collaboration with news organizations, journalism
schools, and others in the field, the Art of Journalism
Initiative is responding to the shifting media economy,
which in this era of fast news and free content often
squeezes out writers who go deeper in reporting the
news. From the days when James Baldwin was in
residence, MacDowell has long been a champion of
literary non-fiction. That support continues today with
writers like Janmohamed, Kamil, and Sroka, whose 2014
residencies were supported by the Chambers
Fellowships. At the Colony, Janmohamed worked on his
book about the 2002 riots in Gujarat, India, and the
experience of living as a Muslim minority. Kamil
finished a book based on his Pulitzer Prize-nominated
New York Times Magazine cover story on the Horace
Mann School sexual abuse case. Sroka completed a
magazine excerpt of her book about the for-profit bingo
business.
Another recent MacDowell Fellow, Michael Paterniti,
notes that it’s becoming rare for writers to get the
green light to dig into stories like these. He points to the
need for new models of support like MacDowell’s. “In
this moment, it’s vital,” says Paterniti, a regular
contributor to GQ and author of the recently released
Love and Other Ways of Dying. “This ... is the burgeoning
form of our time. All writers working in this form are
experiencing a constant fight for survival.”
With a goal of investing $4.5 million in projects like
these, the Journalism Initiative will double the Colony’s
support of journalists by endowing 20 fellowships to be
awarded annually. So far, $2.1 million has been raised,
including $600,000 from Chambers, which helped seed
the initiative. Every gift received going forward will be
matched up to $1 million by the Stanford Calderwood
Charitable Foundation.
The value of this support is immeasurable, according to
MacDowell’s Executive Director Cheryl A. Young. “We
don’t want to lose what the best journalists can teach us
about the world,” she says. “Well-written stories can
inform how we view politics, new scientific discoveries,
social justice, and the environment. They can show us
what it means to be human, our failures and our
triumphs. We hope this new support for journalists will
help keep that profound exploration going and make the
world a better place.”
To learn more about this initiative, visit:
macdowellcolony.org/giving-SpecialProjects.html
Advocating for the
Arts on Capitol Hill
On March 23 and 24, MacDowell joined more than 85
national arts organizations in Washington, D.C. as a cosponsor of Arts Advocacy Day, which brings together
a broad cross section of America’s cultural and civic
organizations, along with more than 500 grassroots
advocates from across the country each year. Hosted by
Americans for the Arts, MacDowell Development Associate
Jessica Viada spent the first day engaged in advocacy
training with other participants. On Tuesday she joined
other New Hampshire arts personnel to visit with Senators
Kelly Ayotte and Jeanne Shaheen, and Representatives
Annie Kuster and Frank Guinta. Discussions focused on the
the importance of National Endowment for the Arts support
and how its impact on MacDowell’s programs for first-time
Fellows and The Portable MacDowell resonates throughout
southern New Hampshire and across the country.
MEDAL DAY
2015
Pioneer in Music to Receive
2015 Edward MacDowell Medal
*
COMPOSER, PULITZER PRIZE WINNER, AND CLASSICAL-JAZZ PIONEER GUNTHER SCHULLER TO ACCEPT AWARD
“As a composer and as a teacher he has inspired generations of students ... as a conductor, performer, historian,
author, and producer, he has preserved and shared countless important works with millions.” Augusta Read Thomas
French Horn Prodigy
COURTESY OF NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Schuller was born in New York on November 22,
1925. His professional career began at the age of 15
playing French horn for the American Ballet Theater
(ABT), and he later recorded with Miles Davis on
Birth of the Cool (1949-50) before making an indelible
mark as a composer, conductor, and educator. He
has composed such works as Seven Studies on Themes
of Paul Klee (1959), Of Reminiscences and Reflections,
which earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1994, and An Arc
Ascending (1996).
“Since my late teens, he’s been a hero of mine,” said
composer Alvin Singleton, who served with Thomas
on the selection committee. “When I was growing up
in New York, I used to listen to his radio program,
and learned so much about music in general from
that program. Schuller talked about the organization
of the music, and how pieces fit together in jazz and
classical contexts.” Serving with Thomas and Singleton
on the selection committee were five other composers,
all of whom, like Singleton, are MacDowell Fellows:
Sebastian Currier, Aaron Jay Kernis, Paul Moravec,
David Rakowski, and Melinda Wagner.
ANDREW HURLBUT/NEC
The MacDowell Colony will pay tribute to one of
the most influential forces in music over the last 70
years on August 9, when we award the 56th Edward
MacDowell Medal to composer, conductor, and
educator Gunther Schuller. He’s been called a true
Renaissance man, having had success in all aspects of
the music industry, and is considered a pioneer in the
realms of both jazz and classical music.
“It was easy for the selection committee to choose
Gunther,” said Augusta Read Thomas, chair of the
Edward MacDowell Medal Selection Committee and
a member of the board of the American Music Center.
“He’s a composer’s composer with laser-sharp ears, a
sensitive, fertile, creative mind, endless energy, and a
generous, humane soul.”
“As a composer and as a teacher of composition he
has inspired generations of students, setting an example
of discovery and experimentation,” said Thomas,
who is also a professor of musical composition at The
University of Chicago. “As a conductor, performer,
historian, author, and producer, he has preserved and
shared countless important works by classical and jazz
artists with millions of music lovers.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and pianist Yehudi
Wyner will join public radio host Terrance McKnight
in introducing Schuller, giving the Medal Day audience a bit of context on Schuller’s influence.
SUMMER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
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In addition to playing French horn with the
ABT, Schuller was principal horn in the Cincinnati
Symphony (1943-1945) and with the Metropolitan
Opera (1945-1959). He also composed and conducted
for jazz greats John Lewis and Dizzy Gillespie, and
recorded with Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and
Charles Mingus. He once said that he might be the
only person to have played under the batons of both
Toscanini and Ellington.
