{"id":4365,"date":"2020-04-17T22:13:35","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T22:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emilyrosemichaud.com\/?p=4365"},"modified":"2020-04-17T22:13:35","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T22:13:35","slug":"star-snake-art-residency-center-harbor-new-hampshire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilyrosemichaud.com\/fr\/2020\/04\/star-snake-art-residency-center-harbor-new-hampshire.html","title":{"rendered":"Star & Snake Art Residency | Center Harbor, New Hampshire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_2839\"<\/p>\n

It’s been\u00a0two\u00a0months. Still\u00a0basking in the glow of the talented humans whom I had the pleasure of working alongside, as artist in residence at\u00a0Star & Snake<\/a>,\u00a0in Center Harbor, New Hampshire. For two weeks, I made art and was lodged in a reclaimed, turn of the century Catholic church \u2014 currently transforming into\u00a0an\u00a0inspirational space for retreats, events, and artist residencies.<\/p>\n

The return\u00a0home left me disoriented, in slight withdrawal from the regenerative,\u00a0dream-like time\u00a0spent there. Those moments have nonetheless reaffirmed and enriched the perspective that I have on my art\/land practice, to which all fuel collected\u00a0from the residency\u00a0will undoubtedly be added.<\/p>\n

The residency was\u00a0an opportunity to slow down, and settle into a creative rhythm where rest, reflection, receptivity, and intuition could be made daily priorities. The result was uninterrupted focus, channelled into\u00a0a series of interdisciplinary watershed studies<\/a>.\u00a0The energy invested\u00a0will flow into a solo show at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum<\/a> in\u00a0Almonte, Ontario in two years.<\/p>\n

I came to the\u00a0residency with a desire to communicate with\/about our human relationship to water. Specifically, to invest some\u00a0energy into\u00a0my own ties\u00a0with the essential element. This\u00a0took the\u00a0form of\u00a0research, creation and experimentation for the upcoming museum installation, which will\u00a0pay homage to the role the power and presence the water has had on the Rosamond Woollen Mill, the fleece industry, and its’ Irish settlers over the last century.\u00a0The water around the historic Rosamond Mill at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum site, as well as the Mississippi River Valley’s watershed will be incorporated, and re-interpreted for the exhibition’s interactive and immersive installations, (which will include mapping, drawing, time-lapse video and a series of educational and inspirational talks).<\/p>\n

I’m looking forward to visiting\u00a0the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, its’ curator Michael Rikley-Lancaster and staff (where I’m headed tomorrow), to check out the space and to discuss the ideas that are brewing.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2882\"<\/p>\n

The residency began mostly in\u00a0drawing: focused on a study of topographical maps of the Mississippi River Valley region. It then grew into an interdisciplinary series focused on the area’s watershed. Serpentine, organ-like lines were repeated obsessively, and experiments ranged from\u00a0living seed\u00a0on tapestry, to paint and charcoal on paper, to collecting lake water and plunging\u00a0into an icy waterfall.
\n\"meesha_em\"<\/p>\n

I became engaged in a dialogue with water on many levels. Over the course of the two weeks, the water\u00a0work gained\u00a0increasing form\u00a0from the inspired\u00a0conversations shared with co-residents K, Meesha, William and Natan. Rare books from the Star & Snake’s library were gleaned, as I absorbed various mythologies, folk customs, and stories about water, its’ creatures and deities throughout human history. So too, nestled into my brain thanks to\u00a0Google maps, was the data marking out\u00a0all the watery places I’d travelled through and walked to: local brooks, creeks, dams, waterfalls, and lakes. The maps located\u00a0me\u00a0just enough to\u00a0recall the scale of my absolute human smallness\u00a0in the context of these fantastic, larger aqueous bodies.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN6933\"<\/p>\n

Then, there were the moments at night, where, upon closing my eyes I could see only water. I couldn’t help but to dream it. It was around this point, that something shifted. My work took on a significance broader than any one specific place or group of people. A universal relationship to water had been established, seemingly outside of time, free of language, anchored\u00a0by ancient line and form, remembered through sound and season. Water had begun to inhabit me.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN6938\"<\/p>\n

The drawings, map studies and repetition of lines as\u00a0two-dimensional works not only reinforced the impression of the waterscapes within my psyche and upon the paper, but demonstrated the\u00a0parallels that water bodies have to human constellations \u2014 the social connections tracing us to our collective\/respective watersheds, and\u00a0situating our bodies within the larger schema of water in the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n