Millay Arts

Last updated

Sign .jpg

Millay Arts, formerly the Millay Colony for the Arts, is an arts community offering residency-retreats and workshops in Austerlitz, New York, and free arts programs in local public schools. Housed on the former property of feminist/activist poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay, the Colony's campus offers residencies, retreats, and classes.

Contents

Millay Arts' Vincent is an annual journal featuring highlights of Art-in-Residence. [1]

History

MillayColonyBarn.jpg

In 1925, Edna St. Vincent Millay bought Steepletop , a house with a blueberry farm in Austerlitz, NY, named after a pink, conical wildflower that grows there. [2] With her husband, Millay built a barn from a Sears Roebuck kit, and then a writing cabin, and a tennis court.

After the poet's death in 1950, her sister Norma Millay Ellis moved to Steepletop. In 1973, she founded The Millay Colony, which was established as a nonprofit organization. [3] Norma Millay Ellis donated the barn and surrounding acreage to The Millay Colony. The barn was subsequently renovated to provide accommodations and studio space for four resident artists.

In the mid-1990s, The Millay Colony commissioned architectural firm Michael Singer Studio, in consultation with an advisory committee of six artists with disabilities, to design an additional building for the Colony using the principles of universal access and environmentally friendly design. [4]

This 3,550 square foot building currently houses The Millay Colony's offices and public rooms, and provides accommodations and studio space.

The house and gardens are a National Historic Landmark.

Notable residents

[5] [6] [7]

Composing

Fiction

Non-fiction

Playwriting

Poetry

Screenwriting

Visual arts

Footnotes

  1. "Vincent". Millay Arts. Retrieved February 19, 2024.
  2. The New York Times, May 16, 1986.
  3. "Millay Farm Becoming an Arts Colony," The New York Times, February 20, 1974.
  4. "An Artists' Retreat Is Extending Its Welcome," New York Times, October 3, 1996.
  5. Koblenz, Eleanor. "Time is Great Blessing of Millay Colony". Daily Gazette.
  6. "Millay Colony for the Arts - Issue 12". Millay Newsletter.
  7. "Millay Colony for the Arts - Issue 11". Millay Newsletter.
  8. Where Big Books Are Born: Danez Smith on the Millay Colony" Poets & Writers, March/April 2018

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edna St. Vincent Millay</span> American poet (1892–1950)

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of her prose and hackwork verse under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art colony</span> Place where artists live and interact with each other

Art colonies are organic congregations of artists in towns, villages and rural areas, who are often drawn to areas of natural beauty, the prior existence of other artists, art schools there, or a lower cost of living. They are typically mission-driven planned communities, which administer a formal process for awarding artist residencies. A typical mission might include providing artists with the time, space, and support to create, fostering community among artists, and providing arts education, including lectures and workshops.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Austerlitz, New York</span> Town in New York, United States

Austerlitz is a town in Columbia County, New York, United States. The population was 1,625 at the 2020 census. The town was named after the Battle of Austerlitz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orrick Glenday Johns</span> American poet

Orrick Glenday Johns was an American poet and playwright. He was one of the earliest modernist free-verse poets in Greenwich Village in 1913-1915 and associated with the artist's colony at Grantwood, New Jersey, where Others: A Magazine of the New Verse was founded and published by Alfred Kreymborg in 1915. Johns's work "Olives," a series of fourteen small poems appeared in the first issue of July 1915. He is part of a coterie of poets and authors sometimes called the "Others" group who were contributors to the magazine or residents at the colony and included: William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, Mina Loy, Ezra Pound, Conrad Aiken, Carl Sandburg, T. S. Eliot, Amy Lowell, H.D., Djuna Barnes, Man Ray, Skipwith Cannell, Lola Ridge, Marcel Duchamp, and Fenton Johnson (poet). Johns is also associated with poets like Vachel Lindsay and Sara Teasdale. and the dramatist Zoe Akins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bennington College</span> Liberal arts college in Vermont

Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont, United States. Founded as a women’s college in 1932, it became co-educational in 1969. It is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.

MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The program was founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell Colony or "The Colony", but its board of directors shortened the name to remove "terminology with oppressive overtones".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Hall</span> American writer

Donald Andrew Hall Jr. was an American poet, writer, editor, and literary critic. He was the author of over 50 books across several genres from children's literature, biography, memoir, essays, and including 22 volumes of verse. Hall was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard, and Oxford. Early in his career, he became the first poetry editor of The Paris Review (1953–1961), the quarterly literary journal, and was noted for interviewing poets and other authors on their craft.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Oliver</span> American poet (1935–2019)

Mary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. She found inspiration for her work in nature and had a lifelong habit of solitary walks in the wild. Her poetry is characterized by a sincere wonderment and profound connection with the environment, conveyed in unadorned language and simple yet striking imagery. In 2007, she was declared to be the country's best-selling poet.

