The Goetemann Artist Residency Program

 

Bringing artists from around the world. the Goetemann Artist Residency Program has long been a staple of the Rocky Neck Art Colony. Among artists are an annual visiting Distinguished Teacher Artist, like Joan Snyder, pictured above. The artists for 2022 will be announced here soon.

 

2021 Residents:
Vanessa Michalak, Gloucester Invitational Artist Bringing
Raphael Warshaw, June
Perri Howard, July
Deborah Dancy, Distinguished Artist/Teacher, August
James Douglas Coleman, Environmental Installation Artist
Evan Morse, October

Scroll down to see details on each artist.

Gloucester Invitational Artist, May 2021
Vanessa Michalak

Vanessa Michalak grew up in Maine before relocating to Boston. She earned her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts with a concentration in painting in 2013 and her BSN in nursing from the University of Maine in Orono in 2004. She was awarded the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Painting in 2014 and her work was included in New American Paintings #110. This fall she introduced the “Dogtown Art Show,” an outdoor pop-up exhibition displaying plein air works on site.

From Vanessa Michalak’s Artist Statement: 

Ideas about escapism, adventure and humans’ relationship with nature are explored in paintings created by the synthesis of memories, imagination and found photos. Although some paintings place sole emphasis on the landscape itself, indications of human activity are often present. Figures move through forests and viewers are forced to make their way through overgrown paths. 

Particular structures within the landscape allude to impermanence or more specific interactions with the environment. As a Maine native, traveler and avid hiker, I find the spirit of searching and exploring parallels my painting process. Reinventing, pursuing solutions and discovering the scope of paint’s material capacity becomes as important as my subject matter. Allowing myself to get a “little lost in the woods” as I teeter on the edge of abstraction and representation or “adventure on new paths” while conceding to unfamiliar methods, makes the process of creating each painting a unique quest. 

Ultimately the paintings become not only a reflection of my inner restlessness and my longing to reconnect with nature but also a record of my incessant investigation of the painting process.

Artist website  

Free talk with Vanessa Michalak, May 3 at 7 PM, via Zoom: https://rockyneckartcolony.org/event/vanessa-michalak-opening-talk/

In-studio visits: If Vanessa is around, you can pop in Friday, May 21, between 4 and 6 PM; and on Sunday, May 23, between 3 and 5PM.

Vanessa’s end-of-residency talk took place May 27, live outside the Goetemann Residency Studio at 77 Madfish Wharf (facing Gloucester Marine Railways). 

Scenes from Vanessa’s closing talk:

 

 

 

Goetemann Resident Artist, June 2021
Raphael Warshaw

Raphael Warshaw began photographing while in military service, graduating from SUNY New Paltz in 1971 with a BA in Art History. He did photojournalistic work for Time magazine and The New York Times, as well as advertising, architectural, art reproduction and editorial photography until 1976, when he became a medical researcher, and for the next 37 years used the camera primarily for record-keeping. “As an environmental scientist, I developed the habit of looking at the landscape for clues as to what had happened in a particular place and where that might lead. These skills have proven useful in my return to photography.” In 2015, he received an MFA in Photography from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. 

From Raphael Warshaw’s Artist Statement:

The camera sees differently than you and me. The flattening of the image, limited range of intensity and modification of color (still more the translation from color to monochrome) yield an abstraction and we respond to it differently than to the scene itself. It is a single point in both time and scale serving as a placeholder for memory but can alter that memory in ways both simple and profound.

The landscape is an entry point, a starting place from which to understand what has happened, is happening and perhaps what will. I want my viewers to think about scale and time from a vantage point of my choosing without being aware of my meddling: If it’s blatant, they will see only the single place and time; if it’s subtle, they may see and feel beyond.

Free talk with Raphael Warshaw, June 1 at 7 PM,  in person at the Cultural Center at Rocky Neck (6 Wonson Street).

From Raphael’s June 1st talk: Barbara Moody introducing Raphael; Raphael during talk.

Ralph’s end-of-residency talk takes place June 24, 7 PM, in person at the Cultural Center at Rocky Neck (change of venue)

Goetemann Residency Artist, July 2021
Perri Howard

Perri Howard is a multi-disciplinary artist based in the Methow Valley of Washington state. Originally from Marblehead, Massachusetts, Perri received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2001. In addition to her studio works and sound performances, Perri sets a powerful stage for community voices through public artworks, cultural placemaking, and community- based art projects. She serves on the University of Washington School of Art Advisory Board.

From Perri Howard’s Artist Statement:

My artistic approach is a charting or mapping of sites and situations expressed through painting, drawing, sculpture and sound. Subtle qualities of landscape are combined with symbols, maps and icons to convey the complexity of real-world experience, inviting unique, yet shared, emotional responses. I have always worked with this orientation—the search for my own felt sense of place, and that of others.

My work has always been inspired by the natural world, maritime settings in particular. I grew up sailing, fishing, and exploring coastal waters, but now live far from the ocean. I return to the sea, and seafaring communities, again and again, to seek solace and inspiration. For this reason, I believe that Rocky Neck is an ideal setting in which to advance a new body of work in image and sound.

As part of the residency experience, I will open my studio to the community, inviting the opportunity to share in conversation. My favorite instrument is a handheld compass.

