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

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 4 of the blog series, and see why she keeps going back for more.

 

The Labyrinth Ends

 

INsideOut is an evening of performances and open studios. It’s a celebration of the work carried out during an ACA residency. It’s also a couple of days of heightened tension and some jittery nerves as it has many moving parts: Three master artists, in the case of Residency #170, poet Tracie Morris, composer Laura Schwendinger, and visual artist Matt Madden. plus over 20 associate artists with great creative talents wanting to put forth their best work for an audience that is used to the high and innovative quality of the work produced at ACA.

 

The first part of the evening takes place at the Joan James Harris Theater where Nick Conroy, Residency Director, and Ivan Riascos, Program Assistant, do an amazing job helping everyone figure out how best to present their work within the space. During Residency #170’s INsideOUT that meant setting up a camera so the audience could clearly see on a large screen how a one-of-a-kind comic book by Christina Tran, the pull be-come, had to be ingeniously pulled apart in order to be read. It also meant having on stage a game of table tennis to compliment the reading of a visual artist. What?! Yes! Dave Drayton performed his Golden Shovel for Golden Soil while another four Associate Artists played a round of table tennis behind him. With the help of New York-based graphic artist Jason Robinson, I presented some of the collages I had created at ACA exploring the ongoing refugee crisis at the southern USA border and performed my monologue, La Loba de México.

 

Artists At Work

 

For the second part of the evening, Matt Madden invited the audience to visit the studios, a special moment, as generally anyone not directly connected to a residency is not allowed in the studios. Actually, there is a sign near the theater that discourages visitors from wandering in: NOTICE TO VISITORS: Please do not go beyond this point. Artists at work.

 

That short phrase always gets me: “Artists at work.” It’s a small thing, but another effective way that ACA encourages us to just be artists and do our thing for the three weeks we are there.

 

So the evening of the INsideOUT the doors were thrown open and our guests were welcomed into the Ruth Scorgie Hubbard Music Studio and Charlotte Battle Everbach Painting Studio to see firsthand the creative magic that had grown within those walls.

 

But good things come to an end, at least to a well-deserved break, except we were not quite done yet…

 

Home to Diversity

 

Residency #170’s INsideOUT took place on Thursday, July 12, so we still had Friday the 13th for final assessments and packing up. But you can throw belongings into suitcases but feelings are not easily packed away.

 

During the three weeks of Residency #170 something very special happened. We became a community happy to share time, space, and ideas no matter what discipline we practiced or where we had come from, and artists had flown in from all around the USA and as far away as Australia and Japan.

On our final evening, we all gathered one last time, mingling around the cottages where the master artists live during residencies at ACA. And eventually, most associate artists and Tracie Morris, who was still sandy from a visit to the New Smyrna beaches, had all packed themselves into the center cottage, the one reserved for visual artists.

 

That’s when Matt Madden began to play guitar and we all sang together. I knew then this would always be one of my best memories: A spontaneous celebration of a diverse group of people that had come together as strangers and had bonded in friendship. A group that had created new art with joy no matter the color of our skin or accents that marked our English.

 

At ACA we had all been welcomed, supported, and given the chance to become our better angels. I’m thankful for that. And hopeful. A dream come true.