As an educator, Schuller taught at the Manhattan
School of Music and Yale University before teaching at
the Berkshire Music Center (at Tanglewood) in 1963
at the request of Aaron Copland, eventually serving as
its artistic director. From 1967-1977, Schuller served as
president of the New England Conservatory, where he
formalized NEC’s commitment to jazz by establishing
the first degree-granting jazz program at a major classical
conservatory. He also instituted the Third Stream
department (subsequently named the Contemporary
Improvisation department) to explore and fuse the
musical regions where classical and jazz come together,
insisting that contemporary music have equal billing
next to the acknowledged classical masterpieces and that
students be equally adept at performing both.
During one of Boston’s most notorious periods of
racial unrest, he created community outreach programs
that sent young, eager musicians to bring the gift
of music into some of the city’s most troubled and
marginalized neighborhoods.
Always Composing
Schuller has composed more than 180 works, spanning
all musical genres including solo works, orchestral
works, chamber music, opera, and jazz. In addition to
those listed above, among Schuller’s orchestral works
are Symphony (1965), Four Soundscapes, and Shapes and
Designs. Schuller’s large-scale work Of Reminiscences
and Reflections was composed as a tribute to his wife of
49 years, Marjorie Black.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra recently performed
Schuller’s Dreamscape (2012). Other recent commissions are From Here to There (2013) for the New
England Conservatory, and Four Chromatic Adventures
(2014) commissioned by Contempo. Schuller has also
written several books, including the cherished manual
Horn Playing (London and New York, 1962), the
landmark studies Early Jazz: Its Roots and Development
(London and New York, 1968), and The Swing Era: the
Development of Jazz 1930-45 (New York and Oxford,
1989). In 1997 he collected his years of experience
conducting many of the world’s leading ensembles and
premier orchestras in The Compleat Conductor. His
autobiography, Gunther Schuller: A Life in Pursuit of
Music and Beauty, was published in 2011.
Schuller is the recipient of two GRAMMY Awards
(1974 and 1975), the William Schuman Award
from Columbia University (1988), the MacArthur
Foundation Genius Award (1991), the Gold Medal
for Music from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters (1997), the Downbeat Lifetime Achievement
Award, and an inaugural membership in the American
Classical Music Hall of Fame, an honor he shares with
Edward MacDowell. He was also named a National
Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2008. In 1980
Schuller founded the record company and label, GM
Recordings to provide discerning and open-minded
listeners with innovative composers and musicians who
might otherwise go unrecorded.
Schuller joins a notable list of past Medal recipients:
Aaron Copland (1961), Robert Frost (1962), Georgia
O’Keeffe (1972), Leonard Bernstein (1987), Stephen
Sondheim (2013), and Betye Saar (2014).
PUBLIC INVITED TO MEDAL PRESENTATION
Medal Day is free and open to the public. The ceremony on Sunday, August 9, 2015, begins at 12:15 p.m.
at the MacDowell Colony grounds in Peterborough, NH. MacDowell artists-in-residence will open their
studios from 2 to 5 p.m. For more information and to order picnic lunches, visit macdowellcolony.org.
NEW AND NOTABLE PROJECTS:
Meredith Monk Celebrates
50 Seasons Coast to Coast
EXTRAORDINARY SERIES CROSSES THE COUNTRY FROM CARNEGIE HALL
TO YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS IN SAN FRANCISCO
Guy Klucevsek Presents
Six-Night Stand at The Stone
Accordion maestro and composer
Guy Klucevsek completed a six-night
retrospective of his 42-year composing
career in March at New York’s premier
new music club, The Stone. Klucevsek,
who was in residence in early winter
2015, presented a different project with
a different set of musicians on each
night. He used his MacDowell stay to
work on arrangements for different
groupings of instruments, wrote
different orchestrations for many of them,
edited, and made revisions in preparation
for the shows at John Zorn’s not-for-profit
performance space.
Boden and Fleck
Nine Fellows Present New Works
at the Sundance Film Festival
Nine MacDowell Fellows presented work
at The Sundance Film Festival in Park City,
Utah this past winter. They include:
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck: Mississippi
Grind
Donald Margulies: The End of the Tour
Michael Almereyda: Experimenter
Matthew Rankin: Mynarski Death
Plummet
Jennifer Reeves: Color Neutral
Jennie Livingston: Paris is Burning
Dave Eggar: The Way of the Rain
Matt Wolf: It’s Me, Hilary: The Man Who
Drew Eloise, which premiered on HBO
on March 23.
JULIETA CERVANTES
SUMMER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
Artists
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Composer, performer, vocalist, director, choreographer and MacDowell Fellow Meredith Monk
concluded her 50th season of performing with an
anniversary concert at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
on May 2. The six-month celebration began in New
York on November 20, Monk’s 72nd birthday,
with a concert of her Piano Songs performed by
Ursula Oppens and Bruce Brubaker at Le Poisson
Rouge. The celebration also coincided with Monk’s
holding the 2014–2015 Richard and Barbara Debs
Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall and continued
into May, with performances highlighting Monk’s
ongoing work as a composer and performer.
“It’s been an extraordinary year,” she said of the time
spent preparing and performing, “and I’m so fortunate that each concert has exemplified a different aspect of my work. It’s
been a chance for me to share the range of my music.”
The concerts have featured repertoires that reflect the work undertaken during her seven MacDowell Colony residencies. “Mostly at MacDowell I’ve begun things,” said Monk, who was last here in 2007. “It’s a perfect place for searching
and experimenting.”
Performances since November have included members of her Vocal Ensemble with the American Composers
Orchestra performing Night, written at MacDowell in 1996 in Watson Studio. The Vocal Ensemble also performed
selections from Songs of Ascension, which was begun at MacDowell in the winter of 2007, selections from Mercy (2002)
and a duet from Volcano Songs (1997), both of which she counts among her MacDowell compositions. Her performances included friends such as composers John Hollenbeck and Missy Mazzoli.
“MacDowell is always a kind of paradise. I love having time alone to work, but it’s very inspiring to come to dinner
and find out what a writer or visual artist is working on,” she said. “It’s really an ideal place for artists. When you do
something out of love and you give that to the world, it has a healing element, and the Colony has been very, very
generous to artists in making that possible.”
