Founder's Focus

February Visiting Artists:

Penelope Umbrico	David K. Anderson
Robert Berlind	Stanley Whitney

February Visiting Writers:

“Abandoned Asylum, Northampton, Massachusetts”
By Baron Wormser

I stroll the grounds, as a grander era
Would have phrased it, and listen for lost screams.
In the town below, other cries are blasting
The grace of this shy, spring afternoon.
I’m here to recall what I never knew.

Broken glass trills softly, wood weeps rot.
I stand on tiptoe and stare through begrimed windows.
The flannel nightshirts are gone, the leather straps
And the tubs in which to take cold baths.
A whole hymn-singing century is mouse shit.

I listen for the ghosts of regimens. I listen
For bright eyes throbbing with dizzy faith.
I listen for the taciturn, the bleary, the mopey.
I sit in a shadow and wait for the manna of grief.
Here, the engines of betterment roared

With iron understanding. Here, moral fear
Played its riffs on the bent hearts of living bodies.
Here, the most awful beauty bloomed like lilies.
Behind the main building sumac is growing like crazy.
Lord, I pray to the bricks and splintered casements, lighten me.

March Visiting Artists and Writers:

Joanna Scott

Jon Imber

Carol Hepper

Angelo Ciotti

Marjorie Portnow

Robert Lopez

A Selection of Recent Resident Portraits:

Photos by Howard Romero

February 2010 Residents:

Photo by Howard Romero

February 2010 International Residents:

Photo by Howard Romero

January 2010 resident, JoAnna Johnson, has made 30+ dresses by hand which she has used as the starting point for an extended photography series.  JoAnna attentively arranges the dresses in different formations in relation to a varied landscape.  The photographs below are a selection from her recent VSC residency.  Click here to visit her website and to read her statement.

A quote from JoAnna’s website that complements her work well:

“If you go there and stand in the place
where it was, it will happen again;
it will be there for you waiting.”

Toni Morrison, Beloved

Here is a photo of long-time VSC friend and collaborator, Tom Mason, with his winter’s ice fishing catch.

The Team VSC polar bear snow sculpture. Thank you to Harlan Mack for leading the charge, and to all of the February residents who helped with its creation.

Johnson Seniors Art Show opening at the Red Mill Gallery with friends from the local community.

A selection of work from the Johnson Seniors Art Show exhibition.

Pearl Street bridge is coming along. Workers are buzzing outside at this very moment.

The ice is breaking up on the Gihon River…writers contemplate its meaning from Maverick.

The ice flow outside of Red Mill.