I often choose artist residencies because of where they take me. More specifically, I look for places near water. At the end of August, I spent two weeks on Nantucket Island for my fifth artist-in-residency. It was hard to get much closer to water than this. Everywhere I went, I was reminded that I was on an island, a contained piece of land completely surrounded by water.
I noticed the movement of the waves when I was at the beach, and they were different from the waves I know from Lake Michigan. They seemed tighter and more compact, curling into little spirals as they moved toward the shore. The idea of containment also seemed to fit Nantucket itself. I was surrounded by water, living and working on a defined piece of land with boundaries. Both ideas stayed with me and began to make their way into my paintings.
One of the luxuries of a residency is having time to follow those kinds of questions. I gave myself permission to experiment without worrying about whether the idea would work. I began pulling my gestures and marks away from the edges of the canvas, creating more contained shapes. It was a small change, but it opened up something new for me. I want to continue exploring what happens when movement is contained rather than allowed to spread across the entire canvas.
The setting for this experiment couldn't have been better. The Nantucket Island School of Design & the Arts hosted the residency, and my studio was located on the grounds of an old dairy farm. Five of us stayed together in a beach house down the road. We were writers, photographers, textile artists and a painter, each working in our own way. In the evenings, we gathered in the kitchen and talked about our days, our work and whatever we happened to be eating that night.
There was also plenty to absorb outside the studio. Nantucket is a beautiful island, with historic buildings, beaches, and flower boxes overflowing with color. Even walking through town became an opportunity to notice something.
It is easy to think that inspiration has to be a big idea. For me, it is often much smaller. A shape. A color. The way water moves. A feeling that stays with me. Then I bring it back to the studio and see what happens.
That is where I am now with Nantucket. I came home with a new idea, and I'm ready to see where it takes me.
