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Jentel Artist Residency: Week 3 (Winding down)
The third week at the Jentel Artist Residency in Wyoming brought about some blocked moments and surges of insecurity on my part. These come-and-go and at a residency you hope to be at your most productive, but can force creativity to flow. But the week progressed better than it started with good food, good people, and good times.
While the first several days (week and a half) brought a flurry of inspiration, the tail end of week 2 and beginning of week 3 brought some serious winding down in terms of productivity and confidence on my part. In speaking with one of the other visual artists she also said that she was upset with herself for not producing as much as she wanted to in a month's time and that in reflection she needed to be easier on herself because of the fact that inspiration can't be commanded on a whim. In my case I was on a roll and found myself in slump. Said slump consisted of me typing up things and immediately hating what it was I was scribing but pushed myself to keep going, and at some point I just couldn't. At various moments I stopped and this is when Facebook and Twitter and the schedule for Book Expo along with work for my job came into play to distract me from the creativity that just wasn't flowing.
On top of which the end of the week brought a rejection from the only lit mag I queried about a flash fiction piece I'd been working on for over three year.! Yes, less than 1000 words worked on and edited and nitpicked for 3 years + (it happens). I got a one sentence reason for the rejection which I took to heart and am currently editing this piece again for mass submission this summer.
Other things catering to said slump may be the feeling of cabin fever (as beautiful as the residence and locale are sometimes you just need to get away) or the reality of time clicking away at a steady pace (What day is it? Friday! Crap.).
Yes, slumps happen to all artists. The residents here have all had those moments or are currently in the midst of them in some way and believe-you-me we are none too happy about having to leave said paradise and go back to our day-to-day lives where some of us just don't have the luxury to create full-time. The insecurity has bound in and I'm coming off the high of March into May with reality slapping me in the face again. The reality of wondering if your tale has a place in the growing African-American diaspora let alone the literary canon. The reality of wondering if you'll ever truly be done. And of course the reality of wondering if you're even good enough. I was just reading Megan (aka Writer Girl's) blog about giving over her first draft to loved ones to read. Just a few months ago I posted about not believe in my NYC Midnight submission. And of course I see Twitter updates from writers grinning and baring it and plugging away and asking for good vibes and sugar sent their way so they can keep going. There are days when you feel you are just producing crap and to do so at a residency may feel like a waste, but it has to happen. It's going to happen, so you just have to deal with it. I produce stuff I am none too happy about at home in NYC all the time, so why not in Wyoming too? And maybe now's a good time to take Lynn's advice to heart and take a break from producing and just focus on moi.
Friday brought a nice trip to Ucross, another residency several miles away from Jentel that has hosted some big name writers like Heidi Durrow, Colson Whitehead, Sigrid Nunez (a former instructor of mine at The New School), Elizabeth Gilbert, Junot Diaz, and Wyoming's own E. Annie Proulx! I was so excited I had to tweet the authors I follow on Twitter and let her know I saw her work there. Turns out Ms. Durrow was not only a resident at Ucross (and Hedgebrook and Norman Mailer and Vermont Studio Center; yes, she's my idol!) but she said she found her voice here at Jentel. Amazing! Three of the visual artists and myself went to see the Ucross gallery celebrating 27 years of artist residents and saw some amazing work. Joyce and I were particularly blown away by the coloring and such for this piece:
And this was another favorite by the Ucross alumi:
If you're near Banner or Clearmont, WY I strongly urge you to stop in. I believe this particular showing is going on until June 1st.
As the days go on and we continue to experience cold, hot, warm, cold, chilly, snowy weather we also prepared for Jentel Presents! This is the time when us residents get to show our work to people in the community. And Lynn informed us that this presentation has also become mandatory for college students both in art and creative writing. Like I did at an Inspired Word NYC open mic I decided to read my flash fiction. I'm trying to stay away from reading aloud too much from the collection as I feel I've exhausted the strongest bits by reading to the residents and sending out to residencies these past few months. Though I am proud of what I've done here (some of it, well most of it) flash fiction tends to be a great thing to read because you can actually complete something and provide the reader something to mull over afterwards.
