What would it be like to be able to make a real difference in another person’s life? Sylvia “Hawthorne” Bowman is about to find out. Thanks to Hawthorne’s generosity, Rowe is pleased to announce The May Tree Residency for Women in the Arts.What would it be like to be able to make a real difference in another person’s life? Sylvia “Hawthorne” Bowman is about to find out. Thanks to Hawthorne’s generosity, Rowe is pleased to announce The May Tree Residency for Women in the Arts.
Inspired by women who made a difference in her life, Hawthorne decided to create an opportunity for a woman to reach her creative potential. The purpose of the residency is to provide space, time, and a nurturing environment for a woman to contribute to the world’s cultural life through her talent. The residency is intended to provide an opportunity for one artist to pursue her creative goal. Each year one woman will be chosen to live and work at Rowe to pursue her passion, whether that be visual arts, music, literature, poetry, or any other artistic pursuit.
Hawthorne has been a member of Rowe Camp and Conference Center since the early 80s and has been attending Rowe’s WomenCircles for over twenty years. A graduate of Vassar, a Fulbright scholar, a union organizer, and a lifetime political activist, she is highly intelligent and well read. A woman of strength, warmth, and compassion, she spent her lifetime making sure the strength and power of women were celebrated. Her generosity and vision for the May Tree Residency is a reflection of the values she has lived by throughout her life.
Hawthorne’s donation is providing funding for the residency as well as funding to winterize the art room, so it can become a studio that can be used in all weather, providing . It is Hawthorne’s hope that this program will inspire others to help create a May Tree Endowment in order to keep the residency funded over time.
We welcome donations to the May Tree Artist in Residence Endowment to sustain the program in Hawthorne’s memory for year’s to come. To make a donation, please click here.
Eligibility:
One woman will be selected to live and work at Rowe from September 15th through June 15th. Applicants in any of the arts will be considered.
Description:
Rowe will provide housing, studio space, and a stipend of $250 a month to the selected artist, who will reside at Rowe as an active member of the community. She will be expected to participate in all of the responsibilities shared by the staff, such as meal preparation, KP rotations, participation in the intern project, and a weekly work assignment (totaling about 8 hours per week). The rest of her time, she will be free to focus on her creative pursuits.
Selection:
Proposals will be accepted through May 15th and should include a cover letter explaining why the applicant should be selected and how she would use the quiet surroundings and a block of uninterrupted time to pursue a creative goal. The proposal should also include a concise description of the work she intends to do and samples of her work, as well as four letters of reference: two personal and two professional. Selection criteria includes the practicality of accommodating the artist’s particular discipline.
Applications can be sent to Rowe Camp and Conference Center, May Tree Residency Program, P.O. Box 273, Rowe, MA 01367, no later than May 15th.
At the beginning of September, Eileen Lucas moved to Rowe to be the first May Tree Artist in Residence. Eileen is a tactile and whimsical fabric artist who sees fabric as a blank canvas. Her vision is “to study the natural design of plants, trees, rocks, clouds, etc., and bring its essence onto fabric by dye, paint, stamp, or stitch. Then in all its glory, design into garments or quilts.” Rowe is a wonderful place to find inspiration from the natural world.
During her time at Rowe, Eileen has completed several quilts and watercolors and has pursued her artistic passion, taking classes in felting, participating in the conference License to Create with Shawn McNiff, attending watercolor classes with Walt Cudnohofsky, taking a quilting intensive with the renowned quilter Ruth McDowell, and she will be co-leading a conference in quilting here at Rowe in May.
Eileen has immersed herself not only in the RC&CC community, but in the local community as well. Over the winter she completed several quilts that she donated to residents of local nursing homes, joined the local fiber club, and put food baskets together in a monthly service project, rented a home here, and will be enrolling in the art program at Greenfield Community College in the Fall.
The May Tree Artist in Residence Program was the vision of Sylvia May Smith Bowman, known to us as Hawthorne. The purpose is to provide space, time, and a nurturing environment for a woman to contribute to the world’s cultural life through her talent.
Sadly, Hawthorne died in 2008 at the age of 82. A brilliant, warm, and strong, articulate woman, she studied art in Italy on the first Fulbright Scholarship granted to a Vassar graduate. She spent her life making sure the strengths and powers of women were not hidden. A member of Rowe since the early 80s, she attended WomenCircles for over twenty years, where she was honored as an Ancient Crone. She would have been very pleased to see how her vision played out for Eileen.
Hawthorne’s gift of $30,000 provided funding to insulate the art room and install heating to create a studio that could be used year round. In addition, it provided for the cost of meals and housing and a stipend for the artist in residence. Her sister, Janet Wheeler of Maryland, an artist herself, donated an additional $20,000 given in Hawthorne’s memory. Hawthorne’s hope was to provide the initial funding for the residency and to inspire others to add to the fund in order to sustain it. Donations may be made on line here.
This year the May Tree Residency was awarded to Trish Kile of Shelburne, Vermont.
Trish is an abstract artist who works in mixed media, including watercolor, acrylic, and collage. She sees her time at Rowe as a chance to throw herself into the creative process in a way that hasn’t before been possible. She is interested in producing a series of three bodies of work, using the themes of the environment’s elements, the four directions, and images from mythology. If time allows, she may do a fourth, focusing on social issues about war and its impact on veterans. Trish’s goal is to achieve her full artistic potential, away from the busyness of work and life. You can see samples of her work at www.trishkileartworkstudio.net.
The May Tree Artist in Residence Program provides space, time, and a nurturing environment for a woman to contribute to the world’s cultural life through her talent. It was made possible through a gift from the late Sylvia “Hawthorne” Bowman.
We welcome donations to the May Tree Artist in Residence Endowment to sustain the program in Hawthorne’s memory for year’s to come. To make a donation, please click here.