by Tiffany Lee Brown
There's nothing to refresh the soul like an artist or writer residency. In the Northwest, residencies at Soapstone, Hypatia, and Caldera plucked me out of everyday life and into nature. They offered silence and solitude. Most importantly, they reminded me why I do the work: I do the work *to do the work.*
Living in a lull, a bubble in the woods, I am responsible to no one except myself. I'm not thinking about how to pay the rent or whether I should hire a videographer to properly document my next performance so I can try to get another grant someday. I'm not scrambling to doctor appointments and art events. I'm not on the freakin' Internet all day.
I'm just being. I'm walking. I'm feeling the rain on my neck. I'm building fires to keep myself warm. I'm writing, writing, writing... making, making, making... I'm sleeping, too. I'm having afternoon tea and playing solitaire. It's bliss. Productive, amazing bliss.
HYPATIA: COUNTRY LIVING, PEACEFUL WRITING
Hypatia-in-the-Woods is a new residency, nestled in the countryside near Shelton, Washington. Roomy and beautiful, Holly House emanates a calm, almost solemn feel, with few distractions. It's all about natural light, wood burning stove, high ceilings, and wood. The library consists of one discreet bookcase. Other than that, I felt alone, at peace, the house a blank slate encouraging me to cleanse my inner self, to make it a blank slate that I could write on.
Outdoors, it's country livin', with some neighbors nearby, the sounds of chainsaws, dogs, and firearms in the distance. I brought rubber boots and a pair of Docs, perfect for stomping through the trees and sliding down mud hills past "No Trespassing" signs (should I admit this?) to visit abandoned oyster beds on the canal nearby. Days, I often drove into the subdued, extremely Northwesty logging town of Shelton. At the delightful Sage Bookstore, I'd enjoy a moment of civilisation: check my email, drink a latté, browse books, even chat with a few friendly locals. I might stop and look at the mill or the fog-shrouded Olympic mountains in the distance. Then back to walking and back to work.
Writers and artists setting out on their first residencies sometimes ask me what it's like, what they should do. They seem to feel a lot of pressure: whether ten days or ninety, this is time they've carefully carved out of their lives for their creative practice. Doesn't that mean they should crank out a bunch of stuff, finish a particular project, come back from the woods with a shining trophy of art? A novel? The best poem ever written? Well, maybe, but for me, residencies serve best as an ongoing part of an ongoing process.
Making art, music, and literature compose a lifelong creative pursuit, after all, one studded with too few extended periods of reflection. Perhaps it's because I write all the time and have no trouble being prolific, churning out miles of prose, songs, and poetry of dubious quality, but what I call "the not-writing" is harder and often more worthwhile than the busywork of blathering and editing. Working with an incredible educator and artist named Laiwan, I came to further appreciate the value of "doing nothing," or in my case, of forcing myself to do nothing. Ironically, the peaceful cradle of an isolated residency retreat usually produces a huge rush of inspiration. After the not-writing and thanks to the contemplation, words and performance work surge through me, scrambling to get out.
I arrived at Hypatia with a restless, driven mind. Having been on several residencies by this time, I knew better than to push myself into insta-productivity. The ritual of unpacking my food, clothes, and writing gear soothed me, as did numerous walks in the woods. Making tea, sweeping the floor, watching the birds: these were important daily activities. The first few nights, I watched episodes of Battlestar Galactica on my laptop. This was hardly a Thoreau-worthy move, but for some reason I needed it. These activities loosened me up after a few days, prepping me for the real work.
Wrestling an angel, a demon, an alien from the depths of my own brain was my uncomfortable task. Writing about the creative process, I was mired in that process myself. Contextualizing a bunch of my art and writing that had been inspired by the misery of the biological clock and unfulfilled maternal desire wore me out, but the peace I allowed myself in Holly House helped me keep going. (Much of this writing ended up in my Master's thesis, which is sort of explained by this newspaper article, and some is making its way into my new book, based on the Easter Island Project.) Best of all, I was visited by a surprise poem at the very end of my stay; for me, this is a typical pattern, an entire new work arriving to me within the last 48 hours of a retreat or residency.
