This is me reflecting on MacDowell more than a month after I left. I expected the place to change me and my work, and it did, but not at all how I anticipated.
I knew I would start drafting my novel, The Shadow Worker, in earnest there, which recently received a Creative Capital Award, a thrilling thing to happen but also, now I have to write the book! The Shadow Worker had been just ideas floating in my head, a set of notes, and the synopsis I wrote as part of my application before I came to MacDowell.
When I’m in a critical stage of a book, I need to let go of all responsibilities to encompass the project in my mind, and that usually means a residency. MacDowell was the perfect place because out of all the residencies I’ve been to, it’s the one that provides the most alone time with lunch delivered via basket and everyone in separate cabins, especially the first few days when I isolated because of COVID protocols. I wrote feverishly the first week and a half.
Then a historic blizzard happened. Nearly three feet of snow in twenty-four hours, power to our studios lost. It did feel as if a spell had been cast outside, while my own writing spell had been broken. I was forced to spend two days away from my work when all the artist congregated in the Main Hall where there was a generator, stuck with nothing to do but be with each other for hours. A creature of routine, I stayed up much too late unable to work, my writing schedule in shambles. I spent a sleepless night in an unfamiliar bed with unfamiliar sounds keeping me up, resentful that the momentum I’d built up had been stymied.
But then, sometime in the wee hours, my sleep twilight internal monologue started to shift. Interacting with the other artists was so much fun, and a special experience all its own. I’ve gotten past the major sticking points in my draft and know I can finish it wherever I happen to be. I’m only going to be with these wonderful people for two more weeks and won’t be able to interact with this many of them in this special place again.
Thus came the next and more important phase of my MacDowell residency, which was getting work done in the morning, sure, but also maximizing the time I spent being with and learning from the other artists. The discovery that I was the lone extrovert among introverts and a few ambiverts, I acclimated to the role of organizer and put together karaoke night, an evening walk to The Oracle (a converted outhouse where fellows get their questions answered), and a dance party my last Saturday there. I collaborated with Paolo Arao, a Fil-Am visual artist who I recognized as the closest I would come to an artistic sibling when he did his presentation. I recorded a podcast episode with Alison Kobayashi, whose work habits and presentation I found immensely inspiring.
Nearly every day, I felt like someone would say something or give a presentation that shifted how I thought of my own work. There was Aaron Edwards at breakfast talking about TV pilots, which prompted me to spend a morning working on a treatment that had been brewing in my head for months. There was Denene Millner and I bonding over how perfectionism has been our response to tumultuous childhoods, and how showing more of ourselves as we are is a way to heal. There was Kate O’Neill who got me to rethink my entire relationship to substance abuse, Olivia Stephens who got me to contemplate my relationship to werewolves, Carolyn Kormann who I’m planning to see bats with in the Philippines, Ben Mauk who I bonded with over ping pong, singing, and work habits (we bonded a lot). These are just a few of the numerous interactions I had over the course of my month in New Hampshire, and they’ll nourish me for many years to come.
Also I knitted a crown for MacDowell’s Mayor, chosen each night to make announcements at dinner. I figured it would be my little gift to the place, its people, and its wonderful tradition of supporting artists.
Talk soon,
M.