My first artist residency

A beautiful opportunity. How to prepare?

Happy New Moon ◯

This lunar cycle has been a revealing one. For me it can be summed up by my Saturday morning at 4 am, waking up to the immediate question of “did I blow that candle out at my studio yesterday?” and getting up and into my car to see.

And then I saw something else.

A burning-golden-glow of perfection: the thinnest, crispiest most MASSIVE rising crescent moon. A brahmamuhurta SECRET at this liminal hour, with such little visible witness. Aside from me of course, alone on the road, doubtful about my fire stewarding competence, seeking reassurance and proof. I was somehow worthy of a luminous celestial greeting along the way. A good omen, if we may. A display of lunar perfection so immaculate it could break a Guinness world record. But no press was alerted. No news outlets! What! Just the quiet magnificence, surrounding its own world, unapologetically taking up nearly all of the space in the clearest pre-dawn dark sky, watching me in equanimity and truth as I roll down the empty street dotted with blinking yellows, in awe.

So anyway, it turned out I did blow out the candle. With the moon compassionately winking at my relief through my studio window, I wondered what it really takes for me to second guess myself less.

☽

Entering a new cycle, I have to tell you about something exciting!

Back in March, a call for applications to the Mary Chase Artist Residency entered my inbox. The multi-sensory description washed calm over me and at the same time made my heart beat a little faster just to read it, and it sounded like everything I could possibly dream of and more for a residency. It felt so right to apply. Immediately.

My favorite line from the written purpose of the residency: a time to invite rituals of deep beauty into your life.

This past April when I got an email back from Liz, the amazing and generous host of this project, I was curious to see what kind of elegantly composed rejection note I was about to read, only to discover that I was accepted and invited for the week I applied for!

I’m pleased to share that I will be on the ocean coast of Maine, surrounded by plants, sea water, sky, (and as I am told, many roses), at the end of June, right after the solstice, for my first artist residency. I am too geeked to play it cool. I am so excited and so grateful!

I have never applied for a residency before, because I was never ready to, or felt I could, as a parent. But the timing is so right, almost impeccably right, for a quiet 10 day solo retreat to gain focus and deeper connection to, and discovery of, my work as an artist in communion with nature. I can really see and feel how this time and container has potential to offer reflection on the past, bring me into presence, and shape how I move forward.

The thing is, my practice so far has been running on a bit of a patchwork type model. One hour here, one day there, five minutes here, thirty minutes there. This has been great, and I will return to this. Good things are definitely happening. But I am so curious to know what can be gathered from a more intensive time of focus, inquiry, and purpose. What internal artifacts will travel back with me?

I wanted to share with you what I am inspired by when I think about this residency:

• Being completely nonverbal for long stretches of time.

• Sitting and opening to communicating, in easier ways than words, with non-human life forms (plants, rocks, animals, ocean, sky, etc)

• Not looking at what time it is.

• Reading Rachel Carson.

• Moving intuitively through each day, being present with my body and impulses, and my surroundings.

• Gathering and collecting. No, not consumption or even foraging necessarily, but collecting in a more abstract or temporary sense.

• Seeing where I am led. What will call to me? Who will my teachers be in this place? I will not know until I am there.

• Exploring guidance. This is a “self-guided” residency. But are we ever really only guided by self alone? I think not. Everything is relationship. We are pushed and pulled by invisible magnetism. I look forward to seeing what draws me in and moves me around.

• Maybe honing on a new skill. Perhaps some seaweed color experiments. Or some mono printing or cyanotypes. Maybe some shape-harvesting. Writing. Being. Documenting with photo or video. Discovering meaningful ritual.

• Maybe a lot of good rest, restoration, re-imagining.

• Making new friendships with new landscapes.

• Liz’s flower essence formula consultation and prompts.
  

The fact that this residency is offered by an herbalist who makes flowers essences is a big part of the reason I applied. I feel the intricacies of being in conscious and reciprocal personal relationships with plants, especially at subtle levels, comprise an ethos I share with herbalists and medicine makers. This energy makes me feel at home, and aligned, like there is a shared understanding and intentionality.

Around 15 years ago, my holistic therapist recommended me homeopathy and a bottle containing a multitude of flower essences. The reason for the recommendation was to allow myself to feel fully, and be supported through various emotions and energies. I was told that the way this kind of formula functions is that only provides what you need. In other words, my system would take what it needed for emotional balance or for what I need to open up to, and the rest is neutral. It is from this formula I first remember feeling a greater ability to know, release, and understand.

✿

For the residency, something I am really thinking about now is… how to prepare?

Here is what I know: I don’t want to work, work, work myself through the whole 10 days. I want to leave a lot of space for the unknown, for rest, for discovery, for curiosity, for silence. I don’t want to put too much pressure on it. And at the same time, I don’t want to arrive wholly unprepared either. So, I am going to bring a variety of simple materials and light intentions for possibility, with the umbrella intention of not being firmly glued to what my activities will be, and the deeper knowing that I will be shown and held more than I will lead and direct.

A humble ask for any advice: Have you gone on a residency or retreat? How did you prepare?

I look forward to sharing more. Thanks for being here!

♡ Kristen