Residency founder Elspeth Pope lives a hundred yards or so from Holly House. Otherwise, I could see no neighbors' houses from my retreat—except birds. Over the kitchen table, a window framed the neat nest of a jay family, whose daily dramas ran the gamut from feeding the chirping chicks to holding a shrieking vigil when under lengthy observation by a marauding owl. There may have been a phone; there was definitely no Internet, and if I needed to make a phone call, I'd use my cell in town.
Hypatia are having serious financial trouble, so if you're in a charitable mood, consider them as a candidate for your largesse. You can also shop online for prints, books, and crafts to help the cause. If you apply for a residency and are accepted, plan to offer a couple hundred dollars to offset the costs of housing you. Hypatia residencies are intended for women, incidentally.
Photos from top: deck at Hypatia; view of Holly House from the living room area; the deck again; scenic Shelton, Washington. By me.
CALDERA: ON THE EDGE OF COMMUNITY
My first residency took place about twenty-five minutes' drive from Sisters, Oregon. Apparently I had perfect timing: my residency was sandwiched between an enormous wildfire that struck many of the Caldera property's trees and the completion of Caldera's Hearth Center, which offers art and dance studios, and community space. Coming in after the fire meant a shortened residency period of two weeks, but it also offered delicious solitude and stunning hikes through blackened stumps on white hillsides, tromping through melting snow and seeing the first bursts of Central Oregon springtime. (And getting assaulted by the accompanying allergies, but hey, that's Oregon for ya.)
My compact and cosy A-frame cabin looked over an actual babbling brook. I heated the room with a wood stove—what Northwest residency would be complete without one?—and cooked fine, simple meals in a fine, simple kitchen. My writing table sat in sunlight much of the day, though my most productive hours ran late into the night. Compared to my cluttered studio and office at home, the cabin felt tidy and manageable. It gestated words. Lots of 'em.
I came to Caldera with the goal of exploring multiple modes of storytelling: how I might tell the allegedly "same" story in short fiction, in hypertext fiction intended for the web, and write it up as a performance piece. That particular project was educational in the long run, but I deemed it unpublishable. Going for other projects as they came to me in quick strokes of inspiration, I jammed out tens of thousands of words without even trying, and suddenly found a previously onerous task—finalizing seven poems for inclusion in a new anthology by Water Line Press—to be unexpectedly smooth sailing. Ahhh!
I met a few other residents during my stay. We'd socialize a bit, maybe share dinner or a bottle of wine now and then, but largely I was on my own. The painter painted, I wrote, and the playwright from Texas wrote, too. He and I exchanged issues of the New Yorker (there were a few in each cabin) and drove to Black Butte Ranch one night for damned good Northwest cuisine. If I really wanted to, and I rarely did, I could get a sketchy cell signal on the driveway outside my cabin. A tiny "data shack" provided a crappy old PC connected to a slow modem; here I could check email and visit The Well now and again. The clunkiness of the setup, however, discouraged any Internet malingering. An urgent work matter did come up; the following day, I spent a few hours on the Internet at the Sisters Public Library and picked up some toothsome local emu meat at the tiny natural foods grocery. Despite its lonely, woodsy feel, the property sat in a valley just beneath Highway 126; I grew to accept the occasional roar of trucks as part of the scenery.
Another New Oregon/2GQ artist, Clare Carpenter, spent a month at Caldera after the community center building was finished. This meant she could spread out her visual art materials in an expansive studio, and she reported spending quality time with other residents. I don't know what the current Internet status is, or whether the residency retains a feeling of isolation for some residents.
Supported by the Wieden family, as in Wieden+Kennedy, Caldera is known primarily for its summer camps for at-risk youth. But if you can manage to get in as a winter or shoulder-season grownup, you may have an incredible experience.
Photo from the Caldera website. Can't find any of my own photos, if I took any. Oops.
You know those periods of life change that come in years rather than weeks, those sumptuous yet painful transformations that end up defining who you are for decades to come? Yeah, those. My last one, four years of exploration and loss and creativity and grief and weeping and all that fun stuff, was book-ended by two life-changing residencies. Both occurred at the inimitable Soapstone. I don't think this was a coincidence.
