MacDowell, Winter 2015

Vol. 44, No. 2\Winter 2015

IN THIS ISSUE

Help Us Support Long-Form Journalists Fellows at MoMA, ICA, Mass MoCA, Miami, and More Smithsonian Secures Robert Dell Papers Miranda, Scorsese, and Chabon Share Stage in NYC

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ARCHITECTS | COMPOSERS | FILMMAKERS | INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTISTS | THEATRE ARTISTS | VISUAL ARTISTS | WRITERS

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❱❱ UPDATE

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

Driving Change on Several Fronts

Artists

Jasper Johns, the 1994 Edward MacDowell Medalist, toured the property and dropped by several studios along with Philadelphia Museum of Art Curator Carlos Basualdo.

Above (from left), Executive Director Cheryl A. Young, Johns, Basualdo, and Resident Director David Macy pause outside Firth after getting a close look at the recently revamped Eastman Studio. In Firth, Johns spoke with visual artist Whiting Tennis, who explained his process and the projects he was working on while in residence.

Afterward, Johns and Basualdo met with architect Michelle Fornabai in Heinz Studio where she was exploring the vibrational setting of concrete using sound to affect the aggregate and pigments of the mix.

MacArthur Grants to Three Fellows

Cheryl A. Young, Executive Director

Help Us Support Long-Form Journalists When Jen Percy applied for a MacDowell Fellowship early this year she was leading a freelance journalist’s peripatetic existence: free to travel from place to place to report on the stories that required on-the-spot coverage, but without a home base from which to tackle longer projects that probe the unexpected undercurrents of headlines we see every day.

“Even though I had the opportunity to travel and report, it became very difficult to find the space and community I needed to finish longer projects,” said Percy, the author of the 2014 New York Times Notable Book Demon Camp, an investigation into American soldiers returning home with post-traumatic stress disorder who sought out a shamanic figure in rural Georgia to “exorcise” their demons. “My time at MacDowell helped me complete two front-page stories for The New Republic and The New York Times Magazine.” The former was about Christian militias fighting ISIS, and the latter documented Americans in Syria fighting ISIS alongside the Kurdish army.

MacDowell started the Art of Journalism Initiative to help journalists like Percy sustain the critical role of long-form work in a healthy democracy. The goal of the initiative is to double the number of residencies designated for journalists by endowing 20 fellowships. So far, the following fellowships have been established through the initiative:

MARKOS AND ELENI KOUNALAKIS FELLOWSHIP Percy’s residency was supported by the Markos and Eleni Kounalakis Fellowship recognizing excellence in journalism. The fellowship was donated by Markos Kounalakis, a broadcast and print journalist and author, and Eleni Kounalakis, his wife and former U.S. ambassador to Hungary. As a result of the couple’s generosity, the Kounalakis Fellowship will underwrite a MacDowell residency for journalists annually for the next three years.

JOHN S. CARROLL FELLOWSHIP The Colony will begin awarding the John S. Carroll Fellowship annually over the next three years in honor of the late veteran editor of The Baltimore Sun and the Los Angeles Times. The Carroll Fellowship was donated anonymously by one of Carroll’s friends shortly before he died on June 14, 2015 to celebrate his legacy as a champion of outstanding journalism.

SYLVIA CANFIELD WINN FELLOWSHIP FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JOURNALISM As part of the initiative, a third fellowship was established this fall to support journalists working on projects focused on the environment. Endowed by writer and MacDowell Fellow Tracy Winn in memory of her mother, this fellowship will be offered every two years, allowing the fund to grow and support journalism residencies in perpetuity.

All three fellowships were donated in response to a $1 million matching grant from the Calderwood Charitable Foundation to help the Colony double its support for journalists as resources for longer projects continue to diminish in the era of fast news and free content. Accepted journalists receive fellowships covering all residency costs and are eligible for small project grants from a fund endowed by the Calderwood Foundation. The initiative has a goal of investing $4.5 million in endowed fellowships, with $2.2 million raised so far. To become part of the cause, call Director of Development John Martin at (212) 535-9690.

BEN COLLIER

WINTER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY

JONATHAN GOURLAY

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Jasper Johns Pays Visit to Colony

Resident Director David Macy and I had the opportunity to attend the Alliance of Artist Communities annual conference in its hometown of Providence, RI. The conference was a wonderful coming together of old friends and colleagues working on behalf of artists.

On the 25th anniversary of the Alliance, this was one of the best attended ever with 350 art leaders participating with a rich array of speakers and artists all laser focused on residency programs. We learned from each other how to be more effective, met with funders about how to increase support for the field, talked with artists about how to be more inclusive and level the arts playing field, and discussed how to leverage our strengths. Caitlin Strokosch, executive director of the Alliance, does a magnificent job of representing the field, building bridges between the Alliance and funding sources, helping nascent programs, and creating synergy among all the different incarnations of residencies. The renaissance of the field is in large part owing to the role of the Alliance.

MacDowell is proud to be a founding member along with 17 other programs.

David, who serves on the Alliance board, moderated a panel on green energy with MacDowell Fellow Kiel Moe and Jack Ruderman from Revision Energy. MacDowell is working with Revision to switch from brown to green energy by installing solar panels. You will hear more on that exciting project in the coming months.

As we end our calendar year, we look back at some of the progress The MacDowell Colony has made in several areas. Granting fellowships to artists who are dealing with the pressing issues of our time is one facet of what we support. We established the Charlotte Sheedy Fellowship as a welcoming beacon to signal that residencies are open to all. A new fellowship for environmental journalism is just announced. We know there’s more lifting to do to create change, and artists will help us do it.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Mimi Lien

Basil Twist

The MacArthur Foundation awarded three MacDowell Fellows with its prestigious five-year grant of $625,000 each among a class of 24. Congratulations to writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, interdisciplinary artist Mimi Lien, and Basil Twist on being named to the 2015 class of MacArthur Fellows for exhibiting “extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”

Architects Join Park Design Contest After Peterborough citizens voted to build a new park and parking lot across the river from the Toadstool Bookshop in Depot Square, Resident Director David Macy approached the town and the developer to ask if MacDowell Fellow architects might be invited to submit design ideas.