Everyone did an extraordinary job in presenting and talking about their work. For the artists, Lisa, Joyce, Rachel, and Karen it felt like I was being re-introduced to their work as we heard more about their process even though I had seen some of it before. Seeing them stand up tall and talk about it so confidently in front of a crowd was amazing and gives you a sense of pride in sharing space and time with such amazing artists. Lorraine read one of her favorite portions to write from her novel-in-progress and it definitely showed in her reading it. It was vibrant and the characters well constructed. She has a great reading voice.
After the presentations were over we got to speak with some of the people who attended, full house as you can see from the picture above. I spoke briefly with a poet who asked me why I felt insecure (something I mentioned before reading noting that while I'm in love with my collection I have bouts of sadness at the prospect of not finishing) and I told him the truth, just a few days earlier I had been blocked. He said he was going through the same thing. He's in the midst of writing something about his father and was going to do a series of poems but realized the structure may be better as one poem with four sections. I commiserated, informing him I think I just got an idea on the structure of one of the stories for my collection that morning and it'd been something I'd been thinking about for years since it's part of the crux or linchpin of the stories involved. I wished him good luck with his current block and we agreed that we'd get back to things when it was meant to be. We just had to be patient, though that can be hard.
We ended up having dinner with some local artists, Randy one of the heads of Sagebrush was such a pleasure to speak to as were Joel (another artist) and Sarah a teacher who is trying to find time to write while raising a family and working a full-time job. Everyone was friendly and the food at the Pony Bar & Grill was ridiculously large in size. All in all a great night.
We're headed out at the latter part of this week and working hard as we get to the last week and preparing to depart and get back to our real lives. *le sigh*
On another upbeat note, my flash fiction piece, "The Resolution" has pubbed in the latest issue of Eclectic Flash. On top of that, Joyce made huge cookies! So after the end of a bad week looks like this week is progressing to end well.
Jentel Artist Residency: Week 2 (Settling in)
The second week with the Jentel Artist Residency brings more settling in for us residencies and getting closer too achieving those goals we set for ourselves. I have written and edited down thousands of words and dozens of pages and can't believe how productive I've been and focused. Guess I'm not so easily swayed, huh?
The second week, first too, brought a lot of settling in to creativity and how we'll be doing things. Many of us have gotten into a routine of regular working hours. When the sun is up we're at our most productive, shuttling back and forth from our studios to the residence and vice versa. By the time 5pm comes or as the sun starts to set (and for me the sun setting means sun directly in-my-eye) work winds down and we head in to eat and converse for the evening. Many times some of the visual artists will head back out to the studios and keep working into the late evening. That's dedication. For the most part we do get together and eat every evening, especially if someone is cooking (which we've decided will happen every other day) but sometimes someone has an excess of something or needs to use produce they didn't realize was going to go bad and BAM we all get fed unexpectedly. These are good moments.
On Sunday, we had an Easter feast. Rachel made hootnie (something she learned how to make during her travels in Asia and Europe) which is a kind of bread/custard dish that tastes great with maple syrup. I made basil lime fruit salad a la Cooking Light 2009 book and who knew that mixing basil and lime rind together produces a kind of minty flavor, and in simple syrup, again BAM.
We also had some turkey bacon and there you go a nice breakfast that got us set for the work day. By evening we each signed up for our respective items. I was to do blondies but realized that having two desserts might be a bit much and made these several days earlier for people to consume and enjoy. There was ham, mashed sweet potatoes, apple tart, asparagus w/ hollandaise, steak (pour moi), and deviled eggs. Good times!
Again, I know I diverge from the reason for my stay to food. As per the norm. My apologies.
So what have I gotten done you ask? Well, lots. It's amazing how much gets done when you don't have the rest of life interrupting you. We were interviewed to talk about Jentel by the local press. A quote I didn't even realize I'd said that appeared in the April 23rd edition of The Sheridan Press. I was noted as saying that we all came here with some aspirations and that I find myself more productive because well, just this place really. So I have to say that those who created residencies, and to Neltje who solely funds this from her own bank account, are the most wonderful people on God's green earth. Yes, so are humanitarians and the Red Cross, but you get my drift.
I didn't really start getting creative (albeit work on The Collection and other writing) until the Monday after I arrived. On Saturday I just explored and typed up an outline for a YA novel I want to start during NaNoWriMo this year. The day after I edited and edited some flash fiction and the day after that the same. After which I finally decided to turn to the collection and work on that for several days straight. Last Friday I ended up doing 10,000 words for the collection, the day after that editing pages and writing material for five hours straight. Easter Sunday lead to me working on some other pieces to submit and have submitted two pieces within five days of each other. I received a request from a friend who's working with an editor on an anthology to send her some of my work and Lorraine (fellow writing resident) said she'd like to see me submit something to the lit mag she's the fiction editor for because she's like what she's heard of my work.
