From the Former Fellows

	Creating is lonely, passionate (and thirsty) work. You spend days and nights working in a studio and eventually you have to run out (screaming!?) and get away from it all. The life-saving situation of having a compeer, a compatriot to run into and bounce off of (have a drink with) is invaluable. The synergy this community provides can sustain your creative life through the worst and magnify and celebrate the best. And as if that itself wasn't enough, there is the opportunity to experience the luminaries and geniuses that comprise the greater community of artists and writers attracted here through programs and events. It all happens because of the Fine Arts Work Center. Bill Evaul Visual Arts Fellow 1970-1972
	Grace Paley said, & I might be misquoting, that it takes "a long time between knowing and telling." I think it also takes a long time between having and knowing. Only by not being at FAWC have I realized how important FAWC was to my writing, how essential to my words. Hearing the painters put up canvas frames, meeting the writers at dinner, I was enlivened to think, respond, be awake. To state it more simply, at the Work Center, I wrote. I had no idea how lucky I was, what a gift was Provincetown & FAWC. Indira Ganesan Writing Fellow 1984
	The Work Center gave me the space/time-ammunition to hit back at whatever had hurt me into writing. There was room-to-noise, lyrical, critical and otherwise. I used the walls of the barn and the piers of Provincetown. No other place has such Big Paper. Thomas Sayers Ellis Writing Fellow 1995
	My fellowship year at FAWC was like balm for my jangled psyche. It gave me the gifts of shelter and time, complete luxuries. I was able to start a new book, to follow my thoughts and ideas to their ends and concentrate on craft. I was part of a warm, vibrant community of staff and peers whose friendship and support has followed me wherever I've gone. Each time I visit, I feel like I'm coming home. Katherine Whitcomb Writing Fellow 2000
	It was good to be away, out of the "art world." Back to the core of what drives me. No distractions. Only concentration. P-town made me see color again in a new way. I can't explain it any clearer. And that caused a change in my work. It looks like the famous North Atlantic light also had its influence on my work and on me as a person. I got a grant in the Netherlands by showing work I made at the Work Center. I value maybe most the contact I had with the oysters and everybody I met through the Work Center. Fortunately everybody attached to the Work Center, either Fellow, employee, member, or friend was infected with some kind of nice free-minded craziness. And that is a must for any artist to work in. Esther Jiskoot Visual Arts Fellow 2000
Former Fellows News The Former Fellows News shares the latest information on current projects, activities and accomplishments of the Fine Arts Work Center's many former Visual Arts, Writing, Senior, and Collaborative Residency Fellows. The newsletter is printed annually, usually in the fall, and incorporates information sent to the Work Center by former Fellows. It is also now posted on our website (www.fawc.org) in the Winter Fellowship section. If you would like a copy mailed to you let the Work Center office know. We'd be happy to send one out to you. To the former Fellows: Please send any information you'd like us to print to Jen Rumpza (jrumpza@fawc.org). We'd love to know where you are, what you've been up to, and what good news we can share.