While the 50th Anniversary celebration highlighted the breadth of Monk’s creativity since 1972, it was not simply
a retrospective. The concerts featured new works, including her meditation on the fragility of the earth’s ecology, On
Behalf of Nature, which received its New York premiere at BAM’s Next Wave Festival, as well as Backlight, written for
seven instruments and one voice for Ensemble ACJW — a collaboration between Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School,
the Weill Music Institute, and the New York City Department of Education.
The celebration of Monk’s musical achievements coincided with her recently being named Officier de l’Ordre des
Arts et des Lettres by the Republic of France, and the November 2014 publication of a book of interviews, Conversations
with Meredith Monk, by arts critic and Performing Arts Journal Editor Bonnie Marranca.
MacDowell Authors Earn Impressive Prizes
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD TO JACQUELINE WOODSON
Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson’s collection of vivid poems about what it
was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, won the National
Book Award for Young People’s Literature. According to the judges, Woodson uses
words “that sing with both the complexity and simplicity of a symphony, and memori-
MORE NEW AND NOTABLE
PROJECTS
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ busy season
with An Octoroon and Gloria
es that both sting and inspire.” The award citation also noted Brown Girl Dreaming is
an “intimate journey of victory, sorrow, and discovery,” and called it a commentary of
a country’s struggle to live up to its ideals through the eyes of a young writer of a “memoir in verse.”
Aaron Jay Kernis will direct Nashville
Symphony Composer Lab & Workshop
2014 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS TO TWO FELLOWS
Congratulations to MacDowell Fellows Claudia Rankine and Ellen Willis on their
Ellis Ludwig-Leone released a new
album called Jackrabbit under the aegis
of San Fermin
2014 National Book Critics Circle Awards. Rankine, who was at MacDowell in both
the spring of 1995 and summer of 2002, was chosen for her latest book of poetry,
Lea Bult’s ongoing “Out of Sight” project
Citizen: An American Lyric. Published in 2014 by Graywolf Press, Citizen has already
Mark Campbell and Kevin Puts together
again for The Manchurian Candidate
been listed as a New York Times Best Seller and won the NAACP Image Award. The
Essential Ellen Willis won in the criticism category for the National Book Critics Circle
Sascha Braunig at the New Museum’s
2015 Triennial
Award. Published by the University of Minnesota Press, Willis’ incorporates feminism, radicalism,
James Kennedy, visual artist, solo
exhibition of paintings and drawings at
Southern New Hampshire University
1980, and 1982. Four other MacDowell Fellows were named finalists for the award, including:
Jo Yarrington, visual artist, exhibited
commissioned work in “CT (un)Bound”
in New Haven, CT.
Judaism, drugs, pornography, and music into her work. Willis was in residence three times, in 1978,
Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman, fiction; Lily King, Euphoria, fiction; Lynne Tillman, What
Would Lynne Tillman Do?, criticism; Christian Wiman, Once in the West, poetry.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS FICTION AWARD TO LOUISE ERDRICH
Michael Ashkin, visual artist, Long
Branch published
Louise Erdrich has won the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, which honors an
Margaret Brouwer, composer, Featured
Contemporary Composer on WFIU,
Indiana’s Classical NPR station, month of
September 2014
ity of thought and imagination. She is the third person to receive the honor, after E.L. Doctorow and
American literary writer whose body of work is distinguished for its mastery of the art and its originalDon DeLillo.
Suzan-Lori Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks Wins Kennedy Prize
Suzan-Lori Parks, who was in residence in 1989, 1991, and
1995, has won the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for a theatrical
work inspired by American history for her critically acclaimed
epic play Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3). The
award was announced in February. According to The New York
Times, Father Comes Home depicts sacrifices and soul-searing
moments in the Civil War through the eyes of a slave, Hero, who
goes off to fight with his plantation master and, with echoes of
The Odyssey, eventually returns to his loved ones as a transformed
man. Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner for the drama Topdog/Underdog, is now working on the remaining Parts 4 through
9 of her epic, which will follow descendants of her Civil War characters as the plot unfolds through the 20th century to
present day.
Fellows Head to American Academy in Rome, Others Return
MacDowell Fellows Thaisa Way, an architect, and
Lysley Tenorio, a writer, have each been awarded
2015-2016 Rome Prizes by the American Academy in
Rome while Rob Giampietro, an architect, and
composer Paula Matthusen have returned from their
2014-2015 fellowships. Each year, through a national
competition, the Rome Prize is awarded to some 30
individuals who represent the highest standard of
excellence in the arts and humanities. Prize recipiLysley Tenorio
Thaisa Way
ents are provided with a fellowship, which includes a
stipend and living and working space, and are invited to live in Rome for six months to two years to
immerse themselves in the Academy community.
Way won in the landscape architecture category for a project that is entitled “Drawing Histories of
Landscape Architecture.” She was in residence in the spring of 2013 completing her book on Richard
Haag and the design of urban postindustrial landscapes. She is an historian of landscape and
architecture, most interested in urban designs and projects. Her first book, Unbounded Practice:
Women and Landscape Architecture in the Early 20th Century, won the JB Jackson Award from the
Landscape Studies Foundation.
Tenorio, who has been in residence four times, was last at MacDowell in the summer of 2012 and is
the author of Monstress. He’ll be working on an untitled novel during his Rome residency. His work
has appeared in The Atlantic, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, The Pushcart Prize anthology, and on NPR. He
is the recipient of an NEA fellowship and a Whiting Writer’s Award.
Giampietro, a 2013 MacDowell Fellow, won in the 2014-2015 design category for a project called “Walk with
Me: Responsive Guides to Rome.” His plan was to develop a mobile website that will provide audio guides
and GPS maps for areas all around Rome.
Matthusen, a 2009 MacDowell Fellow and winner of the 2014-2015 Rome Prize in musical composition, planned to complete several different recordings of the pathways of ancient waterways in Rome
that she encountered to be used to create an original multi-movement work for percussion, liveelectronics, and fixed media. Matthusen planned to help connect ancient and modern Rome through
her research and recordings, as well as reflect on the history of the city.
