Dear Friends of VCCA,
July means high summer at both of our locations. At the Moulin à Nef, the Etchings Contemporary Music Festival wrapped up at the beginning of this month. Participants braved the French heat wave to work with master composers Kaija Saariaho, Francesco Filidei, Martin Brody, and Etchings Festival Director and VCCA Fellow John Aylward. Music-lovers in the region heard workshopped compositions in concerts in the chapel of St. Catherine, as well as a concert, including a piece by Saariaho, in Auvillar’s beautiful new Tourism Bureau. Congratulations to everyone who made the eleventh Etchings Festival another great success.
At Mt. San Angelo, we are in full summer mode as well, wrapping up an exciting FY19, fleshing out the goals and strategies of our next Strategic Plan, saying farewell to some staff and Board members. A full cohort of summer Fellows are immersed in their work. I am grateful every day for the energy and commitment of so many passionate VCCA advocates working together to move this organization forward.
These are exciting times for VCCA, a place that has special meaning to so many. As in any time of transition, this can spark new thinking and also raise concerns. I welcome hearing from you at any time. Thank you for your ideas, your advocacy, and your support!
Warm regards,
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Joy Peterson Heyrman
Executive Director
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Kitchen Renovation
We are making good progress on refurbishing the three kitchens at the Studio Barn and will be fully moved in to the main Studio Barn Kitchen by the end of July. We are so grateful to the Al Stroobants Foundation, the Marietta McNeill Morgan and Samuel Tate Morgan, Jr. Trust (Bank of America, N.A., Trustee), our amazing "Kitchen Fund" challenge donor, and everyone who responded so generously with support for this project. Look for photos soon!
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New Website
Have you seen the
VCCA website
lately? The new site communicates information about residencies at both of our locations, contains a wealth of information, and details many ways to support VCCA. In a big step forward, it is also easily viewed on mobile devices!
WebArt, a web development and marketing firm in Roanoke, Virginia, began work on the project last December. This crucial upgrade was funded through the generosity of The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation and the Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation (through the Calvin and Virginia Cox Fund, the Rosalind and L. John Denney Fund, the Thomas P. and Lewise S. Parsley Fund, and the B. Douglas and Nancy T. Brockman Fund).
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Second SBC/VCCA Teaching Fellow Announced
We are pleased to announce that Laura Boles Faw of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has been selected as the second SBC/VCCA Teaching Fellow. Boles Faw will teach “Site Specific Art in the Sweet Briar Landscape” in the three-week session that begins in August. She will also be a Fellow in residence at VCCA for four weeks at this time. This partnership builds on the successful SBC/VCCA Collaborative Teaching Fellowship completed in May.
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Call for VCCA Resident Fellow
Resident Fellow to serve as on-call personnel Oct. 1, 2019 - Jan. 31, 2020
We are seeking a VCCA Fellow to be in residence at VCCA from October 1, 2019 - January 31, 2020, to serve as emergency on-call personnel for our residential community of 25 artists at any one time. The Fellow must have previously been in residence at VCCA. The Fellow will be expected to become part of the community and will be free to pursue personal creative work when not actively engaged in VCCA responsibilities. If interested, please send a letter to vcca@vcca.com by August 15, 2019, placing "Resident Fellow 2019" in the subject line of your email. Please include three references, along with their contact information.
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The SBC/VCCA Teaching Fellowship in Art and Technology
In partnership with VCCA, the Center for Creativity, Design, and the Arts at Sweet Briar College seeks a cross-genre team of two artists to teach an interdisciplinary, collaborative three-week course on the use of technology in the creation of art, including conceptual, visual, or performance art, during Sweet Briar’s three-week short session in Spring 2020. The course runs Tuesday, April 21 to Monday, May 11. Compensation includes a fully-funded four-week residency at VCCA to overlap with the course dates and a stipend of $5,000.
For details, click
here
.
Deadline is September 6, 2019.
- The Anne Spencer Fellowship, open this year to African-American visual artists, is a one-month residency to be scheduled between February 2020 and January 2021. It includes a $1,500 honorarium.
- The Sarah Stanley Gordon Edwards and the Archibald Cason Edwards Fellowship provides an annual two-week residency for women painters ages twenty-five and older, with a preference to be given to Native American painters.
- The Gazebo Restoration Fellowship, a unique opportunity for artists with carpentry skills. See below for a complete description.
