report from the interior: Back to blogging

It has been a while since I've updated, since I've been at home, working hard in the studio on production. It's been busy, busy, busy, but very productive.

After an incredibly long day traveling (4 flights and 5 airports in one day!), I arrived two nights ago at Caldera, an artist residency in the Cascade Mountains in central Oregon. I flew into Redmond, where it is pretty flat, but as we drove through Sisters and on to Caldera I could feel the land rise into the mountains (I arrived after dark, so did not get a good look at the surrounding countryside--more on that later.) Signs along the way urge motorists to put on chains, since after Caldera it goes on up into a high mountain pass. It is beautiful here, surrounded by National Forest land, and very peaceful and quiet. I’m living in a cozy A-frame cabin with a woodstove and they have given me one of two enormous studios. I’m not sure quite how I will use all the space, but so far the downstairs is my collage studio and the upstairs my computer space. An amazing luxury! There are 4 of us here, 2 visual artists and 2 writers, with a couple of dancers arriving mid-month. We were welcomed with wine and snacks and a blazing fire in the Hearth Building, a huge central building used for large groups and classes.

Caldera is a little different than most residencies in that in addition to the artist residency program in the winter, they have extensive art programming in the summer for disadvantaged inner-city kids. As a result there’s a camp feeling to the place. They’ve recently acquired an adjacent property that was a church camp, and that’s being renovated to add to facilities for programming as well as occasionally rented out to groups for retreats and such.

It is cold but not too bad, and not much snow on the ground, a surprise, as I was expecting a lot. But I'm sure it will come…