“MacDowell is uniquely positioned to invite talented designers to help make a fantastic public space for residents and visitors alike,” said Macy. “The beautiful waterfront site offers a great design challenge for MacDowell architects already familiar with our downtown.”

MacDowell worked with Town Administrator Rodney Bartlett and developer Stan Fry to organize a design competition with a prize of $5,000. In September, the Colony’s architecture admissions panel nominated 10 architects who were invited to participate. More than half responded with interest and the winner will be announced in January, with construction slated for summer 2016.

Vehicles will access the site from Grove Street and a footbridge will connect the park and parking lot to Depot Square. The Common Pathway bike trail will be re-routed along the Contoocook River and, if NH DOT authorization comes through, a bus shelter will be built, creating a new stop on a route connecting Boston to Brattleboro.

Fellows Exhibit at MoMA, ICA, Mass MoCA, Miami, and More Zoe Leonard’s “Analogue” at MoMA For the months of July and August, Zoe Leonard’s “Analogue,” comprising 412 photographs conceived over the course of a decade, was on display at The Museum of Modern Art in New York in serial grids organized into 25 chapters. The exhibit documented the 20th-century urban life as seen in vanishing mom-and-pop stores and the emergence of the global rag trade. Leonard first explored her Lower East Side neighborhood before following the circulation of recycled merchandise to markets in Africa, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Mexico, and the Middle East. Not only did Leonard document disappearing merchandise, but she captured it with a vintage 1940s Rolleiflex camera and used gelatin silver and chromogenic printing to process the images.

Erin Shireff at ICA Boston Erin Shirreff’s three-month exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Erin Shirreff, was a showcase of sculptures and photography of sculptures by the artist who was in residence in 2008. The show explored the difficulties of representing sculpture in the two dimensions, covering several years of the artist’s work. Her series “Monograph,” a group of photographs of sculpture built to be captured in two-dimensional images, was paired with a series of sculptures called “Drops” created from cutting shapes out of paper and translating those shapes onto sheets of steel. Shirreff also showcased her silent film Medardo Rosso Madame X, 1896 (2013) a manipulation of a Medardo Rosso sculpture by digital means. Erin Shirreff was exhibited in the Fotene Demoulas Gallery of The ICA/Boston August 26 to November 29, 2015.

NEW AND NOTABLE PROJECTS Eric Rhein, who was in residence in 1996 and 1999, was featured in a solo show of mixed-media assemblages at the Pavel Zoubok Gallery in New York this past fall. “Ordained” included work created over the last three decades and emphasized the tactility, mysticism, and intransigent beauty of nature, a lexicon nurtured during Rhein’s childhood summers in the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky. In The Order, 2006-2015, gold-filled, silver and copper wires form cellular structures where antiquarian book covers, crystal prisms, salvaged hardware and cast bronze leaves are harmoniously composed. Gathered from locations as varied as Japan, Thailand, France, and the streets of New York City, the materials in The Order are a record of Rhein’s travels to physical and liminal spaces. The act of charging cast-off objects with a new vitality mirrors the artist’s own spiritual rebirth, experienced through his own evolving relationship with HIV.

MORE NEW AND NOTABLE PROJECTS

SuttonBeresCuller at Mass MOCA The installation artists Ben Beres, Zac Culler, and John Sutton, who had joint residencies in 2010 and 2013, showed Big Top Grand Stand at Mass MoCA this past June for Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival. The large “migratory” outdoor sculpture was originally constructed for Nuit Blanche in Toronto, and after it was moved to MoCA it remained on display into November. In response to transitory environments common to fairs, festivals, and circuses, SuttonBeresCuller created the piece as a comment on the aesthetics of its environment. Atop a 16-foot flatbed trailer, four unique structures nest within each other and telescope skyward, extending into a baroque sculpture.

Adorned with flashing lights, vibrant flags and reflective surfaces, this flamboyant homage has turned the concession stand into a sculptural form.

Untitled; walnut and sumi ink on paper; 59” X 82”; 2015 by Ellen Driscoll (photo by Etienne Frossard) Big Top Grand Stand; aluminum, steel, fiberglass, scissor lift, trailer; 2014 by SuttonBeresCuller

Untitled Miami Includes Seven Fellows At Miami Art Week, the UNTITLED art fair presented MacDowell ON AIR, an hour-long radio project hosted

by MacDowell Fellow and board member Julia Jacquette. The segment, broadcast live at the fair and on local arts station Wynwood Radio on December 3rd, featured original sound art by MacDowell Fellows William Cordova, Adriana Corral, and Alma Leiva; interviews with artists participating in UNTITLED including Tamar Ettun and Jim Gaylord; and a playlist curated by MacDowell Chairman Michael Chabon.

Nine Fellows Represented in New York Film Festival This fall’s 53rd New York Film Festival featured projects from nine Fellows in a variety of genres. Fellows’ films included Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story by Michael Almereyda. Set in the early 1960s, Experimenter is the story of psychologist Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) whose controversial behavioral experiments at Yale tested subjects’ conformity, conscience, and free will when they were instructed to administer electric shocks to a stranger (Jim Gaffigan) strapped in a chair in another room. No shocks are actually ever administered, however the stranger acts as if they are. Against the stranger’s pleas for mercy, the majority of the test subjects comply with the test director’s orders. Other MacDowell Fellows’ films in the festival include Pry, an app experience created by Danny Cannizzaro and Samantha Gorman, Traces/Legacy by Scott Stark, Cathode Garden by Janie Geiser, YOLO by Ben Russell, Mad Ladders by Michael Robinson, Chums from Across the Void by Jim Finn, and A Disaster Forever by Michael Gitlin.

Ellen Driscoll collaborated with Margaret Cogswell in a multimedia drawing and video installation at the Kentler Gallery in Brooklyn.

Tamar Ettun exhibited sculpture and performance art “Alula in Blue” at The Fridman Gallery in New York.

Aleya Lehmann presented at an open studio at Industry City in Brooklyn.

Luis Recoder and Sandra Gibson presented “Obscurus Projectum,” their reimagining of the camera obscura, at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

Thaddeus Rutkowski launched his book “Violent Outbursts,” a novella-length collection, explores contemporary American life viewed from an outsider’s perspective.

