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The Residency: Arts Letters & Numbers
October 14- December 14 2026
Why a residency?
Arts, Letters & Numbers is a non profit arts, education, and publishing organization dedicated to promoting creative exchanges across a wide range of disciplines including Architecture, Visual Arts, Theatre Arts, Film, Music, Humanities, Sciences, and Social Sciences. Arts Letters & Numbers conducts workshops in educational and cultural institutions worldwide in collaboration with theatre companies, artists, writers, actors, musicians and filmmakers. It operates an ongoing series of educational workshops, performances and film productions at their Averill Park Campus in Upstate, NY.
❋ Creative Reset
An opportunity to step away from the cerebral business of being an artist and restart the spark of genius and spontaneity in an artists work.
❋ Collaborative Energy
Connection is a core part of the process. I’ll learn just as much from the group as from the practice and exercise itself.
❋ New Experience, New Voice
Artists travel to other places or countries to find new material. We step outside of our normal setting into a place that challenges us as people. By putting ourselves off balance, we find new influences and hear new voices and conversations.
❋ A Supportive Space
This space prioritizes comfort, safety, and respect—so an artist can show up as they are and fully engage in the process.
For 8 weeks I will have space to build my own art panels, ceilings high enough to hold them and a studio in which to create them. Arts Letter & Numbers is also about the creative community that it fosters. Covid showed us all the challenge of isolations and artists tend to spend much of their creative time alone. One of the lessons I learned during Covid was how important collaboration and the support of a community can be. When we as artists spend most of our time alone, our voice becomes distilled and hyper focused. That is important but it can also make us stagnate. Having the support of a creative community can not only bolster us but also give us new directions to grow. So too does leaving the comfort of our home to travel to new places. New sights and experiences influence our vision and help our artistic design in ways we couldn’t begin to comprehend standing in our worn paths of familiar territory. The thought of finding my way cross country; do I fly, drive, go by train? How do I get my pastels there? What other tools will I need and materials should I pack, ship, order to arrive? The mind spins in the middle of the night like a squirrel who raided a child’s Halloween candy stash. I can’t wait to share the journey with everyone, from building the art panels to trying out sprayers and looking into getting me and my art supplies home.
Pieces currently offered on sanded board, spray sealed with the new technique.
Autum Aria 16x20
Crested 22x28
The Project:
The joy of pastels comes from holding pigments in your hands. Working with the soft sticks as they move across the surface and making direct marks. Why not just use oil paints or acrylics? What is wrong with watercolor or gauche? Nothing; save the solvents, brushes, water, palettes…. and then the clean up of the equipment and disposal of materials like rags and used mineral spirits or turpentine. You can take a small box of dry sticks out into nature and make marks on paper. The problem comes in when you are trying to preserve the pastels and you can face size restrictions because of glass; or do you have to? The piece you see here is one I worked on in studio that is 2’ tall and 4’ wide. What makes this pastel magical is that it does not need glass. It is on art panel and sealed with a varnish spray that I mixed. It can hang on a wall, be shipped without concern of breaking glass and dusted with a soft rag, all without concern with damaging the art. IT IS 4 FEET WIDE! Framing is optional, because of the cradle on the back, the piece will not warp.
This is my project, to work in large size so that you; the viewer, feels as if you are standing in a doorway or looking out a window. You can hang an entrance to a different place on your wall.
Wind Dancer 20x26
River Run 18x24
While there are some residencies that are paid, most are not. Arts Letters & Numbers offers artists free studio space but the artist must pay for room, board and travel to and from the location. I am working on funding this project but the costs are extensive. Arts Letters & Numbers has given me a portion of the board in scholarship which I am incredibly grateful for. I am working on grants and saving money but I am also reaching out for additional help getting there. At the top of the page, there is a link to my GOFUNDME page. This was set up by a wonderful friend who truly believes in me and was very generous with her time in doing so. If you are so inclined to support this adventure, I would be so thankful for any assistance you would be willing to give. At this point, I am looking at driving cross country but I am open to all forms of travel. Thank you so much for looking at this page and go ahead and click on the “support” button at the top to see how the funding is coming along!
Stay tuned for updates, I’ll keep posting how the plans are evolving and what I am learning here!