Located in rural Oregon near a fish hatchery and logging sites—some of the ugliest damned clearcuts you'll ever see are just ten miles upstream—Soapstone's unique architecture, locked gates, and small chunk of woodsy acreage cocoon the residents in a protective atmosphere. My first trip, I stayed in the newer cabin, the Water Studio. Working in front of tall banks of windows and under the rain-drenched skylights, I watched fast-running Soapstone Creek swell into a torrent during a long storm, and gasped when a bald eagle swooped by, ten feet away, and hung out on a branch. (He or she came back a few times that week. Can I just say Wow?) I don't remember what I was supposed to be working on; in actuality, I finished up a story for the Literary Cash anthology, cranked out some poems about eagles and prose about the art-making process, and shot some video.
Soapstone is quite well known, particularly in the Portland literary world, where it enjoys the support of local luminaries like Ursula K. Le Guin (founding president), Judith Barrington (former volunteer director), and Ruth Gundle (director until quite recently). Though I was housed near only one other resident each week, I felt keenly the sense of community permeating the retreat. Books, anthologies, journals, and chapbooks featuring the work of residents stuff themselves into the library shelves; stones carved with the names of donors and their favorite writers line a creekside path. Women tell their stories in guestbook-style journals; recent residents might even leave you food in the fridge.
I met a total of three other residents and had a fantastic time with them, bonding particularly with Shelley Washburn, profiled here on Soapstone's blog. In all three cases, our interactions felt interesting and joyful; we were making dinner together, sharing thoughts about writing, and yes, cracking that bottle of wine sometimes, but never tromping on each other's mental or physical space. After all, we came to Soapstone to work.
There's no cell reception, but you can use the house phone to call long distance; it's "free," which means you pay a small phone fee with your registration, and you have to pay even if you don't intend to use the phone. On my first trip, I borrowed a dialup Earthlink account (remember those?) and got online a few times for essential tasks. On my last residency, I didn't bring a computer at all, having rediscovered the startling difference between writing by hand and writing to a screen.
This residency took place in the Wind Studio. Wind consists of several treehouse-like platforms connected by ladders, all rising above the main house's shared kitchen facilities. At the top balances the one and only Cube. Large, round windows are cut into this small wooden cube with its built-in writing tables, drilling a porthole to the creek, the woodshed, the trees, and eerie moonrises looming against the navy-blue sky of late November evenings. Think about it: you're in a cube, floating in the sky! Wow! Getting restless there, I spent time downstairs, too, writing at the kitchen table and stoking Wind's awesome new wood burning stove, The Queen, who has replaced the cranky old Dutchess.
Thank goddess I was laptop-free this time, because it turns out they now have wi-fi at Soapstone. Ugh. For the Internet addict, of which alas I am one, instant access to email and Facebook is hard to ignore. Solitary residencies take you away from your everyday life: that's the whole point. For me, the Internet represents everyday life. If I wanted to stay connected with my friends, family, responsibilities, work, and worst of all an influx of media (the news, YouTube links, etc.), I could just stay here in Portland all the time. So I'm glad I brought pots of ink, dip pens, Sharpies, and paper. These worked especially well in the Wind Studio, since I could leave a blank notebook and some pens upstairs and downstairs, without having to haul a laptop up the ladder every time I changed writing tables.
Soapstone means walking beside the creek, under scrub oaks and alders, and walking along the backroad highway to the fish hatchery. It can also mean driving to the Coast once in a while; Manzanita and Nehalem are only about twenty minutes away. Here I wandered the beach, loaded up on food at the Little Apple grocery, and browsed magazines and drank coffee at Manzanita News & Espresso. One day I drove all the way down to Bay City just for the oysters.
Residencies at Soapstone are supported by community volunteering and fundraising. Don't miss their raffle, which features ridiculously good prizes that I never win.
Someday, I hope to found a New Oregon residency program. We have a potential spot in the woods for it—country livin', not wilderness, but peaceful nonetheless (shown left)—and I can't imagine a better way to give back. Residencies rock. Please show your support for the organizations here. If you want to be part of building a new residency program, albeit one that might not have a physical location for many years, email me at magdalen23 att gmail.com.
And whoever you are, reading this right now, I hope that someday you get to experience a residency program. Wow, and ahhhhhhh.
