The Experience of Vermont Studio Center, Part III

One of the reasons I was so excited to have a residency at the Vermont Studio Center was to interact with up to four successful professional artists.  Having no formal art training and having never participated in a critique, the chance to hear constructive feedback was invaluable.

The Visiting Artists

During each month, VSC invites four artists to be visiting artists: two painters (p) and two sculptors (s).  In January, those artists were:

Susan Jane Walp (p) - biography / art
Brenda Garand (s) - biography / art
Peter Schumann (s) - biography / art
Jill Moser (p) - biography / art

The Studio Visits

At VSC, you are gauranteed a visit with the artist who works in your genre, should you elect to schedule the meeting.  For those visiting artists outside of your genre, you must snag one of the limited available slots if you want to meet with them.  Given my lack of previous critiques and that my work very much crossed over between painting and sculpture, I opted to meet with all four artists.

As you might expect, my experience with each artist varied significantly.  Without revealing too many details, I’ll quickly summarize my experience with each.

Susan Jane Walp – Susan’s own work came across to me as very accomplished yet traditional still-life painting.  When she visited my studio, I had completed several clear coat on wood panels and only a few new paintings.  When she entered my space (at the end of her 5-day stay), she scanned the room quickly and stopped when her eyes found the paint.  The paintings were the work that she could grasp and we talked for a few minutes about so-called rules of painting and how they are often made to be broken.  She told me which paintings were her favorite.  Other than that, I didn’t get much for the visit.  However, it was a good warm up for what was to come.

Brenda Garand – Brenda gave by far the best slide talk of all the visiting artists and because of that, I was excited to meet with her.  When she entered my studio she was full of energy, thoughts, and questions.  She gravitated towards the wood panel pieces and told me that she felt they were very successful.  She pushed me to create more of them.  She saw the paintings in the earliest stages but felt that something was there to keep exploring.  Her visit was dynamic, positive and inspiring.

Peter Schumann – Boy, where do we start?  Peter is the creator of the Bread and Puppet Theater group and for several resident artists, this was significant.  I had never heard of it before.  Peter’s slide talk was actually a one-man performance.  In an effort to be nice, I’ll just say that it wasn’t my cup of tea and afterwards I kind of dreaded my coming studio visit.  When he arrived in my studio, it was clear he was disappointed.  Although he seemed to be full of art historical information, his one big suggestion to me was to “make it messier.”  If you read this site you know that messy is the exact opposite of what my work is about.  I thanked him for his visit and he left after half the allotted time.  I heard he suggested to numerous other artists that they include dead bodies in their work.  As of that time, no one was certain if he was serious or joking.

Jill Moser – Somehow, prior to my arrival in Vermont I had not seen the list of visiting artists.  Imagine my surprise when I learned that Jill Moser would be visiting.  I was thrilled!  I was not familiar with the work of the other three artists but I knew Jill’s work very well and I greatly admired it.  Being a painter, Jill visited with the sculptors on her last day.  When she entered my studio I got the greatest compliment I could hope for.  She immediately engaged with my work and although she got the wood panels, she was most drawn to the paintings.  At this point, I had completed all of the paintings I made in VT so she got to see the full progression.  She thought the paintings held great promise.  She was enthusiastic and demanding, making me move paintings around the studio so that we could appreciate various relationships between the works.  She stayed almost an hour, about twice as long as the scheduled time.  Her visit, only a couple of days before the very end of the session, represented a wonderful conclusion to my residency.  I felt that my hard work had been successful.

Without a doubt I plan to do more residencies in the future.  The reason for that is not only do you have focused studio time and a creative environment, but at many residencies you have the opportunity to meet with artists who are willing to share their experiences and constructive feedback.  Meeting with Brenda Garand and Jill Moser are two experiences I will never forget and always cherish.