Five Fellow Authors Named to New York Times Notable Book List
A handful of MacDowell Fellows were featured among the holiday season’s 100 Notable Books of 2014
as chosen by The New York Times. Lawrence Osborne’s The Ballad of a Small Player, Lily King’s Euphoria,
and Susan Minot’s Thirty Girls were among the titles of fiction and poetry, while Sandra Tsing Loh’s The
Madwoman in the Volvo and Olivia Laing’s The Trip to Echo Spring were part of the nonfiction group.
Filmmaker Akosua Adoma Owusu
(above) is among 14 MacDowell Fellows
who’ve recently won 2015 Guggenheim
Fellowships. A total 175 winners,
ranging from many different fields of
study and achievements, were named on
the basis of “prior achievement and
exceptional promise.” This year’s
winners were chosen from among more
than 3,100 applicants.
Owusu was chosen based on the
project she was working on at MacDowell
during the summer of 2013: the
screenplay for her first feature, Black
Sunshine. The project was awarded a
Creative Capital grant in 2012 and was
nominated for the Tribeca Heineken
Affinity Award in 2013. The Guggenheim
means she can continue working on the
script that she hopes to shoot in Ghana in
2016 for release in 2017. Of her residency
in Heyward Studio, she said, “It kind of
inspired me just being in that space. It
was just so surreal and the journey from
that point has really been a dream.”
Other Fellows who won 2015
Guggenheims are:
Darcy James Argue, composer, 2011
Maud Casey, writer, 2009
Meghan Daum, writer, 2011
Stephen Davis, interdisciplinary artist,
1985
Jeff Dolven, poet, 2011
Thomas Sayers Ellis, poet, 1997
Cathy Park Hong, poet, 2003, 2004, 2008,
2009, 2012, 2014
Barbara Hurd, writer, 2002, 2003
Cate Marvin, poet, 2008
Andreia Pinto-Correia, composer, 2011
Iva Radivojevic, filmmaker, 2013
Zoe Scofield, interdisciplinary artist,
2010
Pinar Yoldas, interdisciplinary artist,
2010, 2012
More Awards, Grants and
Fellowships
❱❱ A
CADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS
AWARDS
Twelve MacDowell Fellows were chosen
by members of the American Academy
of Arts and Letters for 2015 awards of
varying amounts. Six in music, five in
literature, and one in architecture:
J. Yolande Daniels, architect, 2006
Annie Baker, playwright, 2009, 2014
Vijay Seshadri, poet, 1998, 2004
Jeffrey Skinner, poet, 2009
Amy Rowland, writer, 2000
Lysley Tenorio, writer, 2001, 2005, 2008,
2012
Jason Eckardt, composer, 1996, 2003
Erin Gee, composer, 2013
Kevin Puts, composer, 2005
Kurt Rohde, composer, 1996
Adam Gwon, composer, 2009
Sarah Hammond, composer, 2007, 2009,
2012
❱❱ N
EW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE
ARTS FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM AWARDS
DIGITAL/ELECTRONIC ARTS:
Peter Burr, 2008 and
Heather Bursch, 2009
NON-FICTION LITERATURE: Jonathan Blunk, 2008, 2009, 2010;
Suki Kim, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2010;
and Luc Sante, 2014
POETRY: Amanda K. Davidson, 2009
PRINTMAKING/DRAWING/ARTIST
BOOKS: Linda Herritt, 1995, and
Kakyoung Lee, 2003, 2005
❱❱ C
REATIVE CAPITAL AWARDS
MOVING IMAGE: Lorelei Pepi, 2008,
Michael Almereyda, 1993, 1999, 2006,
2009, 2010, 2013
VISUAL ARTS: Lorraine O’Grady, 1995
and Amie Siegel, 2002, 2007
5
SUMMER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
MacDowell Fellow and filmmaker Laura Poitras (at right)
won the 2015 Oscar for best documentary for her film about
Edward Snowden’s NSA spying allegations. Her nonfiction
film, CitizenFour, documented Snowden’s detailed account to
journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill about how
the NSA was collecting massive amounts of data on U.S. citizens
from emails, text messages, and other means.
The film, beginning with an interview in Hong Kong, chronicles Snowden’s allegations about the NSA to the journalists. The Guardian and The Washington Post simultaneously
reported on Snowden’s allegations and leaks in the summer of 2013. Both news publications won a Pulitzer Prize the
next year for Public Service journalism based on reporting by Poitras, Greenwald, MacAskill, and Barton Gellman.
Poitras, who was in residence in 2010 and was initially contacted by Snowden, who told her she chose herself for the
task of telling his story because of her previous documentary work, which had earned her a spot on the Department of
Homeland Security’s “watch list.” CitizenFour’s title derives from the pseudonym Snowden used when he first anonymously contacted Poitras.
GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIPS TO
14 MACDOWELL FELLOWS
Artists
Laura Poitras and CitizenFour
Win Oscar for Best Documentary
Jill Claster I Writer Jill Nadell Claster died November
SUMMER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
Remembering
6
14, 2014 at home in New York at the age of 83. Professor
Claster was predeceased by her husband Judge Millard
Midonick and daughter Elizabeth. She was a scholar,
teacher, author, mentor, theatre and opera-lover, aspiring
actress, and world traveler. She was in residence in 1991.
Jill was professor emerita of medieval history at New York
University and was still teaching her course on Renewal
and Expansion in Europe in the Twelfth Century until two weeks before her death.
She received her B.A. and M.A. from NYU and a Ph.D. from the University of
Pennsylvania and taught at the University of Kentucky before coming to NYU in
1964. At NYU she served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1978 to
1986 and director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center of Near Eastern Studies from
1991 to 1997.
Jytte Jensen I Jytte Jensen, who worked for more than
30 years as a film curator at the Museum of Modern Art
and had been a MacDowell board member for 12 years,
died March 23, 2015 in New York. She was 65. Jensen,
who served as chair of New Directors/New Films, spent
the last 15 years helping build the film program at
MacDowell, first as a panelist, then in 2003 as panel
chairman, and continuing on the board as an advisor.