Artist website 

Free talk with Perri Howard, June 28 at 7 PM, in person at the Cultural Center at Rocky Neck (6 Wonson Street).

Perri’s end-of-residency talk takes place July 22, 7 PM, in person at the Cultural Center (6 Wonson St).

 

Goetemann Residency Distinguished Artist Teacher, August 2021
Deborah Dancy

We are pleased to welcome Deborah Dancy as the 2021 Distinguished Artist/Teacher for the Goetemann Artist Residency. Deborah was born in Bessemer, Alabama, and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She earned her BFA from Illinois Wesleyan University and an MS and an MFA from Illinois State University. She is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Yaddo Fellow and a National Endowment of the Arts NEFA award. Her work is in many collections including: The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Birmingham Museum of Art, The Hunter Museum and The Detroit Institute of Art. Her work is represented by N’Namdi Contemporary Miami, Robischon Gallery, Denver, and Marcia Wood Gallery.

Her introductory talk will take place at the Cape Ann Museum (27 Pleasant Street, Gloucester). It’s free and open to the public. 

Deborah’s special four-day workshop will take place in August at Montserrat College of Art. Sign-up for this workshop will be available soon. Deborah will also offer a two-day workshop in August (details on both workshops coming soon).

From Deborah Dancy’s Artist Statement: 

I like to deal with fragments. Because no matter what the thought would be if it were fully worked out, it wouldn’t be as good as the suggestion of a thought that the space gives you. Nothing fully worked out could be so arresting, spooky.
— Anne Carson

I work abstractly because I am interested in its ability to operate in a realm in which beauty and tension simultaneously exist without explanation or narrative. It’s my intention to create ambiguous spaces that aim to be both beautiful and unnerving. In this realm of the incomplete, the fragment, the ruin and residue of “almost was” and “might become,” I work between the edges of struggle and discovery. I take pleasure in moving paint around until something holds my interest and interrupts any assumptions about what it should become. Through a series of processes involving scraping away and repainting, fragmented tangled structures, patched and disjointed emerge to organize themselves in ambiguous spaces. I want to honor the process and have the exposed forms resist location by existing in tangential space. 

Find a listing of all previous Distinguished Artist/Teachers Here.

Artist Website 

Distinguished Artist/Teacher Talk at Cape Ann Museum Green, 13 Poplar Street August 15; 3 PM. Details above.

Deborah Dancy Workshops: August 16-19 and Aug. 23-24; details above.

 

 

Environmental Installation Artist, September 2021
James Douglas Coleman

James Douglas Coleman is an artist and writer living in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the Yale University School of Architecture and the University at Buffalo. Coleman has conducted survey events throughout Europe and the United States.  The artifacts of these events include videos, drawings, field notes and data sets, which have been shown in group shows in New Haven and New York.

From James Douglas Coleman’s Statement:

The Gloucester area offers continuous archeological evidence of alterations to the terrain and harbor that act as a measure of its societal activity, including substantial remnants of indigenous societies’ geospatial structures, industrialized granite extraction and harbor formation.

All this will be explored through the means of survey, which will be displayed at Ocean Alliance (32 Horton Street).

Free talk with James Douglas Coleman, Aug. 30  at 7 PM, in person at the Cultural Center at Rocky Neck (6 Wonson Street).

James’s end-of-residency talk takes place Sept. 23 at 6 PM, at Ocean Alliance (32 Horton Street)

 

Goetemann Residency Artist, October 2021
Evan Morse

A graduate of Boston University (MFA) and Wheaton College (BA), Evan has devoted additional time to learning traditional sculpture techniques, including study at Studio Arts College International in Florence and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Carrara, Italy. His figures in plaster and marble earned him a 2017 fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a 2018 grant from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, and the 2018 Dexter Jones Award from the National Sculpture Society. He lives and works in Newton, Massachusetts.

From Evan Morse’s Artist Statement:

My figurative sculptures are intended to be reminiscent of many works throughout art history and are inspired by the way art of the past tells us about human cultures across time. My sculptures are often narrative, depicting small scenes from modern American life. Instead of religious, mythical, or political characters, the subjects of my work are ordinary people, doing everyday things.

My work uses the traditional materials and techniques of clay modeling, plaster-casting and stone-carving. This reinforces the connection to the past and is a counterpoint to the accelerated visual world of the computer age. Immortalizing the everyday in the timeless medium of sculpture, my intent is both humorous and reverent, questioning the importance of the stories we tell and the images we glorify.

Artist website

Free talk with Evan Morse, Sept. 27  at 7 PM, in person at the Cultural Center at Rocky Neck (6 Wonson Street).

Evan’s end-of-residency talk takes place Oct. 21 at 7 PM, in person at the Goetemann Residency Studio (Madfish Wharf, facing Gloucester Marine Railways).

 

 

For further information:

• Questions and/or more information about the residency: info.garesidency@gmail.com
• Information about each former Distinguished Artist/Teacher and Resident can be located on the website under the year of their residency. For more information, contact the program at info.garesidency@gmail.com

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Past funding for the Rocky Neck Art Colony Residency Program was given in part from the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and made possible by The Massachusetts Cultural Council’s John and Abigail Adams Arts Program.