Our current and past visiting artists have been busy! We, of course, know how great they all are. It sounds like the others are realizing it too. Here are just a few updates from a few recent artists in residence…
[Side note: If you are a past visiting artist and have news to share, please send it to us (nymills@kulcher.org)! We’d love to hear and share.]
Current visiting artist John Noltner has been making the most of his time here in New York Mills. Check out his most recent blog post about taking full advantage of our residency’s biggest asset: uninterrupted time and space to immerse yourself in your artwork: http://apeaceofmymind.net/
Oh, and while you’re there, peruse the rest of his blog (including his pre-residency post, Time and Space), and lots of cool information about his project, A Peace of My Mind. The informal dinner we had at the Center on Tuesday was amazing. If you missed that, come by Friday June 28th 10am-8pm, Saturday June 29th 10am-3pm or 7-8pm for a Reception with John, or Sunday June 30th 1-3pm.
Writer Brooke Bullman from Huntsville, Alabama was here in March working on her first book, a novel-in-stories about two Southern families who become entangled in a mother’s search for her lost son. We recently heard a very exciting update from Brooke: she received a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts to continue work on the novel! They selected Brooke as one of two Literature Fellows for 2014. Congratulations to Brooke! The honor is well deserved and we can’t wait for her book to be on the shelves. Here is a link with more information about the grant Brooke received: http://www.arts.state.al.
Last July, Kelly Nelson, a writer living in Tempe, AZ, spent two weeks in New York Mills, working on her poetry and connecting with folks in what was her mother’s hometown. Her mother graduated from high school in New York Mills and shortly after, left for the Twin Cities. She rarely spoke about her home town and never took Kelly there to visit.
Kelly’s time in New York Mills proved to be very productive and opened up new avenues for her writing. Most recently, Kelly won first place in the Finnish North American Literature Association’s writing contest. Her poems “Blood Loss,” “Coming Back” and “First Trip as a Widow” appear in the association’s current issue of Kippis. Another poem, “Fire Science,” will be published this fall in the upcoming issue of Talking Stick published by the Jackpine Writers’ Bloc. In June, she presented a workshop titled “Writing Poems from Your Family History” at FinnFest 2013 in Hancock, Michigan.