Wednesday Lemonade
July 7, 2021
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Greetings from a newly reopened Mt. San Angelo!
We began welcoming Fellows to our artist residency program in Virginia just last week on July 1. Our Fellows Residence and Studio Barn are now quietly bustling with 23 writers, visual artists, and composers.
As this "Wednesday Lemonade" newsletter arrives in inboxes today, we will be picking up with our in-person tradition of welcoming Fellows in residence at Mt. San Angelo to the office porch on Wednesdays at 4:30 to drink actual lemonade and get to know one another. Thank you to everyone who helped us get to this point — for sustaining VCCA financially through a 15-month closure and sustaining our community virtually while we could not gather in person.
We are already taking applications for Summer 2022 residencies at Mt. San Angelo. Read on for more information about that deadline, available fellowships, and financial aid.
Even with in-person activities resuming, we are carrying on with regular virtual events. This month in the Fireplace Series, we're bringing you a special event highlighting VCCA's Anne Spencer Fellowship, established in 2017 in honor of Harlem Renaissance poet and civil rights activist Anne Spencer.
Meanwhile in France . . . the village of Auvillar, home to VCCA's residency program at Le Moulin Ă Nef, was named the 4th favorite village of the French! We are hoping to reopen our residency program there this fall.
Don't forget to stay tuned to our monthly composer playlists. The July selection of music by five VCCA Fellows is now live on our website. Today's newsletter also includes news updates from Fellows Claire Luchette, Dolores Hayden, and Lilianne Milgrom.
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Erika Meitner, Summer 2021 |
Enjoy these views, courtesy of poet Erika Meitner, among the first Fellows in residence at reopened Mt. San Angelo this week.
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As you may remember, Auvillar was in the running for France 3 television's 2021 "Village préféré des français." You may have voted!
Le Moulin Ă Nef Resident Director Cheryl Fortier says, "The program aired last Wednesday and we came in 4th! We are relieved that we were not first as the tourists would have overwhelmed our little village."
In an article that came out in the lead-up to the program announcing the winner, Muriel PĂ©lissier-Chambaron, director of tourism in the area, said of Auvillar, "We are a real village with a year round population, a school, a Wednesday evening organic market, a pharmacy and above all, conviviality between the inhabitants. It is not just a postcard for tourists."
It's this conviviality between villagers and Fellows that makes a residency in this small village memorable.
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now accepting applications |
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Join Us Next Summer at Mt. San Angelo |
Residencies will be scheduled between May 1 and August 31, 2022.
The deadline to apply is September 15, 2021. Notifications will be sent by the end of this year.
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In addition to the current fully-funded fellowship opportunities outlined below, significant financial aid is available year-round. Through the support of our funders, all eligible applicants demonstrating financial need are considered for financial aid funding to help cover the cost of their residency.
Applicants will be considered for a VCCA residency and as many fully-funded fellowships for which they are eligible; only one application with a single $50 application fee is required by the September 15 deadline.
🔶 SSG & AC Edwards Fellowship: Native American visual artists and/or female-identifying visual artists are eligible for a fully-funded two-week residency at Mt. San Angelo.
🔶 Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) Fellowship: MICA faculty with at least three years of service are eligible for a fully-funded two- or three-week residency at Mt. San Angelo.
🔶 Richard S. and Julia Louise Reynolds Poetry Fellowship: Poets are eligible for a fully-funded three-week residency at Mt. San Angelo.
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Watch a Special Edition of the VCCA Fireplace Series on July 15 |
This month's virtual Fireplace Series event will center on VCCA's Anne Spencer Fellowship.
Williamson will present a series of projects stemming from her early performance work focused on the historical persona of Sally Hemings, the enslaved mother of four of Thomas Jefferson’s children.
Writer and VCCA Fellows Council member Sonja Curry-Johnson will be our host for the evening.
Save the date for Thursday, July 15. The live stream will begin on our Facebook page and YouTube channel at 7:30 p.m. ET.
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Marisa Williamson is a project-based artist who works in video, image-making, installation and performance around themes of history, race, feminism, and technology. She has produced site-specific works at Monticello, and by commission from Storm King Art Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Monument Lab, and the National Park Service. Williamson holds a BA from Harvard University and an MFA from CalArts. She lives and works in New Jersey, and in 2021 will join the faculty of the McIntire Department of Art at the University of Virginia as an assistant professor of media arts. |
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Three writers and VCCA Fellows — Nana Nkweti, David Ebenbach, and Clifford Garstang — met around the virtual fireplace last month for dazzling readings and a wonderful chat.
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Announcing the July 2021 Playlist |
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Enjoy music this month from five VCCA Fellow composers:
- Aaron Wyanski | This Weight That Wants To Fall
- Anna I. Rubin | Late at Night
- William Copper | This Full Bowl of Roses Part III
- Stephen Dankner | Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano (1997)
- Alberto Garcia Demestres | Vocalizzo
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Music submissions from Fellows are accepted on a rolling basis. |
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Fellows, please share your news. This is a way to tell the VCCA community about your work. We're always especially interested in stories about work created in connection to your VCCA residency.
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"Blazingly original, wry, and perfectly attuned to the oddness — and the profundity — of life” (Cristina HenrĂquez), Claire Luchette's debut, Agatha of Little Neon, is a novel about yearning and sisterhood, figuring out how you fit in (or don’t), and the unexpected friends who help you find your truest self.
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Exuberance (Red Hen Press) was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award and the Foreword Indies Book Award in Poetry. "Flying Lesson" was Poem of the Day for the Poetry Foundation on May 28, 2021. doloreshayden.com
Photo credit Barbara Marks
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"I'm delighted to announce that my debut novel L'Origine: The secret life of the world's most erotic masterpiece (Little French Girl Press, 2020) has garnered first place in the IndieReader Discovery Awards for best adult fiction and has been shortlisted for the U.S. 2021 Selfies Best Book of the Year. It's thrilling and extremely validating. My artist residency at VCCA in Auvillar gave my book the jolt it needed."
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Virginia Commission for the Arts Announces $5,000 Artist Fellowships to Be Awarded in Literary Arts: Poetry |
All eligible Virginia-based poets are encouraged to apply. Learn more at arts.virginia.gov.
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🧡 Stay safe, and be well.
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