Help Us Support Long-Form Journalists 2 Fellows at MoMA, ICA

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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❱❱ 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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WINTER 2015 • THE MACDOWELL COLONY
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: [email protected]
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.