Where do you go to find your muse? Artist residencies exist to allow artists and like minded individuals the opportunity to seek sanctuary for the creative process
a time and space away from their usual environment and obligations. It provides time for reflection, research, production, and immersion into new cultures. Every residency is different in their approach. There is no single model, and the expectations and requirements can vary greatly. The relationship between the resident and the host is often an important aspect of a residency program. Designed for those who are looking to advance their practice, or, for the seasoned residency applicant, Artist Residencies 101 gives an insider perspective from the point of view of both the artist and organization the search process, expectations and range of beneficial outcomes. Join us on April 10 to find your creative haven.
Panel Participants
Wanda Strukus, Boston Center for the Arts:
As Chief Programming Officer, Boston Center for the Arts, she is a producer, multi-disciplinary artist, and teacher whose work focuses on ensemble-based, collaboratively created theater, dance, puppetry, and film/video.
She holds a PhD from Tufts University, where her research and practice centered on puppetry and masked performance, an MA from the University of Arizona with a playwriting focus, and a BA in Film Studies from Wesleyan University. Her theater and dance projects have appeared in theaters, galleries, parks, and abandoned buildings throughout New England. With Two Roads Performance Projects, she co-produced and curated the award-winning site-specific dance festival, Dance in the Fells, and creates public art projects across a wide range of media.
Jessica Muise, Visual Arts Managet at the Umbrella Arts Center (dancer)
An artist, educator and community builder, Jess Muise is currently the Visual Arts Manager at The Umbrella Community Arts Center in Concord, MA. She is in charge of their Artist-in-Residence program now entering its fifth year. A dance artist, her collaborative dance company, Intimations Dance, was awarded the GreenWorks Residency with Annie Kloppenberg and Rachel Boggia, the Choreographer Residency at Green Street Studios with Lorraine Chapman, and aMaSSiT program at the Dance Complex with Peter DiMuro. Intimations was also supported by the Dancing in the Streets Festival presented by the Somerville Arts Council with mentorship from David Dorfman of David Dorfman Dance. As a community builder she spent the last five years Member Services and Outreach Manager for Artisan’s Asylum, a 40,000 square foot community workshop supporting over 400 artists in making what they imagine.
Ariel Basson Freiberg, Painter
Ariel Basson Freiberg is a Boston-based painter whose work explores the accelerators and brakes of sexuality through the body and gestures.
Born in Texas of Iraqi/Israeli background, has a MFA in painting from Boston University and a BA from Smith College. She has had multiple solo and group shows and including exhibitions at Howard Yezerski Gallery, Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Samson Projects, Dartmouth College, Tufts Art Gallery, Danforth Museum, Montserrat College of Art and the Art Center of Macedonia. Her work is reviewed in ARTnews, Boston Globe, Big Red and Shiny, and featured in Modern Painters for the Tenot Foundation Bursary for the residency, Camac in France. She received a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship in 2015 and this past year "Amnesia" was the featured cover of Definitions of Feminine Post Conflict Spaces, published in French and Spanish by Pulim press. In addition, performance and installation, Love Like Salt, was exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in June 2017. In December 2017, Ariel completed a large scale installation commission, Ziv, for the MFA Boston. She is also currently part of a group exhibition, Hard: Subversive Representation at University Hall gallery at Umass Boston.
Jodi Colella, Mixed Media Sculpture and Installation
Jodi Colella works with a broad range of materials to create provocative, tactile works that often include public participation. Influenced by her travels she draws from historical and cultural experiences – Using the needle as her primary tool, she transforms found objects and inventive materials into dimensional expressions where the presence of the maker evident in the shape of thousands of stitches, and as in her collaborative projects, the orchestrated actions of many.
Jodi has exhibited at Danforth Art Museum, Framingham MA; Fruitlands Museum, Harvard MA; Da Wang Cultural Highland, Shenzhen China; Wheaton College, Norton MA; Helen Day Art Center, Stow VT; World of Threads Toronto Canada,Textile Museum, Washington D.C.; The Museums of Old York, Maine; among others.
She has received numerous awards including the 2016 Fay Chandler Emerging Artist, 2016 Fellowship ComPeung Thailand, Pollack-Krasner Fellowship Vermont Studio Center, and Somerville Arts Council Fellowships 2018, 2015, 2012.
Jodi teaches internationally at Center for the Arts Skopelos Greece, Eliot School Boston, Society for Craft in Pittsburgh, SDA’s Confluence in Minneapolis plus many local venues. She lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts and most days can be found lost in her studio.
Nate Tucker, musician and composer
Nate Tucker is based in Boston at the BCA Artist Studios. Tucker works regularly with some of the city's finest artists and arts institutions. Last season he was commissioned to compose a ballet for choreographer and former Boston Ballet Principle, Yury Yanowski. He also composed and performed a new work with Alissa Cardone and Doppelgänger Dance Collective. Tucker has been seen as the DJ and Music Director for shows around Boston including The Boston Center for the Arts Ball and Boston Lyric Opera's Gala 2016. Tucker has been the music director and composer for Mt. Auburn Cemetery's A Glimpse Beyond since 2015.
As a performer you can catch Nate Tucker as a core percussionist for Juventus New Music Ensemble and Mobius Percussion, based in NYC, as well as DJing the Donkey Show at American Repertory Theater's Club Oberon.