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The Alumni Association of the New York Academy of Art offers a RESIDENCY at Fieldstones to one Academy alum artist each year. We are pleased to share with you our Artists-In-Residence:
2024 Fieldstones Artist-In-Residence ANGELA GRAM (MFA 2012)
It’s easy to hold onto expectations from your everyday art practice when making a plan of what to actually achieve on a residency, but Fieldstones is absolutely unique in the sense that immersion in nature offers a completely spontaneous setting. The time here is too short for plans and inspiration arrives where the environment is constantly changing. Mornings here are quiet and mist drapes over the fields. I once opened the barn door and saw two deer fawns sleeping in the ferns just feet away from me.
The absolute highlight of this place was seeing wildlife everywhere, a family of turkeys, the resident groundhog, a blue heron on the river, and of course the ever-present deer. Afternoons brought a shift in energy. Sometimes the wind picked up sending clouds racing, changing the light so quickly I could barely keep up with my painting. Or a sudden rainstorm forced me to grab my canvases and run for shelter. I was free to work until the last light slipped behind the hills or to step away, letting the work be what it is and wander around the woods instead. I enjoyed observing the finest details of wildflowers hiding in the tall grass, delicate and easily overlooked.
I brought small wooden panels and fine brushes for working on a series of miniature paintings no larger than the palm of my hand. The act of painting something so small forced me to slow down and notice every subtle hue and shift in form. I felt a quiet focus in these moments, as if I was capturing something fleeting, an unnoticed beauty that will be gone with the next mowing, the next storm, the next turn of the season. I have so much gratitude for being able to experience this place, a change in perspective, and a chance for creative growth.
- Angela Gram, MFA 2012; Fieldstones AIR 2024
2022 Fieldstones Artist-In-Residence LIZA SOKOLOVSKAYA (MFA 2018)
There is something particularly special when you get to enjoy nature uninterrupted. A multitude of shades of green that change with the light, clouds rolling above you, deer, chipmunks, woodpeckers hiding around, and skies sparkling with stars. For the time of the residency there is a new routine: a favourite spot for reading, find different areas that light up throughout the day as the sun moves, you discover when the swimming hole at its warmest. My time at Fieldstones was spent basking in this slow rhythm and painting the beautiful surroundings. It allowed me to relax body and mind, but work extra hard on capturing landscapes in oil as the light changed. This residency is such a gift, spending time with nature and work lets you soak it all up for later to last you long into the realities of big city life.
- Liza Sokolovskaya, MFA 2018; Fieldstones AIR 2022
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2021 Fieldstones Artist-In-Residence IVY HICKAM (MFA 2013)
In my time spent at Fieldstones I saw summer turn into autumn. My easel set up near an old stone wall, I tried to befriend scolding chipmunks as they gathered nuts before winter, their life depending on it. I was painting like my life depended on it. After a year of unchosen solitude and just getting through the day. Getting through the day at Fieldstones meant meditating on dappled sunlight, listening to the wind sing in tall pines, looking for a woodpecker hunting bugs, laughing at the surprise thud of a treefrog falling on my paint box, running my hand through tall grasses, dipping in the icy creek waters, watching treetops fade in the purple dusk into stars, startling deer in the mist over my morning coffee. And discovering a potential painting around every bend and having to choose where to focus for a few hours because everything is so unbelievably alive and changing, humming, breathing. Unplugged, no news from the outside, just thinking in shape, color, and composition. After more than a year of waiting for the world to be alive again, there were so many trees to paint, and I felt cathartic joy.
- Ivy Hickam, MFA 2013; Fieldstones AIR 2021
2018 Fieldstones Artist-In-Residence ZANE YORK (MFA 2003)
The residency at Fieldstones offered many things I, and most artists, sorely need: a shift in context, a solitary commune, earth, air, flora, and fauna. The chance to walk the fields and forest and to wade the stream are recuperative. Painting en plein air offers a peaceful solemnity; but the nights in the studio barn offered me even more. The solitary light on the canvas giving focus while the sounds of the natural world engulf your periphery - the wind through the trees, the deer rustling in the high grass, the rain on leaves, and a coyote’s howl. My memory of Fieldstones is enchanted and I am very thankful for the experience.
- Zane York, MFA 2003; Fieldstones AIR 2018
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2017 Fieldstones Artist-In-Residence LISA LEBOFSKY (MFA 2006)
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Fieldstones is a unique and special residency. The acres of farmland, woods, and creek allowed for a streamlined existence of reveling in nature with pure art making. There was no shortage of time, beauty, inspiration, and solitude. The setting provided not just physical space, but mental space. This afforded artistic and personal growth through freedom of experimentation, no pressures from day-to-day needs or deadlines, and the pared-down enjoyment of the invigoration nature offers.
- Lisa Lebofsky, MFA 2006; Fieldstones AIR 2017
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