A Studio in the Woods is excited to announce our
2010-2011 Changing Landscapes Artists-in-Residence

Changing Landscapes are 6-week residencies based on the premise that Southern Louisiana can be seen as a microcosm of the global environment, manifesting both the challenges and possibilities inherent in human interaction with the natural world. We ask artists to describe in detail how the region will affect their work, to propose a public component to their residency and to suggest ways in which they will engage with the local community. Changing Landscapes Residencies are sponsored  in part thanks to generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts.

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William Cordova (Lima,Peru, September 27th - November 5th 2010) envisions two aspects of his project. In preserving the spillage he plans to document and preserve traces of displaced and erased histories within the rich in New Orleans landscape. The other half of his project, in our life time, will focus on creating ephemeral monuments through 16MM films of secular sacred spaces/landmark locations within Louisiana history and folklore. This project proposes an alternative to State or City approved monuments of Civil War Generals by using cinematic monument of Black and First Nation’s people’s contributions in Louisiana.

Eric Dallimore (Denver, CO, November 9^th - December 19^th 2010) plans to produce an installation piece, a living public sculpture in the form of a pipeline, not a metal pipe carrying oil, but instead a zigzagging pipeline composed of entirely organic matter, housing a collection of seeds. The Pipeline will slither across the land, visually representing man’s destructive force of oil exploration on our Gulf coast, our wetlands and our forests. The pipeline will be engineered to intentionally burst at the seams using the wind and heavy rains to release the seeds onto the ground below and the pipeline itself will be entirely composed of organic materials to fertilize and germinate the seeds, raising new life from the saturated earth below. www.ericdallimore.com

Bernard Williams (Chicago, IL, January 18^th – February 27^th 2011) often works with a jigsaw and found wood.His sculptures use symbols and words to form the surface of the object. For his project in New Orleans, he plans to build a temporary structure blending architecture with the natural structure of plant forms and forces of nature. The work will be informed by research of rebuilt, un-built, and newly-built places through conversations with local individuals connected to building and designing. This would include local architects, artists, historians, various designers, lay builders, and others.

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We have also  offered a two-week Special Invitation Residency to Pulitzer-nominated documentary photographer and editor Alex Harris (Durham, NC, Dates TBA) Harris who will be completing a book in collaboration with ecologist E.O. Wilson who won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize in general non-fiction. They envision a new hybrid literary and visual form that is part memoir, part documentary, and part social and natural history connecting the insights and the important questions of science to the intuition and metaphorical power of art. alex-harris.com

Times Picayune, June 4, 2010

Click HERE for the article on NOLA.com

Because the center exists primarily to preserve the surrounding bottomland hardwood forest and to give artists-in-residence a peaceful setting in which to work, A Studio in the Woods is known primarily as a quiet, sparsely occupied place that seems to blend into the landscape. On Saturday, however, the studio will open itself up to an unprecedented degree with its inaugural FORESTival, a fundraiser and celebration of nature and the arts.

Aside from its spring and fall open houses and children’s summer day camps, “the studio is private a lot of the time,” said Ama Rogan, managing director for A Studio in the Woods. “There really are not a lot of opportunities for the public to come out and see what we do, see the buildings and the forest.”

The private nature, though, belies the supremely welcoming spirit of the Carmichaels, who have hosted countless friends, artists and other visitors at the site long before A Studio in the Woods was founded. The couple bought the 7.66-acre property in 1968 after picnicking on the levee and noticing a “for sale” sign nailed to a pecan tree by the road.

With help from their friends and a lot of patience, the Carmichaels built their house over eight years, using mostly salvaged materials and without cutting down any trees on the property. They filled the home with art – from their travels and their friends. At the same time, Lucianne Carmichael hosted groups of schoolchildren to visit the forest.

“Here I learned the amazing effects of the natural world on the often-troubled children of a bereft city neighborhood,” she wrote in an outreach letter for Tulane University, to which the Carmichaels donated the estate in 2004. “They became happy, giggling, singing, laughing children. It was a huge learning experience for me, the teachers and parents to witness such a powerful example of the human relationship to the natural world, the wise and caring parent of all living creatures.”

Since its founding, A Studio in the Woods has hosted artists from around the world. Its Restoration Residencies after Hurricane Katrina were offered to New Orleans artists, musicians and writers to escape from the tumult of post-storm life. Currently, the studio has a call open for its Changing Landscapes residency series, which aims to select artists who focus on “ecological and environmental issues as they are manifested here in southern Louisiana,” Rogan said.

“What was so interesting to me about (the Restoration) Residencies is that every single one of those artists, without even realizing it, were so inspired and healed by the natural environment, and it showed in their work,” she said. “It was such a powerful metaphor for how the natural environment was restoring itself after the storm.”

Saturday’s festival will highlight the work of past artists-in-residence, with presentations from writer Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, sculptor Jane Hill and poet Raymond “Moose” Jackson.

ArtSpot Productions, performance troupe Mondo Bizarro and actor Nick Slie will present an excerpt of the 2009 play “Loup Garou,” in which Slie plays the titular Cajun werewolf and uses the story of his transformation as an allegory about the destruction of coastal wetlands.

Botanist Dave Baker will lead groups on tours of the woods, and music will be provided by the Panorama Jazz Band and Beth Turner and friends. Food from Slice Pizzeria and Juan’s Flying Burrito will be for sale.

Rogan said that, aside from giving the public an opportunity to visit this woodland retreat, A Studio in the Woods hopes to offer people an ecological antidote to the current environmental crisis unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, where a massive oil leak sprung after a BP oil rig explosion April 20 has sent hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil into Gulf waters.

“In times of crisis like this, it’s always important to be in community,” she said. “This is a way that is celebratory to connect with the natural environment. It’s about … how we as humans can interpret and respect the natural environment.”