“The variety and caliber of what we see now in film applications is a direct result of
her ambassadorship,” said Executive Director Cheryl Young. “Jytte was a truly
brilliant personality. Her smile preceded her into any room, and then she would
catch your attention with her bright blue eyes.... She tirelessly traveled all over the
world in search of great films, and was a great advocate for independent and
international filmmakers. She loved to be surprised by a new filmmaker and
helped the careers of many long after they first arrived on the scene.” Jytte held a
master’s degree in cinema studies from NYU. She joined the staff at MoMA in 1982,
and in 2003 was named curator in the Department of Film and Media.
Willy Lenski I Visual artist William Thomas Lenski died on October 20, 2014 at
his home in Arkville, NY at the age of 61. Willy graduated from Cairo Central School
in 1970 and earned his B.F.A. from Pratt Institute in 1974. He attended the Whitney
Museum Independent Study Program in the early 1970s and was a MacDowell
Colony Fellow in both 1987 and 1991. Willy lived for most of his life in Manhattan
and Brooklyn, and will be especially remembered for figurative paintings with
symbolic overtones. The themes and motifs he took up in his oil painting often
reflected his interest in film and camera effects. He exhibited his work in the 1980s
and 1990s at New York’s Artists Space, White Columns, and the Parrish Art
Museum. He was represented by Neo Persona Gallery and the O’Hara Gallery. His
paintings hang in museums, cultural centers, and private collections throughout
the world.
George Nicholson I MacDowell board member George
Nicholson died February 3, 2015 in New York at the age of
77. George, who was on the MacDowell Board for 24 years,
was a literary agent and innovative publishing executive
credited with introducing high-quality paperback publishing
to the children’s book industry. He embarked on his
publishing career in 1959, eventually leading the charge at
Dell to publish paperbacks of “literary merit.” When he
secured the rights from Harper to reprint Charlotte’s Web
and Stuart Little by E.B. White, the breakthrough spurred Harper to open its own
paperback imprint, HarperTrophy. George guided S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and the
works of Judy Blume into paperback at Dell and saw their books become popular
classics as a result. Among his many clients were Tony Abbott, Betsy Byars, Lois
Duncan, Patricia Reilly Giff, Alice Provensen, Peter Lerangis, and Zilpha Keatley
Snyder, and the literary estates of Don Freeman, Hardie Gramatky, Marguerite
Henry, and Lois Lenski.
Stanley T. Noyes I Writer Stanley Noyes died December 24, 2014 at home in
Sante Fe at the age of 90. He was in residence in 1967. He wrote Los Comanches: The
Horse People, 1751-1845, two novels and five collections of poetry. His Alles Kaputt was
selected one of the top 10 books of 2007 by the Kansas City Star. He served in the U.S.
Army in World War II in the Ruhr campaign in a reconnaissance troop and was
awarded a Bronze Star. He returned to attend Cal Berkeley and married fellow student
Nancy Black in 1949 and earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees.
Stewart Stern I Stewart Stern, the screenwriter of Rebel Without a Cause, The
Last Movie, and Sybil, died February 2, 2015 in Seattle at the age of 92. After
graduating from the University of Iowa, he served in the U.S. Army during World
War II and received a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, and Combat Infantry Badge. The
two-time Oscar-nominated screenwriter and Emmy-winning television writer was
in residence as a playwright in 1954, the year before the iconic James Dean drama
Rebel Without a Cause was released. He also wrote the documentary feature on the
late actor, The James Dean Story (1957), and the notorious counterculture indie
drama The Last Movie, co-written and directed by Dennis Hopper. Stewart wrote
several other screenplays and movies for television, including the 1976 miniseries
“Sybil,” starring Sally Field, which earned Stern an Emmy.
NEA Chairman Jane Chu (seated at right) asks artists in
residence how her organization can help improve arts
infrastructure as (from left) New Hampshire Department of
Cultural Resources Arts Commissioner Van McLeod,
MacDowell Colony Executive Director Cheryl A. Young, and
NH State Council on the Arts Director Ginnie Lupi, look on.
NEA Chair Visits on
Heels of Grant for
First-Timers
National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu
visited the Colony early in June and met with artistsin-residence to ask how the NEA could strengthen the
infrastructure for artmaking. The informal discussion took
place in Old Savidge after a tour of the Colony, and gave
Chu the opportunity to meet a number of first-time Fellows.
Back in December, Chu announced that MacDowell was
one of 919 nonprofit organizations nationwide to receive
an NEA Art Works grant. Ten diverse artists of various
disciplines from across the United States will be able to
work at the Colony for the first time this year, thanks to
that grant.
“The arts foster value, connection, creativity and
innovation for the American people and these [NEA]
grants demonstrate those attributes and affirm that
the arts are part of our everyday lives,” Chu said when
announcing the support in December.
On average, more than two-thirds of MacDowell Fellows
are first-time residents, and for many MacDowell is
their first artist residency anywhere. Cheryl A. Young,
MacDowell’s executive director, says support for firsttime residencies helps the Colony continue as a leader in
identifying new artistic talent. “The NEA has always been a champion of artists, and we
appreciate their partnership in helping us to reach new
populations of artists,” Young said. “The beauty of this grant,
aside from its recognizing artists from various disciplines, is
that it supports a diversity of geographies, cultures, gender,
and ages that will add to the experiences of other artists-inresidence and enrich the surrounding region by way of our
community engagement efforts.”
Eastman Studio:
Bright, Weathertight
Workspace
BY RACHEL SHUNAMON
A century-old farm building will soon be reborn as our
most energy efficient studio thanks to a generous
donation from MacDowell Fellow and board member
Louise Eastman who was in residence in 2009. Shop
Studio, located adjacent to the Hillcrest Barn, will be an
ideal visual workspace, designed after listening to
decades of artist feedback.
Originally built in 1915 to provide supplemental storage,
the space was hastily converted into a studio in 1956, but
was poorly insulated and drafty. Beginning this month, it
will be the first studio on the MacDowell grounds to be
heated with an electric heat pump.
Eastman will offer future artists nearly 400 square feet of
creative work space beneath a cathedral ceiling 15 feet at
its peak. In addition to generous natural light, indirect LED
lights provide abundant work light and track lights will
wash the walls. A live-in studio, the bedroom, and a full
bath are small but complete. Groesbeck Construction of
Peterborough is handling the renovation after a design
drawn by Sheldon Pennoyer Architects of Concord.