Mac Wellman staged his play “The Hyacinth Macaw” in Chicago.

Rachel Perry Welty presented drawings in her solo exhibition “Chiral Lines” at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York.

WINTER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY

Installation view, “Analogue,” 342 chromogenic color prints and 70 gelatin silver prints, each 11” x 11,” 1998–2009 by Zoe Leonard. © 2015 The Museum of Modern Art. (Photo by John Wronn)

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Artists

The Order; Steel, brass, copper and gold-filled wire, bronze castings and found objects; 49” X 73” X 5 ½”; 2006-2015 by Eric Rhein (Courtesy of the artist and Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York)

Smithsonian Secures Robert Dell Papers for Institution’s Archives

BY HANNAH FITCH

WINTER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY

Artists

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OTHER NEW AND NOTABLE PROJECTS Oxford University Press to publish Anthony Alofsin’s book, Ingenious Giant: Frank Lloyd Wright in New York.

Lara Baladi Invisible Monuments ongoing series of contributory soundscapes from Boston to worldwide locations.

Ada Calhoun launched her new book St. Marks is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street in the Great Hall at the Cooper Union in New York.

Lenora Champagne New World Plays book of plays published by NoPassport Press as part of “Dreaming the Americas” series.

When The Smithsonian Institution proposes to establish a permanent archive of your papers, it’s a safe bet you know what specific papers they mean.

For MacDowell Fellow Robert Dell, it could have been for those he generated as an engineer, inventor, author, or sculptor.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” Dell says of the request from The Smithsonian. While that occurrence might satisfy most people who have dedicated more than 30 years to a particular field, it’s the sculptor in Dell who says he finally feels that his work is being Robert Dell in Alexander Studio working on Talus in 1980 fully recognized. (photo by Ellen Foscue Johnson) Dell, who is the Founding Director of the Center for Innovation and Applied Technology at The Cooper Union in New York City, started as a sculptor who appreciated the beautiful and complex relationship between science and art. His initial use of diverse elements, including metal, electricity, and crystals as integral parts of artistic works influenced his later career in engineering.

While working in Alexander Studio in the spring of 1980, Dell needed special heavy-duty electrical supply lines routed to the studio for his welding equipment. The MacDowell Colony accommodated the request and Dell created two large-scale sculptures, Talus and Bellerophon. Titled after Greek mythological characters, Dell’s work sought to embody man’s neglected essential connection to the Earth. Dell credits The MacDowell Colony for validating his exploratory creative work. That, he says, eventually opened doors into the engineering field and led to his success with geothermal sculpture and ultimately to green energy research.

His best known work is the first geothermal-powered sculpture that was created and then powered by hot springs during a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship to Iceland in 1988. The title of the work, Hitavaettur, means “guardian of geothermal hot water” in Icelandic. The sculpture was inspired by the artist’s desire to create a “mythological personification of the Earth’s energy using today’s technology.” It is now powered by the same geothermal hot water that heats the city of Reykjavik.

Jacqueline Woodson Has Lunch with Jimmy Carter Still from the Oscar-Nominated Last Day of Freedom by Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman. The animated documentary capped off a slew of great notices in the film festival circuit with a nomination to the short list for Best Documentary Short Subject. The 88th Academy Awards will take place February 28, 2016.

John Jahnke presented his Alas, The Nymphs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) as part of the Next Wave Festival.

Teresa Jaynes presented The Moon Reader, a reworking of 19th century raised letter system invented by William Moon in 1845, in Philadelphia.

Amos Kamil released his book Great is the Truth about sexual abuse and justice at one of America’s most prestigious high schools.

Rose Marasco retrospective at Portland Museum of Art through December 6.

Ruth Reichl discussed her new book and what she did after Gourmet magazine was shut down on a book tour.

Alvin Singleton new commission premieres May 22 at Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Cincinnati.

Nancy Van de Vate new opera in five acts, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, premiered to full houses at Gertrude Ford Center, University of Mississippi, and Vinohrady Theatre in Prague, Czech Republic.

Carrie Mae Weems talked about her work in a cultural context of black and feminist studies at the Performa Institute in New York.

Bryan Zanisnik exhibited “Doppelgänging” at the Rutter Family Art Foundation in Norfolk, VA.

The New York Times article “Jimmy Carter and Jacqueline Woodson on Race, Religion and Rights” is a wonderful look into the workings of two brilliant minds. The article, which originally published in July, can be found at the following url: http://goo.gl/JUvRGF

BBC Television Films Segment with Fellow Maya Jasanoff in Library We hosted a BBC television crew in early summer who recorded an interview with writer Maya Jasanoff, who was first in residence in 2009. The crew, including host and author William Dalrymple, spent an afternoon in the library setting up and shooting the interview with Jasanoff because she is an authority on the history of the British Empire, and especially its conquest of India. The BBC program, written and presented by Dalrymple, is based on his book White Mughals. (Photo by Hannah Fitch)

Adrian LeBlanc Nears Finish Line on Newest Project

BY LOUISA MUNK Adrian Nicole LeBlanc is a nonfiction writer known for her immersive research style. In fact, she dives in so completely that the average time spent on her last two books (one published in 2003, the other still in the writing stage) is around 10 years. This research style has come to define her work, as she not only observes the scene she writes about, but becomes part of the environment.

For her first book, Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx, LeBlanc spent a decade with heroin dealers and their girlfriends. Her newest topic is the world of male standup comedians, but her dedication to research is just as intense as it was for Random Family.

LeBlanc, who’s been in residence four times, received a B.A. in sociology from Smith College and an M.A. in philosophy and modern literature from Oxford. This varied education helps explain her ability to observe her subject matter from such an analytical, sociological standpoint, and might also inform the time it takes to complete such a project.

While on the surface her current subject is the world of male stand-up comedians, as she explains, it is – more specifically – “about contemporary American masculinity.” These are “men who are articulating a psychological landscape” because it’s not particularly familiar to the general public.

Much of the material used by these comedians is uncomfortable to many people and alludes to aspects of masculinity that are seldom cited in other artistic media.

