Founder’s Focus

Commencement
The photograph above in the Founders Focus masthead is the VSC Dining Hall on Friday, September 25th just prior to the 25th Anniversary dinner for the Studio Center’s key supporters over the past 25 years.

I like the photo because it is of something ” about to happen, ” the dinner party to celebrate what ” has happened ” over the past 25 years….and the potential of what is “about to happen ” during VSC’s next 25 years.

This has been a lovely year with numerous 25th anniversary gatherings in Vermont, New York, Chicago, L.A. etc.  It has also been a tough year for many artists and writers who lost the somewhat marginal jobs they had, to make just enough to house and feed themselves, without taking any more time away from the studio than absolutely necessary.

As a result of this, VSC’s applications have increased by 30 % this year over the 2500 we normally receive.  At the same time, this year, philanthropic support, and in particular, foundation support, has been reduced due to the economic turmoil of the past 12 months.

With this in mind, and with VSC’s founding premise of ” Artists Supporting Artists ” in mind, all of us here in Johnson hope you will respond as generously as you can to VSC’s year end appeal for your support, and help the Studio Center end this 25th Anniversary year on a high note, supporting as many artists and writers as we can, in 2010 and beyond.

Jon

Jon Gregg
Founder

September Visiting Artists:

Brian Belott	Gregory Botts
Anne Rochette	Ed Smith

September Visiting Writers:

Rising in Perilous Hope

from Colors Passing Through Us
By Marge Piercy

What can I hold in my hands this morning
that will not flow through my fingers?

What words can I say that will catch
in your mind like burrs, chiggers that burrow?

If my touch could heal, I would lay my hands
on your bent head and bellow prayers.

If my words could change the weather
or the government or the way the world

twists and guts us, fast or slow,
what could I do but what I do now?

I fit words together and say them;
it is a given like the color of my eyes.

I hope it makes a small difference, as
I hope the drought will break and the morning

come rising out of the ocean wearing
a cloak of clean sweet mist and swirling terns.

Excerpt from The Invention of Streetlights

from Goest
By Cole Swenson:

And Venice started in 1687 with a bell upon the hearing of which, we all in unison exit,
match in hand, and together strike them against an upper tooth and touch the tiny flame to anything, and when times get rough (crime up, etc.) all we have to do is throw oil out upon the canals to make the lighting uncommonly extensive. Sometimes we do it just to shock the rest of Europe, and at other times because we find it beautiful.

October Visiting Artists and Writers

Willard Boepple

Chris Martin

Pattiann Rogers

Nina Katchadorian

Lois Dodd

Major Jackson

September 2009 Residents:

Photo by Howard Romero

Photo by Howard Romero

September 2009 Resident Portraits:

Photos by Howard Romero

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