If I quantified the work I've been doing in hours (and yes I'll subtract all the time spent on Twitter and Facebook, reading Hunger Games casting updates, writing e-mails to friends and family, checking work e-mail or even doing work and even reading up on the news) I'd say I spent four to five hours a day writing/editing solidly since last Monday to now. Amazing yes? I think so.
This week also brought some more media. After seeing my face splat on the front page of The Sheridan Press on Saturday we were informed on Monday that the local media from KOTATV wanted to come in and do a piece on Jentel also. Hoorah! So we waited around and were filmed doing stuff. In my case I took a day off from being creative and was customizing InDesign files for work, so KOTATV has a nice few minutes of me updating a primary ESL book.
Other than that we've been experience more snow and rain and cold and chills, but the sun always comes out to melt said snow and dry up, at least partially, said wetness. It's amazing how fickle Mother Nature can be. But on one of the two or three nice days we had this week I did make a trip up towards the 1000 acres (big hiking ground in our backyard, literally) and got some lovely views from afar. I didn't make it too far because it was almost dinner time and frankly, kind of windy. But I did see many cows--that ran off as soon as they saw my camera. Darn, camera shy cattle.
And during the weekly trip into town I also took a few minutes to visit the sacred saddle museum. For saddle enthusiasts this is quite a treat, but for others it's interesting to see a lot of saddles and guns and bullets in one central location and for only a suggested donation of $2.
There was a lot of material of guns and carriages and saddles used during various wars on U.S. soil. One of my favorite pieces was this:
I also got a kick at seeing some of the Native American apparel and paraphernalia. Rachel (textile artist) has a friend who has been showing her the sights of Wyoming so she's definitely one to go to in terms of learning more about areas where Custer's last stand was and also about the goings-on in Buffalo, WY. We got a nice tour of the town of Big Horn and the mountains seemed to be coming towards us. Absolutely beautiful. One of the sights I'll miss most is of looking outside my window and seeing mountains all over. NYC just can't compare.
Well, Friday marks the halfway point for us and we're none too happy about that. But I'll try to abstain from talking about it until we hit week 3! *sigh*
Hope you had a great Easter and Passover from all of us here in Banner, WY!
Jentel Artist Residency: Week 1 (The Intro)
My first week in Banner, WY being a writer-in-residence at the Jentel Artist Residency Program.
With a month of planning to go and a bunch of retractions of applications for conferences and so forth I got ready for this trip and to take a month off of work. But there were still pangs of anxiety. What if I wasn't productive? What if I didn't like the other artists? What if they didn’t like me? What if Wyoming was too rural for me? What if I needed something desperately I could only get in NYC? How would I survive, exactly? I hushed these concerns and looked forward; preparing everything that I'd need and what had to be taken care of while I was away. And with that I loaded my bags—after sitting on them and jumping up a couple times to get them closed—and departed for Wyoming.
We are surrounded by mountains here and the land is vast and wide and a greenish brown as we’re still in transition weather here. The air is fresh and the creek is right under the studios providing some calming sounds and a lovely view outside your window at any angle.
This really is a place that's conducive for creativity and the fact that there are windows in every section of the residence as well as the studios, for me at least, is key. Natural light helps me more than artificial. After a while fluorescent light or otherwise may irritate my eyes and when you’re looking at a computer screen for hours you need all the help you can get. But natural light, while it may produce a glare, is much better for the eyes. And in my studio I have it aimed directly at me so there’s no need to turn on the small lamp on my desk or the lights within my cabin-like digs.
Being from NYC I’m used to finicky weather, especially over this past year. But man it’s been snowing a bit and then stops and then starts and then I wake up and there’s a thin blanket outside my window. The blanket melts as the sun rises in the late morning/early afternoon and what do you know it’s snowing again as I walk out of my studio and several feet towards our residence for lunch. And then said process repeats for days four and five of my residency. Though today was absolutely gorgeous nice and warm and just like spring. But the landscape is beautiful and wherever you look there are mountains. Mountains to the left of me, mountains to the right… And the snow itself isn’t a hindrance. Heck, when we were interviewed by the local media for the paper we were informed that everyone is pretty much used to this. So what am I complaining about?
