Atlantic Center for the Arts' Residency #170: Part II

Every year we make resolutions – as an author, it’s to write more, to keep growing and learning, but how? Have you ever considered a residency? It’s a getaway that gives you space and the artistic interactions to keep you inspired and motivated. That’s what Storyrocket author, Linda Rodriguez did for the 6th time at Atlantic Center for the Arts. Follow her journey, here’s part 2 of 4 of the blog series and see why she keeps going back for more.

 

Into the Labyrinth

 

During Residency #170 I worked most closely with my core group, seven of the most talented Associate Artists I’ve ever known: Amanda Andrei, Dave Drayton, Nadia Mujalli, Ken Niimura, Kevin Ottem-Fox, Jason Robinson, and Christina Tran. We all worked countless hours at the Charlotte Battle Everbach Painting Studio, an unusually tall building made of cedar, metal, and gigantic skylights through which natural light filters in to illuminate the work inside.

 

I will confess that this is the studio I had wanted to work in for a long time. But having come to ACA previously as a writer and performer, I had worked in the writers’ and dance studios and theater. I love all these spaces at ACA but the painting studio had always fascinated me. In a way, it was a “forbidden” space for me, perhaps because when I was a child it had been my very talented older brother, Vidal, who had gotten the painting lessons. On occasions, I remember accompanying him with my mother and grandmother to Old San Juan in Puerto Rico where he had sketched the 16th and 17th-century buildings and fortresses.

 

So it was with child-like curiosity that on my previous residencies I had regularly peaked into the Everbach Painting Studio. My little intrusions sometimes transformed into collaborations as on my second residency with Master Artist Cornelius Eady. That’s when I became a model for Argentinian visual artist Valeria Maculán who was working with Master Artist María Elena González. Throughout the residency Valeria constructed armor-like headpieces out of wire and packing tape and she took photos of me wearing the headpieces. Valeria’s photos, which I still cherish, were exhibited during that residency’s INsideOUT.

 

Also on my fifth residency with Master Artist Dael Orlandersmith I collaborated with visual artist Ellen Nielsen and acted in her film Flower Office. And on my sixth residency, I was invited to work on Xiaoqing Zhu’s film Piano Without Piano Bench.

 

The Road of Trials

 

For me, it’s been life-changing to be able to see so many unique art projects develop and grow inside ACA’s Charlotte Battle Everbach Painting Studio, and finally, during the summer of 2018 there I was about to work on my own project in this inspiring space as part of Matt Madden’s Build Your Own Labyrinth: Using Constraints to Challenge and Surprise Yourself. 

 

My Associate Artists and I had our work cubicles lined up around the walls and each time our Master Artist entered the studio, we rolled up our chairs around two large tables in the middle of the room. The tables were different lengths, but it made for an interesting geometrical pattern, a sort of rectangle with a corner lopped off. Creating interesting shapes on a page is part of the comic book art form, so with our “interesting” center table we were set to listen to Matt Madden. 

 

As I write this, it has suddenly dawned on me that ACA’s master artists work in a similar fashion to Jedi masters. They are individuals brimming with artistic wisdom if not superpowers, and ACA’s master artists are ready to pass on their knowledge to the willing. As associate artists, we are “the willing” and try our best to receive the knowledge being offered. Master artists can be intense, and often quite challenging as Jedi masters, but if we take their road of trials, our work grows and improves.

 

And I’m happy to be just an earthling Padawan!

 

And into the Labyrinth I went…