JEFFERSON — Applications for the 2018 artist residencies at the Joseph A. Fiore Art Center at Rolling Acres Farm are available.

Over the course of the summer the center will host six visual art residencies (five for Maine artists, one of which is reserved for an indigenous Maine artist; and one for an out-of-state or international artist), one performing arts residency, and one writing residency. There also will be a seasonal position for a resident gardener with an affinity for the arts, according to a news release from the center.

Anne Alexander, artist in residence September 2017, pointing out work in her studio at an Open Studio Day. Contributed photo

Ariel Hall

Stuart Kestenbaum

Those interested should visit www.mainefarmlandtrust.org for more information and application details.

This will be the third summer the center has offered a residency program. David Dewey and Anna Witholt Abaldo, co-directors at the center, will work with a jury panel.

“Because we are introducing a different writing residency this year, and a completely new performing arts residency, we searched for professionals with experience in these fields who also possess a strong visual arts background,” said Abaldo, according to the release.

Ariel Hall was invited to the panel with an eye on the performing arts residency. Hall is a multi-disciplinary artist working mainly in performance and installation. She has shown her work at La MaMa, Panoply Performance Lab, the Culture Project, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, and in the streets of New York City and Sao Paulo, among other locales and venues.

Stuart Kestenbaum is the author of four collections of poems, “Pilgrimage” (Coyote Love Press), “House of Thanksgiving” (Deerbrook Editions), “Prayers and Run-on Sentences” (Deerbrook Editions), and “Only Now” (Deerbrook Editions) and a collection of essays, “The View From Here” (Brynmorgen Press). He was appointed poet laureate of Maine in 2016.

Susan C. Larsen, Ph.D., is executive director of the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation in Portland. She is an art historian and critic who was formerly Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California, curator of the Permanent Collection at the Whitney Museum of American Art, chief curator of The Farnsworth Art Museum, and collector of documents for the Smithsonian Institution.

During the summer of 2017, six visual artists, one writer/archeologist and one gardener/artist lived and worked together at the center. The results of their creative residencies were enjoyed by visitors to the center’s monthly Open Studio Days. Eliza Graumlich (a young writer from Bowdoin College) and Susan Metzger (photographer) interviewed each resident to capture their process and experience at the Fiore Art Center.

For more information, visit www.mainefarmlandtrust.org.

The mission of the Joseph A. Fiore Art Center at Rolling Acres Farm is to actively connect the creative worlds of farming and art making. The center’s purpose is to continue and evolve the dialogue between human and environment within the context of our current culture and time. It offers exhibitions and public educational events, it engages in research and development of new farming practices and hosts residencies for artists on a working farm in Jefferson. The Fiore Art Center is a program of Maine Farmland Trust. The late Joseph Fiore was an artist and active environmentalist who, with his wife Mary, generously supported Maine Farmland Trust for many years.

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