Nevermind.
Oprah waiting for the next big reveal of just how lucky we were.
Neltje designed and built this place up from scratch. There are wings in this house (Not wings like a bird or butterfly, but wings as in spaces where you reside that are pretty large). Wings, people! On one side are three bedrooms and two bathrooms (full) and the same is on the other side. In the middle we have a large living room, kitchen (which I was worried about and see that I am more than blessed by what we have), and dining area for us. There are stairs leading upstairs to a vast library with computer and internet and then to a media room with a large flat screen TV with satellite service and a DVD/VCR player.
And I haven't even mentioned the studios! Each residency last a month and starts/ends on a Friday. There are four visual artist residents and two writers at any given residency over the course of the year and they operate over 11 months of the year.
The visual artist studio is a lovely space with a kitchen and old school fridge (aka ice box) a bathroom and four spaces that are quite large for those who need it. They even have a bed in their studio! Each one has a great view of the land and from every angle you can see the mountains surrounding Jentel. Each of their studios are named after the seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall.
The writer's studio is more like a cabin with a mock—but working—fireplace, a desk, bookshelves, thermos, rolling chair, lounge chair and gorgeous view of the space. The names of the writer’s studio rooms are sunrise and sunset. I got sunset. They are named this way because of the view of the sun you have. Lorraine, a successful novelist, can get a clear view of the sun as it rises, while I have a close-up view of the sun (and can feel it’s heat) as it sets. But, words really can’t summarize it so here are some more pics!
We’ve decided to make meals for each other every other day and we generally eat together around the same time over the course of the day. Lisa made us some fish tacos and then Lorraine (award-winning author) made us green salsa enchiladas. Karen (visual artist) has been steady with the healthy items and made us roasted root veggies and has turned me on to kale. (Yes, kale!) I’m next and I foresee some shrimp and couscous dish and yes, of course, dessert! I already made blondies and these have gone over well. Even the elevation didn’t affect them rising very much. (Of course this section is supposed to be on the people and becomes more about the food. I know, priorities, Jenn.)
There’ve been some heavy games of Scrabble and some great discussion and some watching of bad reality shows (Since when did The Judds need a reality show?) Karen initiated a weekly reading series where we can read our own work (or really us writers can) or you can read something that you like and share it with the group. I’ve gotten some very good responses to my work and encouragement from my fellow artists. It’s definitely a feel good group, but genuine in the fact that we enjoy each other’s work and want everyone to do well or continue to do well.
A residency generally means time to just do what you need to do. Some have you meet with people regularly to review your work, others just provide you space and time to create leading to some solitary moments, and some may have you do some community outreach or a project while you’re there. In the case of Jentel there’s an optional reading and interview with the local news paper, but for the most part you’re left to your own devices and provided a weekly stipend to buy the necessary goods from the store on our trip into town each week.
When Lynn sat down with us for orientation she informed us that this is a time for us to re-energize and take care of ourselves. If that means producing art, great! If not, that's great too! The most important thing is to make sure you feel relaxed and give you the time and space you need to be a productive artist whether it's here or when we return home. This was a wonderful thing to hear because I think we all have pressure on ourselves to be productive. When are we going to have a landscape like this again? When are we going to get money to buy our own groceries? When are we going to have a month to not worry about anything but being an artist? When are we going to have all these damn comfy chairs in one space? For city gals like me, never that’s when or at least not unless I get another residency or buku bucks.
For me, I’ve found this a relaxing and very fruitful time. I’ve written four hours a day or more and pretty much hold creative hours like regular work hours—from the time I get up until close to sundown. And by evening it’s all about relaxing, but I’ve been hand writing things in the evening since it’s nice to have a break from the computer screen.
Yes, I’ve been on the social networking sites and raise my hand in defeat at being a bit of a Twitter junkie, but all in all I’ve gotten a rhythm and flow going that I know will produce some heavy stuff by month’s end. And the month’s end is a time I am not looking forward to because with the space itself being gorgeous and comfy, the food being good, the people being wonderful, and me being productive I can see myself dreaming of this place once I leave. But, I still have three weeks before I have to worry about that.