Inside A Residency: Yellow Studio Week 1

The building housing Yellow Studio at Yellow Monkey Village in Cross River, NY

This past week I was finally able to set my studio up at The Yellow Studio, where I will be an artist in residence for the next three months!  I’ll get to why it took longer than expected to get started in a minute.  First, I want to share what makes The Yellow Studio so special and a bit about what I will be up to during my residency.

The Yellow Studio is a shared work and studio space, alternative art gallery, and social club for women in Cross River, NY.  It’s the brainchild of Tina Villaveces, who wanted to create a space for women to connect to their creativity in a supportive community.  And that is exactly what is happening at The Yellow Studio! From talks by local artists and professionals to creative workshops and monthly happy hours, the community at Yellow Studio is thriving.  I am thrilled to be a part of it daily for the next few months!

Art materials waiting to be unpacked at the studio!

For my time as artist in residence at Yellow Studio, I will be working on a series of artwork inspired by the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, working to more purposefully incorporate materials from my surroundings and create a stronger sense of place.  I’ll spend time exploring, observing, and documenting in Ward Pound Ridge, and use those materials as references for mixed media collages.  

The addition of handmade papers and cyanotype to my artwork is also something I'm really excited about. The materials I use to create my handmade papers include studio scraps, old artwork, junk mail, and even dryer lint. I’m loving the process and all the textures in the papers. Using photos taken around Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, I hope to create a stronger sense of place through cyanotype. The combination of the two will be wonderful.

A view of the studio!

As for why getting started took longer than expected…well, I came down with Covid (again) AND it was my kids’ spring break.  I had to prioritize taking care of myself, and then taking are of my kids.  That is a hard thing for me to do when the art studio is calling, but I’m glad I did.  Now I’m really ready to go!

I’ll be posting updates here every week or so, as well as on my Instagram page.

In the meantime, go sign up for my Torn Paper Collage Workshop at Yellow Studio on May 4th!

& Don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter to know when this new series will be available!