According to Resident Director David Macy, the renovation
will not only be a model for future energy efficiency
upgrades among studios, but its comforts and details
aimed at supporting creative work will benefit artists for
years to come.
National Benefit in New York City Raises the Roof
Spring came to the Colony just in time for our annual New Hampshire Benefit. On April 11th, Fellows
Florent Ghys and Elna Baker performed at this sold-out event. Held in Savidge Library and Bond Hall, with
dinner prepared by Colony Chef Scott Tyle, this annual event brings together artists-in-residence, board members, Friends of MacDowell, and business leaders from around the Monadnock region and beyond. Chairman
Michael Chabon thanked attendees for raising more than $40,000 in support of the residency program.
Medal Day Honoring Gunther Schuller
Sunday, August 9, 2015 Order your basket by visiting
macdowellcolony.org/events-MedalDay.html
SAVE THE DATES
Annual Fellows Party
Friday, September 25, 2015 Don’t miss the Annual Fellows Party in New York City
Third Annual Chairman’s Evening
Monday, December 7, 2015 Enjoy cocktails and listen in as Michael Chabon converses with two
artists at the New Museum, NYC
Members of the Friends of MacDowell
sat in on an entertaining conversation
at The New Museum in New York City
on December 8, 2014 as Chairman
Michael Chabon interviewed “This
American Life” host Ira Glass and
novelist Zadie Smith. During this lively
exchange, which Chabon likened to the
dinner conversation that takes place at
the Colony each evening, Glass related
a hilarious story about his most recent
interview and Smith had the audience
laughing with descriptions of her
writing life. Chabon spoke about
choosing topics for his stories and the
assumptions readers make about the
origins of fictional characters.
Limited to an audience of 100, the
hour-long conversation was followed
by a cocktail reception during which
Friends of MacDowell mingled with the
three brilliant weavers of narrative as
well as other guest artists. You can find
video of the entire conversation as well
as a three-and-a-half-minute highlight
reel online at:
https://vimeo.com/
themacdowellcolony
7
To learn more about the Friends of
MacDowell program, email Director of
Development John Martin at
jmartin@macdowellcolony.org or call
212-535-9690.
Community Engagement:
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: MEGHAN MOE BEITIKS; JONATHAN GOURLAY (2)
MACDOWELL DOWNTOWN
Polish Filmmaker Katarzyna Plazinska kicked off
the 2015 MacDowell Downtown season by presenting a sampling of her short films and discussing
her current projects, which could not have been
created without a painter’s eye for subject matter.
The exquisite beauty of late-day sun raking prairie
grasslands and the stunning artistry of human
hands making paper are just two examples from
short films screened at the Monadnock Center for
History and Culture in March.
In April, multidisciplinary artist
Deke Weaver (left)
created a “live
cinema” experience
drawing from his
passion for the
natural world. He
talked about his
process and gave
the audience a peek
into the latest
installment of what he calls “The Unreliable
Bestiary,” an undertaking highlighting the plight
and myths surrounding the animals and habitats
on our planet. Weaver is a writer, performer,
designer, and media artist all rolled into one,
creating multidisciplinary work that culminates
with site-specific performances involving video,
music, dance, and narration.
In May, writer Michael Agresta (above, right),
used slides to illustrate his discussion about the
future of libraries and how they might evolve as
information is increasingly being transferred and
consumed digitally. He invited Peterborough
Library Director
Corinne
Chronopoulos to
join him in the lively
conversation and
the two fielded
questions both
general and
specifically targeted
to the Peterborough
Town Library’s future.
MACDOWELL IN THE SCHOOLS
In November, visual artist Matt Northridge
opened Cheney Studio (at right) to seven
Contoocook Valley Regional High School
students and three faculty members to share
what he has been working on. He also described
his life as a working artist in New York. Poet
Michael Morse met with Mark Holding’s 12th
grade AP English students on three consecutive
days in December to read and discuss poetry.
Morse also introduced a writing exercise
focusing on tone.
Composer David Rakowski met with nine
Keene State College music composition students
and two faculty members in February to discuss
his development as a composer, his composition
process and his composition style. He played
some of his recorded works and fielded
questions from the eager audience.
ConVal High School convened a weekly
faculty meeting in February in the Eugene
Coleman Savidge Library. Resident Director
David Macy spoke about the history of
MacDowell as well as the MacDowell in the
Schools program, and the program’s
coordinator, Ann Hayashi, discussed the various artists and classes she has worked with.
In March, interdisciplinary performance artist
Alexander Rosenberg met with approximately
50 students (Moira Milne’s honors chemistry
students, Mary Goldthwaite-Gagne’s ceramics
class, and Ben Putnam’s art students) in the
Lucy Hurlin theater at ConVal High School to
share his creative process as a glass and
performance artist using photographs and
videos. Poet Sharon Charde met with school
counselor Emily Daniels’s group of at-risk girls
for two sessions in March. Charde shared some
poems written by at-risk girls that she works
with in Connecticut and then led the ConVal
students in a writing exercise.
Playwright Mashuq Deen visited ConVal in
April and spoke to students and faculty in the
Lucy Hurlin Theater. He performed about 15
minutes of his play Draw the Circle, screened his
YouTube video about being a transgender male,
and fielded questions from students and staff.
SUMMER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
NEW HAMPSHIRE BENEFIT RAISES IMPORTANT SUPPORT FOR RESIDENCIES
SECOND ANNUAL
CHAIRMAN’S EVENING
FEATURES MICHAEL CHABON
CHATTING WITH ZADIE SMITH
AND IRA GLASS
Events
Program participants at The MacDowell
Colony’s National Benefit in New York
City on May 18 included (from left)
Lauren Adams, John Hodgman,
Michael Chabon, Michael Almereyda,
John Palladino, Maya Beiser, Michael
Harrison, and Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
(photo by Steven Tucker)
Comedian and Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman made for a
supremely entertaining emcee at MacDowell’s 2015 National Benefit on
May 18. Chairman Michael Chabon hosted the annual event that raises
critical operating funds for the Colony, which exceeded its fundraising
goal of $425,000. The evening highlighted the work of nine extraordinary artists. Carrie Mae Weems’s magnificent photographs greeted an
audience of 300 supporters, artists, and friends as they arrived at The
TimesCenter, home of The New York Times, in midtown Manhattan.
