Summer and Fall Workshops

The weeklong and weekend workshops offered through the Summer Program extend the Work Center’s spirit of inspiration and stimulation to artists and writers from across the country and from all walks of life. It continues to be one of the most extensive and prestigious programs of its kind in the nation. Encouraged by the creative intensity and supportive community that makes the Work Center such a unique environment, students turned out some amazing work, which they shared on Thursday evenings in open studios and student readings.

Summer 2004 marked the 9th year of summer program workshops at FAWC. Of the 100 classes originally scheduled, 91 workshops in creative writing and the visual arts were attended by an average enrollment of 8 students per class (each class is limited to 10 students). Many new faculty members, including Cornelius Eady, Sarah Ruhl, Alice Mattison, Galway Kinnell, Bill Arning, Tom Knechtel, Meena Alexander, and Alex and Becky Webb, joined the existing roster of accomplished and renowned instructors.

The Summer Program kicked off the season a bit early with a May reading at the Barnes & Noble in Hyannis featuring faculty members Heidi Jon Schmidt, Nick Flynn and Amy Bloom. Throughout the summer, more than 60 readings, slide talks and special events kept the Stanley Kunitz Common Room buzzing, attracting over 7,000 people and making the Fine Arts Work Center the place to be on a summer evening. The Summer Program Reading Series, sponsored by the Provincetown Banner, often paired writers and visual artists, opening dialogue across genre and media. Highlights included readings and presentations by perennial favorites Grace Paley, Robert Pinsky, Sonia Sanchez, Michael Mazur, Constantine Manos, and Kate Clinton, and by new additions to the Summer Program faculty such as Elizabeth Alexander, André Gregory, Donald Antrim, Cornelius Eady, Chris Killip, and Louise Hamlin. A slide lecture by Robert Bridges, "Blanche Lazzell, American Modernist," surveyed the career of Provincetown’s famous white line printer. Writer/director Steven Shainberg screened his prize-winning film Secretary and led a lively Q&A after the show. Norman Mailer conducted an afternoon-long Creative Writing Symposium, drawing a huge crowd eager to get advice from the Master; Norman generously donated all proceeds to benefit the Work Center. Short-story virtuoso Arturo Vivante read from his newest collection Solitude and Other Stories, and renowned artist Joan Snyder gave a moving slide lecture retrospective of her work.

The Hudson D. Walker Gallery also presented an impressive schedule of events in Summer 2004. An exhibition by 2003 Maryland Institute Fellow Ormond White opened the season in May, followed by the annual Former Fellows show, curated this year by Kimberley Hart. Spectacular featured the work of Visual Arts Fellows from the fellowship years 1999-2000 & 2000-2001, including Ellen Altfest, Mala Iqbal, Portia Munson, Rob Nadeau, Katherine Shozawa, Kimberly Varella, Rachel White, Eric Conrad, Mary Jane Dean, Jenny Humphreys, Esther Jiskoot, Hans Van Meeuwen, Victoria Neel and Ayae Takahashi. The Visual Arts Jury Exhibition featured the work of 2004 jurors Mildred Howard, Tim Woodman, and Stephen Westfall. Leon Golub and Nancy Spero, who received the 2003 FAWC Distinguished Service in the Arts Award for their continued generosity to young artists, combined their work in an exhibition exploring themes of sexuality and power. Another couple, artists Robert Henry and Selina Trieff, also joined for a two-person exhibition featuring recent work. A documentary, Their Lives in Art: Robert Henry and Selina Trieff, by filmmakers Robert and Marjory Potts, complemented the exhibition. The prolific 2004 Ohio Arts Council Fellow Julie Friedman packed the gallery with drawings, prints, and book arts she completed during her Work Center residency. Award-winning photographer Constantine Manos’s amazing large-scale, saturated-color photographs drew large crowds of admirers; he generously donated two of the photographs from the show to the new Provincetown Theater. The OCARC Exhibition, featuring works by artists selected by the Outer Cape Artists Residency Consortium, ended the season with a show celebrating the creativity inspired by the windswept landscape of the Provincetown dunes.

Summer 2005 promises to be just as exciting and event-filled. Franz Wright, Sharon Olds, Robert Creeley, George Nick, Julia Glass, Martin Espada, Sven Birkerts and E. Ethelbert Miller will join the prestigious list of faculty and will present their work in the Stanley Kunitz Common Room during their teaching weeks. The schedule for the Hudson D. Walker Gallery includes a number of significant exhibitions, including a solo show by 2004 Maryland Institute Fellow Desmond Beach, and the annual Former Fellows and Visual Arts Jury Exhibitions. An exhibition of art from Cuba will feature the work of 2002 Phoenix Foundation Fellow Sandra Ramos, Lázaro Saavedra—who was prevented from traveling to the US to serve his residency—and others including Jacqueline and Yamelis Brito Jorge, Jóse Angel Toirac, and Abel Barroso. A photography show by Marnie Samuelson will bring Stanley Kunitz and his garden into the Hudson D. Walker Gallery, and the OCARC Show will again close the summer schedule.

The Fall Workshop Program runs for six weekends from early October to mid-November. Classes are held at the Veterans Memorial Elementary School and the Patrick Warehouse studios, and Provincetown school system faculty, staff, and high school seniors are invited to participate in the workshop program free of charge, cultivating a bond with the Provincetown community. This year classes were extended to accommodate student’s wishes for more workshop time; weekends were infused with a concentrated intensity. The faculty was culled from the Summer Program roster, and included long-time favorites Liz Rosenberg, Selina Trieff, Michael Klein, Joel Janowitz, Cathy Bowman, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Linda Bond, Bert Yarborough, Cleopatra Mathis, Cynthia Huntington, Gerry Bergstein, Frank Gaspar, Mark Wunderlich, Olga Broumas, Jim Peters, and David Gates. New to the Fall Program, Nick Flynn, Stuart Shils, Elizabeth Strout, Brenda Horowitz, Katherine Vaz, and Marty Epp were very popular and provided additional creative energy. Students and faculty alike enjoyed Saturday evening receptions generously sponsored by the Mews Restaurant, followed by readings and slide talks in the Stanley Kunitz Common Room.