Millay may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Murray (artist)</span> American painter

Elizabeth Murray was an American painter, printmaker and draughtsman. Her works are in many major public collections, including those of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Wadsworth Atheneum. Murray was known for her use of shaped canvases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steepletop</span> Historic house in New York, United States

Steepletop, also known as the Edna St. Vincent Millay House, was the farmhouse home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay and her husband Eugen Jan Boissevain, in Austerlitz, New York, United States. Her former home and gardens are maintained by the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society, a nonprofit organization that also holds the rights to the poet's intellectual property. Steepletop was declared a National Historic Landmark on November 11, 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Milford</span> American biographer (1938–2022)

Nancy Lee Milford was an American biographer. She was noted for her biographies on Zelda Fitzgerald and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

A bibliography of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia Center for the Creative Arts</span> Private school

The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) is a residential artist community in Amherst, Virginia, USA. Since 1971, VCCA has offered residencies of varying lengths with flexible scheduling for international artists, writers, and composers at its working retreat in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. VCCA is among the nation's largest artist residency programs, and since 2004, has also offered workshops and retreats at its studio center in Southwest France, Le Moulin à Nef.

Carol Diehl is an American artist, art critic and poet. In addition to her writing, most recently appearing in her blog Art Vent, she is best known for her paintings, which have often documented daily life in a manner described as diaristic, even compulsive, using dense, painterly, often indecipherable words, numbers and symbols in grid or geometric frameworks. Diehl has also been a prolific art critic, having contributed features and reviews to numerous periodicals, including Art in America, ARTnews, and Art + Auction, as well as to books and artist catalogues. In the 1990s, she became active in New York's performance poetry scene. Diehl lives in New York City and southwestern Massachusetts. She has two sons, Matt Diehl and Adam Diehl.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">75½ Bedford Street</span> Building in Manhattan, New York

75½ Bedford Street is a house located in the West Village neighborhood of New York City that is only 9 feet 6 inches wide. Built in 1873, it is often described as the narrowest house in New York. Its past tenants have included Edna St. Vincent Millay, author Ann McGovern, cartoonist William Steig and anthropologist Margaret Mead. It is sometimes referred to as the Millay House, indicated by a plaque on the outside of the house. The house is located in the Greenwich Village Historic District, but is not an individually designated New York City Landmark.

"Renascence" is a 1912 poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, credited with introducing her to the wider world, and often considered one of her finest poems.

The Djerassi Artists Residency, also known as the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, is an artists and writers residency in Woodside, California. The residency sits on a 583-acre ranch with a 12-sided cattle barn converted into artist studios. Djerassi hosts 10 to 12 artists at a time for its month-long residencies, from March to November. The facilities include lodging with chef-prepared weekday dinners, living quarters, the Artists’ Barn and Old Barn. Djerassi is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains less than 40 miles south of San Francisco and overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Since Djerassi began, it has provided over 2500 residencies to visual artists, composers, choreographers, media artists, writers and scientists from all 50 states and 54 countries. In addition Djerassi Hiking Program provides public access to the property and has expanded to include private hikes and specialty excursions, such as the five-hour Walking Meditation & Sound Immersion Experience. The annual Open House/Open Studios allowed visitors to explore the facilities, go on sculpture tours, meet the artists and enjoy performances. The mission statement for the program has a dual mission: to enhance the creativity of artists through the residency program and to preserve the land on which the program is situated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norma Millay</span> American actress (1894–1986)

Norma Millay was an American singer and actress, and sister of the poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay. Born in Rockland, Maine to Cora Lounella Buzelle and Henry Tolman Millay, Norma Millay was one of three sisters who were all, due to their parents’ divorce, brought up by their mother. Having been a writer of poetry herself, Cora Millay ensured the presence of art and music in the Millay household, which became a vital part of the upbringing of the three sisters. Norma Millay would go on to perform with the Provincetown Players and appear on Broadway. She married painter and actor Charles Ellis, but did not use his surname.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autumn Knight</span> American artist

Autumn Knight is an American interdisciplinary artist working with performance, installation, and text from Houston, Texas who lives and works in New York City.

References

42°19′17.22″N73°26′28.79″W / 42.3214500°N 73.4413306°W / 42.3214500; -73.4413306