Tips on Finding an Artist Residency

I can’t say enough about getting away from normal routines to focus on one’s art. It can be an opportunity to delve more deeply into one’s work, a chance to experiment in new directions, an invitation to expand horizons and to gain fresh perspectives on work, the world, and oneself.



My residence at Bordeneuve in southern France.
 

Many people who travel from the United States flit from place to place and return home with a medley of experiences, in need of a vacation. An artist retreat is different: you stay in one place and go deep, returning home refreshed and ready to tackle new challenges. I may eventually seek a residency in another place, but for now, France keeps calling me back, as it has since 2001.  

You don’t need to go far away. My cousin, a writer in Chicago, goes to Ragdale (www.ragdale.org) , which is a short drive from her home but a world away. Ragdale’s motto: “we believe that time and space are not luxuries but necessary elements for creating important new work.” I agree, and her best-selling novels are also proof.

 There are different types of residencies. You can pursue a solitary retreat or share the company of other creative people. Some are for one type of artist, while others mix writers, artists, composers, choreographers, screenwriters. Many are in quiet, rural areas, some more urban. You might not be within walking distance of town, so you will need to hire a car or make sure that transportation is available; sometimes there are bicycles  to borrow. Do you need a city or will you thrive in an isolated environment? Make sure you know whether you will have access to the supplies or equipment you need.


Fields at St. Martin de Redon near Atelier de la Rose.

One excellent resource is www.resartis.org, listing 400 residencies in 70 countries. You can select from many categories on their website: location, setting (rural, urban), visual arts/writing/music/choreography, type of accommodations, length of stay, and more. For example, if I search for France, visual arts in a rural setting, I will see those that most appeal to me. There is also www.transartists.org, which reports 1,200 residencies on their list, but the search facility is limited only to country and type of art. Another useful site is http://www.artistcommunities.org/, the Alliance of Artists Communities, which lists residencies and also provides useful tips and information about choosing a residency that matches your needs.

On the high wire above my yurt.

Perhaps the most helpful information I have gleaned is from other artists. I google artists who have visited places I am interested in, and I have received very useful information. In one case I spent an hour on the phone with a ceramic artist in Vermont who warned me against applying to the place she stayed; I later heard from a second artist who had a similar miserable experience, and I felt badly that both of them, and no doubt others, had spent time and money traveling to France only to have a negative experience. I am grateful I knew enough to not apply there.

My experiences have been very positive, one in a group setting, once with a writer, and twice in solitude, in which I thrive. The solitary work ends with the day, though, getting to know my gracious and interesting hosts over dinner. Some offer visits to local sites, markets, museums, artist studios. At Atelier de la Rose, www.french-rose.com, the lovely Sally Gaucheron gave us a very informed and personal tour of the ancient cave paintings of Pech Merle and the surrounding area. With Noelle Thompson www.bordeneuveretreat.com  I have visited fabulous gardens, the weekly market of St. Girons, an interesting modern art exhibition in the ruins of a medieval monastery, and other delightful places. At Mas Pinet www.maspinet.com where I stayed in my own Mongolian yurt, I was given a ‘baptisme funambule,’ a daunting lesson on the highwire by the world-renowned circus artists Jade Kindar-Martin and Karine Mauffrey.

Artists were here 25,000 before I was.

I sketch and paint every day, and I read, nap, eat, and exercise daily as well, all of which provide benefits to my painting. I find that my work resonates with the landscape and the experience of being away. For me, a love of France is inspirational, but there is also great freedom in having the time to dive deep.

A few places of interest:
www.pechmerle.com with 25,000 year old cave paintings
www.les-jardins-de-la-poterie-hillen.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-visit-our-garden.html
http://www.frenchentree.com/france-lot-quercy-towns-villages/displayarticle.asp?id=38780
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_d'Aurignac

Leaving Bordeneuve (Some thoughts on an artist residency)

Fields at Bordeneuve by Rebecca Stebbins

Bordeneuve is a place that is hard to come to and harder to leave. It’s hard to come because of what you have to leave behind: basically, everything that isn’t in that small space where creativity resides. Spouses, children, friends, and all the accoutrements: laundry, for example, or cooking, cleaning, yard work. Animals to be fed and walked and loved. Bills to be paid and paperwork that piles up and supplies that need to be restocked and messes to be cleaned up and is there gas in the car? And do I have everything? You travel.

You arrive at Boussens on the crowded little train and step out into the Midi and voilà. There you are, with just your bag, your baggage, and yourself. And there is Noelle, who grabs your very heavy bag and heaves it into the back of her trusty Peugeot and you are off through the winding roads of the Ariège.

You pass farm fields and tiny villages, some with stately little homes and others with crumbly old barns, up hills and around pastures with sheep or goats, or little herds of cows in all of the colors that cows come. She turns in to a rocky track, and if you look back you’ll see the snow on the Pyrénées in the distance. You bounce down a luminous green tunnel of trees and vines and finally you pull in to a clearing with a house to the left and a barn to the right. That place on the right hardly qualifies as a barn: it is lovely, spacious, and filled with just what you need. Food, silence, books, a deep bath and a wide balcony, places to sit, to draw, to paint, to play, to dance – yes, even enough room to dance. Indoor space and outdoor space. And no clutter. You make a mental note: less clutter.



Blanchette & Edith, by Rebecca Stebbins

The first evening is jovial and calm – a lovely meal, a nice bottle of rosé, conversation that isn’t dull but isn’t deep – not yet. Later in the week the topics will grow weightier, perhaps. Tonight you are still shedding the old skin. Tomorrow you will wake up in a new skin, bright and shiny like the green garden snakes I’ve never seen there. 

The first day you will still be decelerating. You will wander and sketch, flip through books of poetry, unpack. But then something funny happens: just as you begin to accept the slowness, and the quiet, you start to hear all the noise there. For Bordeneuve can be a very noisy place, especially between the birds and the insects and the very loud cow a few fields away who bellows from time to time, and the distance village bells you catch once in a while. And that small space where creativity resides? Like the heart of the Grinch, it grows. And grows, until it takes up all the space of all the other stuff you left behind.

View from the end of the track by Rebecca Stebbins

And as you slow down, matching your speed to the rhythms of real life, you realize you have hit your stride, and you work. With a passion, until you are tired and have to stop, and then it’s time for a nap, or a meal, or a walk, or a bath. The choices are few, and so they are easy to make. Easy choices reserve brain space for your creative pursuits, you think. You’re not wasting precious time on TV, or idle chitchat, or wondering what to tackle next. Your time feels more pure.

You wake up, and it happens again: simplicity. Except now there’s a complication: oh! There are chickens outside the door, and perhaps they would like a little treat. You go to look at all the different flowers in the garden and you see dinner there too, ready for picking. You come back inside and there’s a cat – and somehow, not by the markings but more by the attitude, you know which cat of the four has come to visit. You are settling in.

And one day it happens: you have to leave. And it is hard, and you are already starting to think about arriving on the train in Boussens and the long drive down that rocky track to come back.

http://bordeneuveretreat.com/