Williamstown, home of the Creative Capital Artist Retreat
The fabulous Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City is tweeting and blogging from our 2012 Artist Retreat! You can follow her on Twitter at @artfagcity, and we’ll be reposting from her blog here.
Not two hours into the Creative Capital Retreat presentations this morning, Beyonce and Jay-Z were name-checked as evidence of the cultural influence Creative Capital artists have on culture. It turns out that their child, Blue Ivy, was named after an essay by grantee Rebecca Solnit. While Creative Capital President Ruby Lerner was quick to concede that the organization had not entertained the idea that they might lure the couple out to the retreat, she did offer other Creative Capital project titles as resource for any future babies. E-Team’s “If the Dancing Gets Too Stiff, The Rain Must Get Dug Out As Ice-Cubes” is my pick for their next child’s name.
Lerner mentioned this in a brief talk encouraging donors to support the organization, though it’s the artist presentations that most substantially demonstrate the value of the organization. Notably, of the twenty presentations I’ve seen thus far, I have not seen one talk I thought was less than professional.
I have however responded especially well to a few of the presentations. The posts that follow will single out some of the talks I enjoyed most and explain why I enjoyed the work. I will also talk about the conference itself; what I think works and doesn’t. Let’s get started!
[Editor’s note: I am Arts Writer’s grant recipient and have been invited by the Creative Capital Foundation to blog from their retreat this year. I have received a small stipend for my work.]