Golden Artist Colors Hosts Upstate Regional Art Residency Forum

On May 20, 2016 Golden Artist Colors hosted its first Upstate Regional Art Residency Forum.  Sixteen representatives from 11 regional upstate New York art residency programs attended the session in an effort to collaborate with one another, share best practices and learn how best to resolve mutual challenges that confront the organizations and their programs. Forum participants also plan to visit one another’s sites in the future, helping to generate new ideas as some programs are still being developed and more clearly defined.

Mark Golden, CEO of Golden Artist Colors and Alliance of Artists Communities Board Member, organized the initiative in an effort to bring support to local art residency programs.  “Our community is rich with art residency programs and tremendous leadership,” said Golden. “However, we can’t experience our greatest success by working in isolation.  Bringing everyone together makes us exponentially stronger.  I’m hopeful that what we’re doing will become a potential model for other Residency clusters throughout the U.S.”

Flannery Patton, the Director of Member Services at The Alliance of Artists Communities joined the forum to help facilitate the regional meeting.  The Alliance is an association of artist residencies around the world which advocates and supports these residencies that provide individual artists the time and space to explore, to take risks and create new works.  Patton shared, “We are thrilled that the Upstate New York area has an incredible wealth of these residency resources to allow for this exciting exchange of creative ideas and insights regarding how to support one another’s efforts.”

Art Residency organizations represented at the forum included:

• Sam & Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts (SAGF), New Berlin
• Aunt Karen’s Farm, Mt. Vision
• Saltonstall Arts Colony, Ithaca
• Sculpture Space, Utica
• The Horned Dorset Colony, Leonardsville
• Range Studio, Clermont
• Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, Cazenovia
• Residency 108, Clermont
• Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, Woodstock
• Writers & Books / The Gell Center of the Finger Lakes, Rochester
• The Post Contemporary, Troy

The agenda included tours of Golden Artist Colors and the Sam & Adele Golden Foundation Residence.  Discussions focused on the group sharing insights on topics of developing strategic plans and tools to integrate the organizations into their communities. A tour of the Horned Dorset Colony Residence was in the afternoon followed by dinner at the Horned Dorset Restaurant.

For more information about this initiative, contact Alliance of Artists Communities at www.artistcommunities.org.  To learn about Golden Artist Colors, visit www.goldenpaints.com. Details about the Sam & Adele Foundation Residence program can be found at www.goldenfoundation.org.