- The Sam and Marion Golden Helping Hand Fellowship, available to writers, visual artists, and composers from the Roanoke Valley (Virginia) area, including Roanoke, Craig, Botetourt and Franklin counties as well as the independent cities of Roanoke and Salem. These residencies can be from one to three weeks in length. Please note that as all applicants from these areas will be automatically considered for the Fellowship, there is no special form required as part of our online application process.
- The Richard S. and Julia Louise Reynolds Poetry Fellowship, a fully-funded, three-week residency for poets.
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Deadline for these applications is September 15, 2019
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Calling All Woodworking Artists!
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For more than two decades, the Gazebo at Mt. San Angelo has been a focal point, gathering place, and space for poetry readings, spoken word, and musical events for the VCCA community. Designed by Lynchburg-based architect and VCCA board member John Owen, the evocative wood structure was built out of historic materials from the original 19th-century house that burned in 1978. Today, the Gazebo shows the effects of decades of environmental exposure and deferred maintenance.
In a pilot project designed to tap the expertise and energy of Fellows and other creatives, VCCA is accepting applications for the
Gazebo Restoration Fellowships. Applications are open for two fully-funded residencies lasting from four to six weeks during the period of April 1 - May 22, 2020. Each residency includes a private bedroom, separate studio, and all meals in a community of 25 writers, visual artists, and composers.
Gazebo Restoration Fellows will be expected to work half of their residency time on the restoration project and the other half on their own creative endeavors. The restoration work will entail replacing stair treads and decking, milling replacement balustrades and restoring others, and replacing all newel posts. Sanding, scraping, caulking and sealing of all surfaces will be done before painting. All work will be done under the direction of a professional preservation craftsman.
Candidates for these fellowships need not have been VCCA Fellows but must have demonstrated proficiency in woodworking and finish carpentry, in addition to meeting the criteria of artistic achievement or promise of achievement through our regular admission process. The deadline for applications is September 15, 2019.
Apply today!
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A Celebration at Year-End
The June annual meeting of the VCCA Board of Directors was a time to bid farewell to colleagues and friends. Carol O'Brien, a dedicated VCCA staff member for the past 17 years, has retired and moved back to her hometown of Russellville, Kentucky. Following the Board of Directors meeting, she was honored at a cocktail reception along with Margaret B. Ingraham, now immediate past president, and board members ending their term of service: Elizabeth Horsley, Martee Johnson, Alex Nyerges, Ann Ramsey, Ken Jones, Alieda Keevil, and David Rakowski. (Pictured: Margaret B. Ingraham and Carol O'Brien).
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Foundation Support
Our new fiscal year 2020, which began on July 1st, got off to a great start thanks to awards from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Sam and Marion Golden Helping Hand Foundation, the Virginia Department of Forestry, and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation. We are grateful for this support as we move forward into a new year.
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The Etchings Contemporary Music Festival has just concluded at the Moulin à Nef in Auvillar and Resident Director Cheryl Fortier and her staff welcomed new Fellows last week for residencies in this lovely medieval village. In 2019, nearly 40 Fellows will find creative space and time on the banks of the Garonne.
Also in July, Yale Summer Session partners with the Moulin à Nef to offer a travel writing course taught by VCCA Fellow Colleen Kinder. VCCA's creative impact is extended through its partnerships with several universities, including Yale, James Madison University, and Western Washington University which offer creative writing and studio art courses in the lovely studio space at the Moulin à Nef.
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As we close the books on another fiscal year, we are grateful to the Fellows, friends, and foundations who make this treasured space possible through their generous support.
Thanks to your gifts, over 400 writers, visual artists, and composers benefitted from the time and space VCCA provides. Gifts to the Annual Fund made possible upgrades to the facilities in Amherst and Auvillar, including the renovation of the Studio Barn kitchens at Mt. San Angelo, facility improvements at Moulin à Nef, and a new website.
Looking to our upcoming 50th anniversary and as a result of strategic planning, there are many exciting things ahead. Your support ensures an abundant future for VCCA, the impactful work created here, and the artists who call it home.
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Save the Date
Fellows & Friends Gathering
Thursday, September 12, 2019
6 - 8 p.m.
Nuyorican Poets Cafe
236 East 3rd Street, New York, New York
Gather with Fellows and friends to celebrate and support VCCA!
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VCCA is grateful to the following organizations for their financial support.
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The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation • Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation
Sam and Marion Golden Helping Hand Foundation
Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation • Richard S. Reynolds Foundation
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