It is always amazing to witness the transformation that takes place
as 24 Pearl Street emerges from the quiet intensity of the Winter Fellowship Program to embrace the bustling and equally intense Summer Workshop Program. In May, the Center becomes a hive swarming with activity. A focused and hard-working staff led by Buildings and Grounds Manager Dan Towler springs into action, cleaning, painting, testing computer equipment, moving tools and tables, presses and printers. In a matter of weeks, the Fine
Arts Work Center is turned into a small college, with classrooms, visual arts studios, a print room, a darkroom, a computer lab and a digital lab.
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.
Each summer the Program attracts a greater number of students, and new classes are designed to accommodate their changing needs. Nearly 800 students attended workshops this past
season. First-time faculty, including C.D. Wright, Gish Jen, and Constantine Manos, joined perennial favorites such as Grace Paley and Michael Mazur to offer a full range of interesting and challenging courses. Students eager to explore digital composition and manipulation were able to avail themselves of a new digital lab (equipped through generous grants from MIT, Barnstable County Commissioners through the Cape Cod Economic Development Council, and Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank), and two new classes: Photoshop Techniques with Mary Ann O'Toole and Digital Imaging with Rick Sammon.
Along with classes, the Work Center hosts faculty readings and slide talks, student readings and open studios, exhibitions in the Hudson D. Walker Gallery, and special events throughout the summer. In Summer 2002, there was something happening nearly every evening. The
roster of readings and slide talks by faculty was impressive; often writers and visual artists paired to present their work, opening dialogue across genre and media. Readings and talks by a number of guests, including novelists Sue Miller, Robert Parker, and William Kennedy, and poets Gerald Stern and Robert Pinsky, filled the Common Room. Michael Cunningham read from Land's End, his new book about Provincetown. In the Hudson D. Walker Gallery, the outstanding line-up included exhibitions by Louise Bourgeois, Salvatore and Josephine Del Deo, and the 2002 Visual Jury composed of Nayland Blake, Ellen Gallagher, and Lisa Yuskavage.
Summer 2003 promises to be just as exciting and event-filled. William O'Rourke and David
St. John will join the prestigious list of faculty. Norman Mailer and Alice Hoffman are slated to read in the Common Room. The schedule for the Hudson D. Walker Gallery boasts a
number of significant exhibitions, including a two-person show featuring the works of Board members Michael Mazur and Gil Franklin, and another highlighting the careers of Philip Malicoat and Jim Forsberg. An exhibition of works by the 2003 Visual Arts Jury, and a former Visual Arts Fellows show, curated by former Visual Arts Fellow, Bert Yarborough, are also planned.
For more information about the Summer Workshop Program and special events, please check our
website at www.FAWC.org.
SUMMER WORKSHOP SCHOLARSHIPS
The Fine Arts Work Center has been fortunate in receiving funds that allow the Center to offer several scholarships to students attending the Summer Workshop Program.
Past funders include the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, which provided twenty scholarships to educators from the state of New Jersey, and the Bertha H. and Hudson D. Walker Foundation, which provided eighteen scholarships to students of racial or ethnic minorities.
In memory of poet Agha Shahid Ali, we offer a full-tuition scholarship to a poet whose work would benefit from time at the Work Center.
If you would like to help fund FAWC scholarships, please contact Education Coordinator Dorothy Antczak at 508-487-9960, ext. 103.
