I am an interdisciplinary artist and while I love to plan and prepare, I also know that what I find myself doing at an art residency could and actually should surprise me. When I went to Earthwork Farm I packed 40 ceramic ghosts that I made and the equipment I would need to film them in stop-motion animations. I brought the gear necessary to keep up my physical therapy routine, and I had my car for rural and small town adventures. I had stayed at the House on the Hill a decade or more earlier, and knew it was a sacred space.
This was the spring after the first year of the pandemic and I had experienced the death of my brother in that year. The residency space was a place for me to play with my ghosts, to make short films and take focused time to edit a music video I had shot months prior, to express my grief in a gentle and quiet place where I could walk in the woods, play the piano, and take long hot baths. I can’t think of a more serene place with more gentle caretakers, the artwork you make is part of living and life on the farm is good.