Summer – 2026
I am so grateful to @vacenterforthecreativearts for this beautiful residency!
There is such an atmosphere of respect, warmth and collegiality here. The welcoming environment not only includes the beautiful grounds, but all the staff who make us comfortable and facilitate our ability to prioritize our work.

I came with some specific intentions and yes! – the focused time allowed for slower, closer deliberations…yet I also found time to try new things. There was a consistent tone of camaraderie and generosity in the rotating cohort. In an environment of creative inquiry of all kinds, this spirit of play nudged me to consider a new material for a 2027 project. Studio visits, poetry and prose readings as well as musical performances brought so much inspiration, finding common vocabularies and new ways of thinking about things.

I love how the physical beauty of a residency such as this can enable quiet focus, but it can also correspond to content in the work, bringing awareness of how we might feel connected to our environment in ways that we normally don’t acknowledge.
In addition to a small, detailed work, I was able to experiment with outdoor installation ideas and even make molds of a couple of rocks-- as another way to take this sense of place with me.

I will be processing this for a while…


This residency was partially subsidized by VCCA’s annual fund