Crist Head-Injury Inquiry Helps Secure Rona Jaffe Award

Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks can now add the Dorothy and Lillian Gish prize to her collection of accolades.

Parks, who won the Pulitzer in 2002 for the play Topdog/Underdog, has also been nominated for a Tony for that play, and won two Obies for earlier plays, but it is her body of work that earned the Gish Prize. She has been in residence in 1989, 1991, and 1995. In naming Parks as its 22nd recipient, the selection committee noted she had an “audacious and vivid imagination. Her writing is a complex and multi-layered articulation of history, myth, sexuality, and identity told in voices that need to be heard.” Parks was chosen from among 54 artists nominated by members of the arts community, according to the Gish Prize Trust. At a value of about $300,000, the Gish Prize is one of the largest given to artists.

Four Fellows Among 2015 USA Artist Winners

United States Artists (USA) included four MacDowell Fellows among the 37 new USA Fellows awarded $50,000 each for 2015. The awards are intended to support artistic practice and professional development, and go to artists selected from more than 400 nominated artists living in the United States and its territories. MacDowell Fellows who earned the awards are interdisciplinary artist Deborah Stratman, composer David Lang, playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury, and interdisciplinary artist Narcisster.

MacDowell Fellow Christopher Cerrone, a composer who was in residence this summer, has been awarded a 20152016 Rome Prize by the American Academy of Rome. Having just finished a piece he started at MacDowell, The Branch Will Not Break, based on text by James Wright and which premiered in Milwaukee in November with Present Music, Cerrone will be focusing on many new compositions, all inspired by the acoustics of Italian spaces and the long lineage of Italian art and theatre in Rome. His projects include a piece for cello for Ashley Bathgate to be premiered at Le Poisson Rouge in New York in January, a piano piece for Vicky Chow to be premiered at Roulette in New York in September of 2016, and a new work for mezzo soprano and percussion quartet for Third Coast Percussion that will be co-commissioned by the University of Notre Dame and the MCA in Chicago.

ARTIST AWARDS, GRANTS, AND FELLOWSHIPS

Twin Tonys for Kron MacDowell Fellow Lisa Kron was recognized twice at the 2015 Tony Awards with Best Book of a Musical and the Lyrics for the Best Original Score, both for her musical Fun Home, a collaboration with Jeanine Tesori. Based on Alison Bechdel’s best-selling graphic memoir, Fun Home follows a girl’s life in three stages, focusing on her relationship with her gay father and her own sexual identity. It is the first Broadway musical with a lesbian protagonist, and Kron and Tesori made history as the first female writing team to win a Tony for musical score. The New York Times called it a “beautiful heartbreaker of a musical” and said that Kron’s “book and resonantly precise lyrics give this show its essential spine.” She has been in residence in 1995 and 2014.

2015 Alpert Awards in the Arts The Alpert Awards in the Arts featured many familiar names; MacDowell Fellows were recipients in three out of the five disciplines!

Sharon Lockhart, who was in residence in 2009, is the Alpert Film/Video Award recipient. Lockhart’s films focus on a variety of subjects and usually Sharon Lockhart include a long span of time spent on specific subjects, resulting in an honest understanding and depiction of their world. Her themes include community, work, rituals of everyday life, and usually the strict structural parameters of a fixed lens and uninterrupted takes.

The Alpert Music Award recipient is Julia Wolfe whose music draws inspiration from folk, classical, and rock genres. Wolfe, who was in residence in 1988, adds an extra level of modernity to this blend, which gives a physicality and power to push performers to extremes. Wolfe has written a major body of work for strings, from quartets to full orchestra, and the influence of pop culture can be heard in many of her pieces.

Taylor Mac, the Alpert Theatre Award recipient, was in residence in 2014 and writes plays, musicals, manifestos, and songs. “I think of theater as a seditious act,” says Mac, who has roots in performance art and engages themes of war, xenophobia, consumption, polarization, and imperfection in his work. His goal is for the audience to leave the performance challenged, transformed, and continuing their provoked conversation.

In our hope of spreading the word about MacDowell to non-New York artists in the interdisciplinary, film/video, and playwriting fields, MacDowell and The Alpert Awards have collaborated to bring a Taylor Mac number of outstanding artists to the Colony. During the past 10 years, 26 Fellowship recipients were recommended by the Alpert Awards panels and selected by MacDowell admissions panels for a residency. This year, we welcomed playwright and performer Richard Montoya to MacDowell from California.

Terrence McNally Playwright Terrence McNally, who was in residence in 2010, was honored with the Lucille Lortel Lifetime Achievement Award. This award will add to his numerous honors for ongoing contributions to the theatre, including four Tony Awards, multiple Drama Desk, Obie, and Lucille Lortel Awards, and an election to the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1996.

James Lapine received a Lucille Lortel award for Outstanding Revival for Into the Woods, book.

2015 Obie Awards went to playwrights Ayad Akhtar for The Invisible Hand presented at New York Theatre Workshop and Suzan-Lori Parks for Father Comes Home From the Wars Parts I, II, & III staged at The Public Theater.

Radcliffe Institute Fellowships were granted to Peter Behrens as the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Fellow for Fiction, Bad Girl, and Steven Kazuo Takasugi as the Rieman and Baketel Fellow for Music for his piano concerto R.S. in Cody.

2015 PEW Project Grants for Missy Mazzoli for her opera Breaking the Waves and Raphael Xavier for Raphstravaganza: An Urban Kinetic Experience; 2015 PEW Fellowships for Rea Tajiri for filmmaking and Brian Teare for poetry.

Five Fellows won 2015 NEA Literature Fellowships: Creative Writing fellowships went to Sean Hill, Major Jackson, and Tung-Hui Hu while translation fellowships went to Rosa Alcala and Cynthia Hogue.

2015 Pen Literary Awards were handed out to Claudia Rankine for her collection Citizen: An American Lyric and to Sheri Fink for her nonfiction book Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a StormRavaged Hospital. kate-hers RHEE received a Berlin Artist Fellowship for 2015 and was awarded a Puffin Foundation grant for 2015. Poet James Arthur received a 2015 Fulbright.

