When I was a kid, one of my brothers and his friends used to
use spring break to stage a backyard two-on-two basketball tournament, and they
called it the Riley-Montague Invitational, or some such thing, after, I think a
couple of obscurish local college basketball players. At least, that’s how I remember it.
A couple years ago, I
noticed, by way of Joanne Mattera’s
excellent blog, that some artists rev up their production by ‘awarding
themselves’ a residency. Laura Moriarty and Tim
McFarlane were the two examples that have stuck with me. They put together
homemade artist residencies by taking a couple weeks off the day job and
strictly dedicating that time to working in the studio.
I realized I’d unofficially been doing that for years, just
by virtue of the schedule of my day job. That is, a couple times of year, if
I’m lucky, but at least once, I get a full, uninterrupted week in the studio,
courtesy of working an academic schedule and/or having a civilized amount of
vacation days. I just never gave it a name. LIU’s spring break is coming up, which has
always been a productive week for me. So, this year, let’s go ahead and call it
a DIY residency, and perhaps I can even document it as such and share it here, and
on FB.
Maybe I’ll even steal my brother’s name and call it The Riley-Montague Artist Residency.
Because I always did like the sound of it.
1 comment:
Great idea!
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