Artists Have Been Selected!
For immediate release:
8 May 2019
We are pleased to announce the participants in the inaugural Village Canoe Floating Residency (VCFR) and Exhibition program. Drawing from 31 international and overseas applications - with applications coming mostly from Maine - our jury was prompted with the task of choosing six to join the expedition. Given the high quality, unexpected volume, and diversity among the applicants, we made the decision to add a second canoe, bringing on a total of 10 artists to participate in the residency.
This year’s artists-in-residence are Samantha Costello, Chloe DuBois, Alex Hackett, Amanda Kidd Schall, Matea Mills-Andruk, Ali Reid, Gabby Schulz, Paige Speight, Brian Wasser, and Willow WildHeart.
Our jury this year was an accomplished group of individuals whose merits ranged from career dynamism, art background, keen eyes, and interest in the program. They are: Elizabeth Oliver, whose background spans curatorial, registrarial and art handling roles in commercial galleries in New York’s Hudson Valley and in Philadelphia, as well as being a founding member of the micro-granting ticketed dinner series, Philly Stake, which funded community engaged projects; Freddy LaFage, an artist, builder, father, and gallery owner of Perimeter Gallery within Chase’s Daily in Belfast, ME, with his partner Meg and co-curates with artist Karen MacDonald; Emily Cornell du Houx, who teaches at the Rhode Island School for Design (RISD) in the Furniture Design and Textiles departments, in addition to studying boatbuilding at The Apprenticeshop, and floating one half of Carrier Pigeon Studio down the Mississippi River; and Michel Varisco whose artwork explores ecological themes through photography, video, sculpture and installation, has a life long love of the Mississippi River and other waterways of the world as demonstrated through her work: https://michelvarisco.com/.
Participants will join the residency, paddling on the Penobscot River to Bay, from August 24 - September 1, 2019. Artists are not expected to create work while paddling in the canoe - with the exception of sporadic film, photo, and audio capture. Instead, they will be expected to draw reference material, inspiration, and artifacts from the 10-day outdoor immersion on riverbanks, islands, and more. They will then process their work in the subsequent 3+ week window in their studio/at home, culminating in a pop-up art exhibition from September 27 - 29, 2019 on the waterfront in Belfast, ME. The public is invited to join the three-day exhibition program, including live musical performance, artist talks, panel discussion on arts and environment, in addition to the co-curated group show of work from the artists-in-residence.
To learn more about the program and its origins as well as future plans, click here. If you’d like to donate to the cause because you believe in creative placemaking as well as ambitious, innovative, public art programming, you can donate here or through our fiscal sponsor, the Belfast Creative Coalition - Attn: The Village Canoe.
Support for The Village Canoe is provided by The Kindling Fund, a grant program administered by SPACE as part of the Andy Warhol Foundation For The Visual Arts Regional Regranting Network.
Elizabeth Oliver | Photo: Chris Battaglia
Freddy LaFage | Photo: Chris Battaglia
Emily Cornell du Houx | Photo: Chris Battaglia
Michel Varisco | Photo: Chris Battaglia