The Art of Journalism was brought to the fore with readings from the
works of Sheri Fink, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, and Michael Paterniti.
Filmmakers Michael Almereyda and Dee Rees shared their latest
projects. Composer Michael Harrison and Filmmaker Bill Morrison
presented their piece, Just Ancient Loops – a collaboration between the
two Fellows and cellist extraordinaire Maya Beiser. Ruben SantiagoHudson read an excerpt from James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son,
which Baldwin worked on during a 1954 residency.
❱❱ NEW FACES
Christine Fisher
DAN MILLBAUER (2)
CHRISTA PARRAVANI
❱❱ NEW BOARD MEMBERS
Julie Orringer,
Author
Carol Ostrow,
Producing Director
❱❱ FELLOWSHIPS
Karin Kraft,
Financial and
Human Resources
Administrator
Billy Morse,
Kitchen Assistant
Shaun Newport,
Development
Assistant
From November 2014 through April 2015, The MacDowell Colony welcomed a total 140 artists from 26 states and the District of Columbia, and from six countries.
This group includes 63 writers, 24 visual artists, 20 theatre artists, 14 film/video artists,11 composers, six interdisciplinary artists, and two architects.
SUMMER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
8
EMILY ABENDROTH, Writer
Philadelphia, PA
TAMMY MARIE DUDMAN,
Film/Video Artist; Warwick, RI
JEROME KITZKE, Composer
New York, NY
IRINA PATKANIAN, Film/Video Artist
Brooklyn, NY
CECILIA ALDARONDO, Film/Video
Artist; Brooklyn, NY
MARK ALICE DURANT, Writer
Baltimore, MD
GUY KLUCEVSEK, Composer
Staten Island, NY
WILLIAM PATTEN, Writer
Mount Desert, ME
HEPHZIBAH ANDERSON, Writer
Lewes, United Kingdom
DANIELLE DUTTON, Writer
St. Louis, MO
NICOLE KRAUSS, Writer
New York, NY
JACK PERLA, Composer
San Francisco, CA
JASON ANTHONY, Writer
Damariscotta, ME
LANCE EDMANDS, Film/Video Artist
Brooklyn, NY
GINGER KREBS, Interdisciplinary
Artist; Chicago, IL
ANN PIBAL, Visual Artist
North Bennington, VT
ELIZABETH ARNOLD, Writer
Hyattsville, MD
LEE SUNDAY EVANS, Theatre Artist
New York, NY
DEBORA KUAN, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
KATARZYNA PLAZINSKA,
Film/Video Artist; Iowa City, IA
DAVID AUBURN, Theatre Artist
New York, NY
HECTOR FALCÓN VILLA, Film/Video
Artist; Queretaro, Mexico
PAUL LaFARGE, Writer
Red Hook, NY
SAM PLUTA, Composer
New York, NY
MIRANDA AUSTIN, Visual Artist
Brooklyn, NY
LINDA FENG, Writer
Toronto, Canada
BRONWYN LEA, Writer
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
MATTHEW PORTERFIELD,
Film/Video Artist; Baltimore, MD
ANNIE BAKER, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
DANIEL FISH, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
SAMUEL LEADER, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
DAVID RAKOWSKI, Composer
Maynard, MA
TERESA BAKER, Visual Artist
Beaumont, TX
DAN FISHBACK, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
DANIELLE LESSOVITZ,
Film/Video Artist; Brooklyn, NY
PABLO RASGADO, Visual Artist
Mexico DF, Mexico
SONIA BARRETT, Visual Artist
Fürth, Germany
MELENIE FLYNN, Writer
Truro, MA
KATHRYN LEVY, Writer
Sag Harbor, NY
RUFUS REID, Composer
Teaneck, NJ
MEGHAN MOE BEITIKS,
Interdisciplinary Artist
San Francisco, CA
RICHARD GALLI, Writer
East Greenwich, RI
KARIN LIN-GREENBERG, Writer
Watervliet, NY
GABRIELLE REISMAN, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
DAGMARA GENDA, Visual Artist
London, United Kingdom
ERICA LIPEZ, Theatre Artist
Los Angeles, CA
FRANCES RICHEY, Writer
New York, NY
JENNY GEORGE, Writer
Santa Fe, NM
STEVE LOCKE, Visual Artist
Boston, MA
MICHAEL ROBINSON,
Film/Video Artist; Spencer, NY
MADELEINE GEORGE, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
CYNTHIA LOWEN, Film/Video Artist
Brooklyn, NY
JULIA ROMMEL, Visual Artist
Brooklyn, NY
GARY GIDDINS, Writer
New York, NY
TAYLOR MAC, Theatre Artist
New York, NY
BRIAN GILLIS, Visual Artist
Eugene, OR
BEN MARCUS, Writer
New York, NY
ALEXANDER ROSENBERG,
Interdisciplinary Artist
Philadelphia, PA
LEAH GRIESMANN, Writer
Asheville, NC
CHRISTOPHER MARIANETTI,
Interdisciplinary Artist
Jackson Heights, NY
GON BEN ARI, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
CLAIRE BENNETT, Film/Video Artist
Toronto, Canada
ANNE BERESFORD CLARKE,
Visual Artist; Leverett, MA
MARINA BERIO, Visual Artist
Brooklyn, NY
LARISSA BORTEH, Visual Artist
Chicago, IL
MARTIN BRIEF, Visual Artist
St. Louis, MO
HANNAH BUCK, Film/Video Artist
Brooklyn, NY
LEA BULT, Visual Artist
Ann Arbor, MI
JAMES CANON, Writer
Sunnyside, NY
MICHAEL CHABON, Writer
Berkeley, CA
SHARON CHARDE, Writer
Lakeville, CT
CARO CLARK, Writer
Seattle, WA
MAGGIE-KATE COLEMAN,
Theatre Artist; Brooklyn, NY
SARAH CORNWELL, Writer
Los Angeles, CA
ADRIANA CORRAL, Visual Artist
San Antonio, TX
KIA CORTHRON, Theatre Artist
New York, NY
DARCY COURTEAU, Writer
Washington, DC
GORDON DAHLQUIST, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
STEPHANIE DANLER, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
RACHEL HARPER, Writer
Pasadena, CA
JOHN HASKELL, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