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Gish Prize Awarded to Suzan-Lori Parks

COMPOSER IN ROME TO STUDY ACOUSTICS DURING PRIZE RESIDENCY

Artists

The Rona Jaffe Foundation in September named non-fiction writer Meehan Crist a winner of one of six $30,000 awards granted to “women writers of exceptional talent” in the early stages of their writing careers. According to Crist, who was in residence in 2009 and 2013, the award will mean she won’t have to take on time-consuming freelance work as she completes her book The Silent Injury. The book, which Crist worked on during her latest MacDowell residency, weaves together memoir and neuroscience as it focuses on a brain injury her mother experienced while ice skating. Crist, writer-in-residence in Biological Sciences at Columbia University, is editor-at-large at Nautilus and has written for The Los Angeles Times, Bookforum, and Lapham’s Quarterly, penning pieces about the intersection of science, politics, and medicine. She is currently working on a piece about the veterans’ art movement, which grew out of her interviews with war veterans for The Silent Injury.

Jerry Carniglia I Artist Jerry Carniglia died on June 7,

E.L. Doctorow I Writer Edgar Lawrence Doctorow died on July 21, 2015 at the

age of 84. Doctorow majored in philosophy at Kenyon College where he studied with poet and literary critic John Crowe Ransom. He pursued a graduate degree in drama at Columbia University, where he met his wife Helen Setzer. He was drafted and served in the U.S. Army in Germany until 1955. He then spent nine years working as an editor at New American Library before continuing as editor-in-chief at The Dial Press where he worked with James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, Ernest J. Gaines, and others. Doctorow wrote three volumes of short fiction and a stage drama, and 12 novels, including The Book of Daniel (1971), Ragtime (1975), which was adapted as a film in 1981 and as a Broadway musical in 1998, and Billy Bathgate, which was completed in 1989, the year he was in residence. He was awarded three National Book Critics Awards, a National Book Award, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction, among others. He was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame in 2012.

Terror in Brooklyn; Oil on canvas, 34 1/8” × 30 3/16”; 1941 by Louis Guglielmi (1906 - 1956) (courtesy of Whitney Museum of American Art, New York)

Fifteen Fellows Featured in Whitney Inaugural Exhibit

William King I Figurative Sculptor William King died on March 4, 2015 at his

The new Whitney Museum featured 15 MacDowell Fellows and 16 Edward MacDowell Medalists in its inaugural exhibit, “America Is Hard to See,” which kicked off the museum’s reopening in new Renzo Piano-designed Manhattan digs on Gansevoort Street in Chelsea last May. The exhibit closed in late September and included 600 works, organized chronologically. It drew entirely from the Whitney’s collection across all media to present a bold, uniquely American vision. The show was a testament to the glory of American art and of MacDowell’s enduring impact on some of the visionaries who have made it, and drew entirely from the museum’s permanent collection.

Klaus Postler I Artist and independent curator Klaus Postler of Conway, MA

The following MacDowell Colony Fellows were included in the exhibit: Malcolm Bailey, Kevin Everson, Louis Guglielmi, Sharon Hayes, Nancy Holt, Zoe Leonard, Glenn Ligon, Akosua Adoma Owusu, I. Rice Pereira, Howardena Pindell, Luis Recoder, Faith Ringgold, Amy Sillman, May Stevens, and Francesca Woodman.

Sixteen MacDowell Medalists were also featured and are listed here with the years they were awarded the medal.

They are: Alexander Calder, 1963; Edward Hopper, 1966; Louise Nevelson, 1969; Georgia O’Keeffe, 1972; Willem de Kooning, 1975; Isamu Noguchi, 1982; Lee Friedlander, 1986; Stan Brakhage, 1989; Louise Bourgeois, 1990; Jasper Johns, 1994; Ellsworth Kelly, 1999; Robert Frank, 2002; Nam June Paik, 2004; Kiki Smith, 2009; Nan Goldin, 2012; and Betye Saar, 2014.

home in East Hampton, N.Y. at the age of 90. He worked primarily in clay, wood, bronze, vinyl, aluminum, and burlap. King, who was in residence in 1977, focused on the gesture and posture of the human form in a social context and was noted for being both comedic and serious simultaneously. He attended the Cooper Union, later studying under sculptor Milton Hebald, and traveled to Italy on a Fulbright. In the 1960s and 1970s he showed interest in the civil rights movement by using AfricanAmerican figures in handcuffs to evoke his empathy. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington. died January 7, 2013 at his studio at the age of 61. Postler attended UMass Amherst for his graduate and M.F.A. Degrees and was a MacDowell Fellow in 2000.

His art mostly focused on the use of collage, and he was a seminal figure in the mail art movement. Postler was an internationally exhibiting artist and curator with his work being included in more than 200 exhibitions worldwide. His artwork is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art in the Ray Johnson Memorial Mail Art Show Archives and the Museum of Modern Art in the Franklin Furnace Archives.

Stephen Rodefer I Poet, translator and teacher Stephen Rodefer died on August

22, 2015 in Paris at the age of 74. Stephen was born in Bellaire, Ohio, but later in life he split his time between London and Paris. He taught English and creative writing at the University of New Mexico and lectured at various colleges including San Francisco State University and the University of San Diego, where he served as curator for the Archive of New Poetry. Rodefer, who was in residence in 1989, 1992, and 1994, was one of the founders of the Language poetry movement and played a significant role in the lives of many young poets as a mentor and guide.

Oliver Sacks I Oliver Sacks, neurologist, renowned

author, and musician died on Sunday, August 30, 2015 at his home in Manhattan at the age of 82. After receiving his medical degree from Queen’s College, Oxford, Sacks moved to the U.S. in the early 1960s. Sacks moved to New York in 1965 for a fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, and, a year later, began the clinical work at Beth Abraham that led to Awakenings, his highly acclaimed book about his experience with patients suffering from an atypical form of encephalitis. In addition to his 2009 MacDowell Fellowship, he received many awards, including honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Royal College of Physicians. In 2012, he returned to the New York University School of Medicine as a professor of neurology.

