laurenanne:

This was, hands down, one of the most beautiful things that happened this month. Vermont Studio Center is a “mixed” community of writers and visual artists, and it’s been wonderful to be around so many creative people. I honestly think that some artists have a slightly different way of engaging with the world, and it’s really inspiring to see and be near. There’s been a lot of silliness: For example, on Saturday, a large group spent the better part of an hour hanging a clothesline across a river between two of the studio buildings so that they could pass notes back and forth. (Like a lot of art, that project ended up being mostly about process—I asked a day or two later and they only ever sent one note, which read, in full, “Let’s Get Drunk.”) But when we got to the dining hall last night, we saw that one painter, Kristin Texeira, had essentially based her entire month’s work on our community here, creating a tiny painting (she calls them ‘Color Sandwiches”) for every single person present. The colors she chose are beautiful but also amazingly evocative of the subjects—she matched the colors of people’s coats, of their work, of their hair, and, in my case, of the top and lipstick I wore on the night I gave my reading. And the captions are amazing too, touching little stories about her experiences with each person (although one of my favorites is the one she dedicated to Tina, a writer she never met, whom she had to google!). Presented in aggregate, the work was crazy moving. I nearly cried, and I wasn’t the only one. 

Love the work and the admiring the work.