Post #7: An artist residency in Wyoming

I spent the first part of September at the Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts residency, near Saratoga, Wyoming. An artist residency like this is an incredible chance to focus on work while leaving the day-to-day minutiae behind. I was joined by seven other artists: two composers, two writers, a performance artist, and two other visual artists — part of the benefit of a residency like this is the cross-pollination of ideas it allows. This can be the practical (one of the painters has lots of experience using paints that withstand outdoor conditions), or abstract (a composer’s development of a piece of modern classical music has striking parallels to my own process of developing sculptural forms).

I focused on developing sketches for new sculptures, as well as roaming far and wide across the Ranch’s 15,000+ acres of sage, aspen, and piñon trees, making notes and taking photos of forms that interested me. It was a time to push existing ideas forward towards fruition, but also to be open to other projects that might strike me.

I just returned to my studio, and have my work cut out for me — sculpting some of the forms that I finished drawing while at the residency, and thinking about some of the forms that I just began developing. I’ll post images of these as they come.

~ by Telluride Gallery of Fine Art on September 25, 2012.