Eve Shelnutt I Fiction writer and poet Evelyn B. “Eve” Shelnutt died on April 7, 2015 in Athens, Georgia at the age of 73. Shelnutt, who was in residence 1987, was a prolific writer and authored three collections of short stories with Black Sparrow Press, four poetry collections, and a fourth fiction collection with Carnegie Mellon University Press.

She attended Carson-Neuman College, Furman University, and earned her B.A. in English from the University of Cincinnati, and an M.F.A. in 1973. She had a successful career as a professor of creative writing, teaching at Western Michigan University, the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio University, and the College of the Holy Cross.

Eleven Fellows Exhibit at MoMA PS1’s “Greater New York” 2015

Eleven MacDowell Fellows are showing works as part of MoMA PS1’s 2015 edition of “Greater New York” on view through March 7. The group includes Robert Bordo, Abigail Child, Fanny Howe, Peter Hutton, Manfred Kirchheimer, Zoe Leonard, Glenn Ligon, Howardena Pindell, Will Rawls, Rosalind Fox Solomon, and Stefanie Victor.

© ROSALIND SOLOMON, COURTESY OF BRUCE SILVERSTEIN GALLERY, NY

WINTER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY

Remembering

6

2015 at his home in Emeryville, CA at the age of 68. He joined the Navy in 1965, after which he focused on furniture making and traveling the world. He returned to California in 1975 to study at UC Berkeley and developed an interest in drama.

After graduating he was a founding member of the Berkeley Lights Theatre Ensemble and developed an interest in set building. He received recognition for his artisan furniture and created visual art as well, turning exclusively to painting in 1989. He was admitted to the University of California, received the Phelan and Eisner prizes, and earned an M.F.A. in 1993. Carniglia, who was in residence in 2008, had nine solo exhibitions, many collaborative shows, won seven grants and prizes, and has work in the permanent collections at the San Francisco Fine Arts de Young Museum and Berkeley Art Museum.

Third Annual MacDowell Chairman’s Evening Features Martin Scorsese, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Michael Chabon As this edition of the newsletter was going to press, Chairman Michael Chabon was about to sit down for a conversation with filmmaker Martin Scorsese and performer and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda at the third annual MacDowell Chairman’s Evening December 7 at The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City.

Save the Dates ◗ New Hampshire Benefit April 9, 2016 Look for a notice in your inbox soon!

◗ National Benefit in NYC May 16, 2016 For Tickets call 212-535-9690

Community Engagement: MACDOWELL IN THE SCHOOLS

JONATHAN GOURLAY (2)

In May, visual artist Benjy Davies (pictured below) spoke to approximately 70 Contoocook Valley Regional High School (ConVal) students about his career path as an artist, professor, and lithographer. He also led a second class of 35 students in a drawing exercise using a stick and India ink to create complex images. Writer Anya Yurchyshyn met with ConVal’s Advanced Writing Workshop later in May to discuss literary connections surrounding her work and led the students in a writing exercise.

Composers Christopher Cerrone, Vadim Neselovskyi, and Laura Schwendinger collaborated on a presentation for students and staff from the Walden School of Music in the Savidge Library in July. The composers screened and performed their music and fielded questions from the students.

In September, playwright Jeremy O. Harris met with 60 students in the Lucy Hurlin Theatre at ConVal and described his current project and the work that has inspired him and his process.

Photographer LaMont Hamilton met with 75 students and 8 adults at the Lucy Hurlin Theatre at ConVal and shared some of the community projects he has developed which combine photography and poetry. In late September visual artist Ian Gerson and mixed visual artist David Birkin both shared their work with ConVal students. Gerson met with the Aesthetics & Ideas class, Advanced Placement Studio Art students, and others in the Lucy Hurlin Theatre and showed slides of his work. Birkin met two Advanced Placement U.S. History classes, Ceramics, and 2D Art Class in the Lucy Hurlin

Theatre and presented a slideshow of his work, described his journey as an artist, and answered students’ questions about his art practice.

MACDOWELL DOWNTOWN Composer and four-time MacDowell Fellow Scott Wheeler shared a variety of original works composed while at MacDowell or inspired by his time here. In June, Wheeler performed several solo piano pieces composed in the style of famed composer Virgil Thomson, “from life,” an exercise in composing short pieces in the same manner a visual artist might sketch a portrait. He shared his compositions at the Monadnock Center for History and Culture.

In July, we showed the short documentary The Past is the Present: At Home with Gunther Schuller, which offers a vignette of our 2015 Edward MacDowell Medalist. After the 11-minute documentary composer Martin Brody provided an overview of Schuller’s extensive contribution to our contemporary musical landscape. The evening closed with a piano performance of a Schuller jazz standard arranged by MacDowell Fellow and composer Vadim Neselovskyi.

In September, Frank Carlberg sampled some of his jazz recordings, performed piano, and talked about his latest work as the leader of the Frank Carlberg Big Band. Carlberg uses a wide range of texts for his song cycles, such as portions of The Bill of Rights, excerpts of President Bill Clinton’s grand jury testimony during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, medical texts, and even an apartment lease.

In October, Aja Nisenson (above right) brought her original take on cabaret to a standing-roomonly crowd the Monadnock Center for History and Culture. The playwright and performer has developed a multi-part comedic cycle of onewoman shows in which she portrays and parodies herself and many characters who’ve populated her personal history. Nisenson’s performance made it clear why she has been lauded in and around New York as she performed excerpts of Daja Vu, portraying a self-absorbed and somewhat clueless chanteuse.

In November, actor, playwright, and spoken-

word artist Richard Montoya presented scenes from his play American Night: The Ballad of Juan José, read from new work, and showed a couple of clips from his recent films. He also talked about the origins of Mexican-American rock and roll, and how he was currently at work on a musical about how Chicano rhythm and blues music played a big role in the birth of popular rock music.

U.VA. ARCHITECURAL STUDENTS VISIT Ed Ford, who was in residence in 2014, brought 16 third and fourth year architecture students from the University of Virginia to MacDowell as part of an assignment: design a studio for interdisciplinary artists. Resident Director David Macy spoke to the group about how MacDowell works and explained the desired functionality of the new studio. They studied a model of a studio designed by Charles Rose Architects (Rose is a former student of Ford) and then visited the proposed site, the Colony amphitheater, Edward MacDowell’s log cabin, and Adams Studio.