JODIE HOLLANDER, Writer
Minturn, CO
ELLIOTT HOLT, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
ROBERT HONSTEIN, Composer
Jamaica Plain, MA
WILLIAM HUNT, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
JANG SOON IM, Visual Artist
Jersey City, NJ
GREG JACKSON, Writer
Brunswick, ME
BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS,
Theatre Artist; Brooklyn, NY
JULIA JACQUETTE, Visual Artist
New York, NY
ZAHIR JANMOHAMED, Writer
Fair Oaks, CA
LEN JENKIN, Theatre Artist
New York, NY
HILLARY JORDAN, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
ALICE DARK, Writer; Montclair, NJ
HANSOL JUNG, Theatre Artist
Shelton, CT
VLADIMIR DE FONTENAY,
Film/Video Artist; Brooklyn, NY
HODA KASHIHA, Visual Artist
Worcester, MA
MASHUQ DEEN, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
BRENDA KENNEALLY, Visual Artist
Brooklyn, NY
THOMAS DEVANEY, Writer
Philadelphia, PA
MATT KENYON, Visual Artist
Ann Arbor, MI
SEAN DOWNEY, Visual Artist
Jamaica Plain, MA
HAVEN KIMMEL, Writer
Durham, NC
The MacDowell Colony is located at
100 High Street
Peterborough, NH 03458
Telephone: 603-924-3886
Fax: 603-924-9142
Administrative office:
163 East 81st Street
New York, NY 10028
Telephone: 212-535-9690
Fax: 212-737-3803
Web site: www.macdowellcolony.org
E-mail: newsletter@macdowellcolony.org
MIKE MCKAY, Architect
Lexington, KY
KENT SHAW, Writer
Huntington, WV
RYAN McLAUGHLIN, Visual Artist
Sunapee, NH
EMMA SLOLEY, Writer
New York, NY
MARISA MICHELSON, Composer
New York, NY
EVAN SMITH, Writer
Beacon, NY
CARMAN MOORE, Composer
New York City, NY
BETH STEEL, Theatre Artist
London, United Kingdom
DONALD MORGAN, Visual Artist
Eugene, OR
LYNNE TILLMAN, Writer
New York, NY
MICHAEL MORSE, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
CORINNA VALLIANATOS, Writer
Claremont, CA
MEGAN MURTHA, Theatre Artist
Brooklyn, NY
GEOFFREY von OEYEN, Architect
Los Angeles, CA
DINA NAYERI, Writer
New York, NY
LOU ANN WALKER, Writer
Sag Harbor, NY
RICHARD NELSON, Composer
Brunswick, ME
TOMMY WALLACH, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
JIMMY NEWBORG, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
ELLEN WATSON, Writer
Conway, MA
MATTHEW NORTHRIDGE,
Visual Artist; Brooklyn, NY
DEKE WEAVER, Theatre Artist
Champaign, IL
KATE NORTHROP, Writer
Laramie, WY
DAVID WHELAN,
Interdisciplinary Artist
Marblehead, MA
JESSICA ORECK, Film/Video Artist
New York, NY
AMANDA PADOAN, Writer
Barcelona, Spain
JIEHAE PARK, Theatre Artist
Sunnyside, NY
The MacDowell Colony awards Fellowships to artists of
exceptional talent, providing time, space, and an inspiring
environment in which to do creative work. The Colony was
founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and
pianist Marian Nevins MacDowell, his wife. Fellows
receive room, board, and exclusive use of a studio. The
sole criterion for acceptance is talent, as determined by a
panel representing the discipline of the applicant. The
MacDowell Colony was awarded the National Medal of Arts
in 1997 for “nurturing and inspiring many of this century’s
finest artists.”
Applications are available on our website at
www.macdowellcolony.org.
Chairman: Michael Chabon
President: Susan Davenport Austin
Executive Director: Cheryl A. Young
Resident Director: David Macy
COURTNEY SENDER, Writer
Montvale, NJ
SOLMAZ SHARIF, Writer
Oakland, CA
ELIZABETH OGONEK, Composer
Bronx, NY
Echoes of Marian, C- print, printed
in two sizes 72” x 60” and 42” x
36” in editions of 25 each, 2014,
by Carrie Mae Weems. A special
edition project created for the
Foundation for Art & Preservation in Embassies. The title is
in reference to the great opera
singer Marian Anderson and her
historic 1939 performance on the
steps of the Lincoln monument
before an audience of more than
75,000. Printed by Esteban Mauchi
of Laumont Photographics with
a Lightjet 500xl printer. Image
courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery
and the artist.
AMY SCHLEUNES, Writer
Manitowoc, WI
LAURA MARRIS, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
DENNIS NURKSE, Writer
Brooklyn, NY
On the cover…
MacDowell is published twice a
year, in summer and winter. Past
Fellows may send newsworthy
activities to the editor in
Peterborough. Deadlines for
inclusion are April 1st and
October 1st.
Editor: Jonathan Gourlay
Design and Production:
Melanie deForest Design, LLC
All photographs not
otherwise credited:
Joanna Eldredge Morrissey
Printer: Print Resource,
Westborough, MA
Mailing House: Sterling Business
Print & Mail, Peterborough, NH
No part of MacDowell may be
reused in any way without written
permission.
© 2015, The MacDowell Colony
The names of MacDowell Fellows
are noted in bold throughout this
SUSAN WICKS, Writer
Kent, United Kingdom
newsletter.
LAUREN WILKINSON, Writer
New York, NY
facebook.com/MacDowellColony
REBECCA WOLFF, Writer
Hudson, NY
RAPHAEL XAVIER, Interdisciplinary
Artist; Philadelphia, PA
SARA ZARR, Writer
Salt Lake City, UT
The Colony is grateful for the generous support
of the following organizations:
TK