MONADNOCK WRITERS’ GROUP MEETS Thirty-seven members of the Monadnock Writers’ Group met at Savidge Library in September for their monthly meeting while their regular meeting place was being remodeled.

Communications Manager Jonathan Gourlay spoke about MacDowell’s Journalism Initiative, explaining the impetus of the project and its goals. He explained the need to support longform nonfiction writers and then introduced two writers-in-residence, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich. Each described their current projects and explained how programs like The MacDowell Colony are vital to ensuring that deeply reported journalistic projects like theirs eventually see the light of day.

7 WINTER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY

The annual Friends of MacDowell trip explored the sights, sounds, and artist spaces of Berlin the week of October 4-10. Highlights included a house concert with jazz percussionist and composer John Hollenbeck (MF ’14), a toast with Berlin Philharmonic conductor Sir Simon Rattle following a performance of Beethoven, a viewing of the work of Heiko Kalmbach (MF ’04) at the German Historical Museum, and visits to the studios of S.E. Barrett (MF ’14) and other artists in the Kunstfabrik, a factory turned artist workspace that was once part of the Berlin Wall. Special thanks to Deutsche Bank, Marylea van Daalen, and tour guide Tarek Ibrahim for helping to organize the trip. For more information about the Friends of MacDowell and the annual trip, contact John Martin at jmartin@ macdowellcolony.org

Events

MacDowell Rocks Berlin!

MATTHEW MURPHY

Long-time MacDowell Colony cook Maryel Chabot retired in October from her 20 years working in the Colony Kitchen. Staff and guests gathered at a celebration lunch to salute Chabot’s faithful service to the gustatory delight of Fellows and staff lucky enough to enjoy her fare.

Congratulations Maryel! We’re going to miss you, and your chicken burritos, turkey Reubens, samosas, coconut macaroons, Anadama bread, and especially those cinnamon rolls!

BRIGITTE LACOMBE

Maryel Chabot Retires from Kitchen

❱❱ FELLOWSHIPS

❱❱ NEW FACES

WINTER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY

8

DAN MILBAUER

From May through October 2015, The MacDowell Colony welcomed a total 150 artists from 27 states and four countries.

The group included 69 writers, 23 visual artists, 11 theatre artists, 17 film/video artists, 13 composers, 11 interdisciplinary artists, and six architects.

MUSTAFA ABDULRAHMAN, Writer Chicago, IL

JULIA CHRISTENSEN, Interdisciplinary Artist, Oberlin, OH

NOY HOLLAND, Writer Heath, MA

DAVID OPDYKE, Visual Artist Ridgewood, NY

MICHAEL AGRESTA, Writer Austin, TX

KYLE CHURNEY, Writer Chicago, IL

EMMA HOOPER, Writer Bath, United Kingdom

SUSAN ORLEAN, Writer Studio City, CA

ZAKIYYAH ALEXANDER, Theatre Artist New York, NY

DAWN CLEMENTS, Visual Artist Brooklyn, NY

HELEN HOOPER, Writer Arlington, VA

JENNIFER PERCY, Writer Brooklyn, NY

MICHAEL ALMEREYDA, Film/Video Artist, New York, NY

GRISHA COLEMAN, Interdisciplinary Artist, Tempe, AZ

GINNAH HOWARD, Writer Gilbertsville, NY

AMANDA PETRUSICH, Writer Brooklyn, NY

ANTHONY ALOFSIN, Architect Austin, TX

BETHANY COLLINS, Visual Artist Atlanta, GA

SAMANTHA HUNT, Writer Tivoli, NY

NINA PURO, Writer Brooklyn, NY

ELLA AMITAY SADOVSKY, Visual Artist Mesilat Zion, Israel

DIANE COOK, Writer Oakland, CA

DAN HURLIN, Interdisciplinary Artist New York, NY

KIRSTIN QUADE, Writer Decatur, GA

DONALD ANTRIM, Writer Brooklyn, NY

PETRINA CROCKFORD, Writer Goleta, CA

ADAM HURWITZ, Visual Artist New York, NY

KELLY RAMSEY, Writer Austin, TX

MICHAEL ATTIAS, Composer New York, NY

EMILY DANFORTH, Writer Providence, RI

ASAD HUSSAIN, Film/Video Artist Mumbai, India

ELIZABETH REEDER, Writer Glasgow, United Kingdom

ALICE ATTIE, Visual Artist New York, NY

RICHARD DANIELPOUR, Composer New York, NY

LUKE JAEGER, Film/Video Artist Northampton, MA

NANCY REISMAN, Writer Nashville, TN

SHIMON ATTIE, Visual Artist New York , NY

BENJY DAVIES, Visual Artist Gallipolis, OH

MAYA JASANOFF, Writer Cambridge, MA

ROBIN ROMM, Writer Portland, OR

CATINA BACOTE, Writer Asheville, NC

ANA CANDIDA DE CARVALHO CARNEIRO, Theatre Artist Astoria, NY

TYEHIMBA JESS, Writer Brooklyn, NY

CARMELLE SAFDIE, Visual Artist Astoria, NY

JOHN KELLY, Interdisciplinary Artist New York, NY

REBECCA SCHIFF, Writer Brooklyn, NY

MARK KENDALL, Film/Video Artist Ardmore, PA

ANNA SCHULEIT HABER, Visual Artist, New Orleans, LA

ADRIAN LEBLANC, Writer New York, NY

LAURA SCHWENDINGER, Composer Madison, WI

JENNIFER LEUNG, Architect Brooklyn, NY

SALVATORE SCIBONA, Writer New Haven, CT

MIMI LIPSON, Writer Kingston, NY

KATY SCOGGIN, Film/Video Artist Brooklyn, NY

ISABELLE LUMPKIN, Interdisciplinary Artist, Brooklyn, NY

KELLY SEARS, Film/Video Artist Denver, CO

ALESSANDRA LYNCH, Writer Indianapolis, IN

DIANE SEUSS, Writer Kalamazoo, MI

BETH MACY, Writer Roanoke, VA

NORMANDY SHERWOOD, Theatre Artist, Brooklyn, NY

CORINNE MANNING, Writer Vashon, WA

GYAN SHROSBREE, Visual Artist Fairfield, IA

PETER MANSEAU, Writer Annapolis, MD

SHELLY SILVER, Film/Video Artist New York, NY

MEREDITH MARAN, Writer Los Angeles, CA

ALVIN SINGLETON, Composer Atlanta, GA

MESHA MAREN, Writer Alderson, WV

CHRIS SULLIVAN, Film/Video Artist Chicago, IL

DENISE MARIKA, Film/Video Artist Brookline, MA

SUSAN MAY TELL, Visual Artist New York, NY

ALEXANDRIA MARZANO-LESNEVICH, Writer, Cambridge, MA

WHITING TENNIS, Visual Artist Seattle, WA

LANSING MCLOSKEY, Composer Miami, FL

KATHLEEN TOLAN, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY

ALBERT MOBILIO, Writer Brooklyn, NY

AZAREEN VAN DER VLIET OLOOMI, Writer, South Bend, IN

TRACIE MORRIS, Interdisciplinary Artist, Brooklyn, NY

LARA VAPNYAR, Writer New York, NY

QUINCE MOUNTAIN, Writer Mountain, WI

G.C. WALDREP, Writer Lewisburg, PA

ALAN NAKAGAWA, Interdisciplinary Artist, Los Angeles, CA

DAWNIE WALTON, Writer Brooklyn, NY

MAI NARDONE, Writer San Francisco, CA

ROBIN WASSERMAN, Writer Brooklyn, NY

AURORA NEALAND, Interdisciplinary Artist, New Orleans, LA

SCOTT WHEELER, Composer North Reading, MA

VADIM NESELOVSKYI, Composer Brooklyn, NY

CHLOE WHITE, Film/Video Artist London, United Kingdom

AJA NISENSON, Theatre Artist Jersey City, NJ

SARAH WOOLNER, Film/Video Artist Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom

NGWAH-MBO NKWETI, Writer Iowa City, IA

ANYA YURCHYSHYN, Writer Brooklyn, NY

CAROLINE O’DONNELL, Architect Ithaca, NY

SARA ZANDIEH, Film/Video Artist Los Angeles, CA

ARTURO O’FARRILL, Composer Brooklyn, NY

ALEXI ZENTNER, Writer Ithaca, NY

CATHLEEN BAILEY, Writer McKees Rocks, PA LARA BALADI, Visual Artist Cambridge, MA YEVGENIYA BARAS, Visual Artist Brooklyn, NY AMY QUAN BARRY, Writer Madison, WI CRIS BEAM, Writer New York, NY LEMBIT BEECHER, Composer Philadelphia, PA EMILY BERNARD, Writer South Burlington, VT LIZA BIRKENMEIER, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY DAVID BIRKIN, Visual Artist London, United Kingdom SUZANNE BOCANEGRA Interdisciplinary Artist, New York, NY NIKOLE BOUCHARD, Architect Milwaukee, WI DEIRDRE BOYLE, Writer New York, NY BLAIR BRAVERMAN, Writer Mountain, WI JAMES CAÑÓN, Writer Sunnyside, NY FRANK CARLBERG, Composer Brooklyn, NY SUSAN CARLSON, Interdisciplinary Artist, New York, NY KAI CARLSON-WEE, Writer San Francisco, CA JORDAN CARVER, Architect Brooklyn, NY ESY CASEY, Film/Video Artist Ithaca, NY BARBARA CASSIDY, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY MALLORY CATLETT, Interdisciplinary Artist, New York, NY ALLISON CEKALA, Film/Video Artist Jamaica Plain, MA ANDRÉS CERPA, Writer Staten Island, NY CHRISTOPHER CERRONE, Composer Brooklyn, NY LAN SAMANTHA CHANG, Writer Iowa City, IA SAMANTHA CHANSE, Theatre Artist New York, NY SUSAN CHOI, 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

MARY JANE DEAN, Visual Artist Northampton, MA KENDRA DECOLO, Writer Nashville, TN NICOLE DENNIS-BENN, Writer Brooklyn, NY KATY DIDDEN, Writer Eugene, OR NOAH DOELY, Visual Artist Cedar Falls, IA MARK DRESSER, Composer Encinitas, CA DENISE DUMAS, Visual Artist Wilton, NH CHARLES FAIRBANKS, Film/Video Artist, Yellow Springs, OH ANNE FINGER, Writer Oakland, CA MICHELLE FORNABAI, Architect Roxbury, MA MATTHEW FREEMAN, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY DARCY FREY, Writer Cambridge, MA SARAH FRIEDLAND, Film/Video Artist Brooklyn, NY JESSICA GARRATT, Writer Riverdale Park, MD BEATRIX GATES, Writer Penobscot, ME IAN GERSON, Visual Artist Far Rockaway, NY PETER GIZZI, Writer Holyoke, MA ADELE GRIFFIN, Writer Brooklyn, NY NOA GUSAKOV, Film/Video Artist Tel Aviv, Israel LAMONT HAMILTON, Visual Artist Chicago, IL JEREMY HARRIS, Theatre Artist Los Angeles, CA EMILY HASS, Visual Artist New York, NY VALERIE HEGARTY, Visual Artist Brooklyn, NY THOMAS HEISE, Writer Toronto, Canada AMY HERZOG, Theatre Artist Brooklyn, NY ELIZABETH HOFFMAN, Composer New York, NY

Applications are available on our website at Chairman: Michael Chabon President: Susan Davenport Austin Executive Director: Cheryl A. Young Resident Director: David Macy

On the cover…

From The Early Bear, watercolor on paper, 14” x11”, 2013, by Danica Novgorodoff.

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 newsletter.

portablemacdowell.org facebook.com/MacDowellColony

LU OLKOWSKI, Writer Brooklyn, 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.” www.macdowellcolony.org.

Jackie Brunk housekeeper

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

TK

Go to: macdowellcolony.org/ news-Publications.html to find and download our Medal Day (2015) Supplement, our first annual Medal Day commemorative magazine with pictures, transcripts of speeches, and more.