Welcome to VCCA's community newsletter focused on keeping Fellows, staff, and supporters connected.

August greetings to our Fellows and friends. A big deadline is just over a month away! Applications for Summer 2023 residencies at Mt. San Angelo in Virginia close on September 15, along with applications for the 2023 residency season at Le Moulin à Nef in France and for two 2023 international exchange programs.

We're proud of the current offering of fully-funded fellowships for this application period, including another round of 50th Anniversary Fellowships for Artists of Color, the new Christina Chiu AAPI Writers Fellowship, the SSG & AC Edwards Fellowship for Native American visual artists and female-identifying visual artists, the Maryland Institute College of Art Fellowship, the Richard S. and Julia Louise Reynolds Poetry Fellowship, the Anne Spencer Fellowship for composers of African American descent, and the new The Spiral Shell Fellowship for VCCA Fellows who are writers applying to Le Moulin à Nef.

In today's newsletter, we invite you to the next edition of our virtual Fireplace Series, share a call for new Fellows Council members, revel in the special summertime magic of our residency programs in Virginia and abroad, share information on residency opportunities, and pass along news from VCCA Fellows.

Save the date for Thursday, August 18! Donna R. Charging and Millian Giang Pham, two 2022 recipients of VCCA’s SSG & AC Edwards Fellowship, will present their work in a virtual event that will livestream to Facebook and YouTube starting at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Currently accepting applications for Summer 2023, the SSG & AC Edwards Fellowship provides a free two-week residency to Native American visual artists and/or female-identifying visual artists.

As the latest recipient of the SSG & AC Edwards Fellowship, visual artist Donna R. Charging attended a two-week residency at Mt. San Angelo in June 2022.

Charging is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan / Hidatsa / Arikara) who grew up on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Her mother is Eastern Shoshone.

A painter who uses the qualities of collage to build layers of content into her work, Charging says, “I also use specific printmaking processes to deal with issues of cultural voyeurism and erasure, as Native people do not exist in the mainstream of American consciousness in an open, direct way.”

Visual artist Millian Giang Pham came to Mt. San Angelo in May 2022 with support from the SSG & AC Edwards Fellowship.

Mixing images and texts from her native Vietnamese with adopted American culture, Pham is interested in the experience of switching up symbols and codes as a metaphor for changes in perception.

“My compositions switch from embroidered and painted text to imagery that reevaluate the framework of fine art and seemingly lowbrow craftwork,” says Pham.

Dear VCCA Fellows! We're looking for new members to join the Fellows Council, an advisory group made up of artists who have attended VCCA. We encourage interested Fellows to read more and to consider signing up for one of four open meetings on Zoom. The deadline to submit a self-nomination is October 31, 2022.

Le Moulin à Nef Resident Director Cheryl Fortier writes to us from mid-way through the 2022 residency season in Auvillar, where July was filled with hot weather and lively activity! Applications for the 2023 residency season are due September 15.

"Twenty-three Fellows have joined us so far! Our most recent open studio took place on July 26 when visual artists Vesna Jovanovic and Kathryn Jo Yarrington opened their doors. While composer Sid Richardson wasn’t officially participating, he left his studio door open and many people stepped in to appreciate his handwritten partitions.

Shortly into her residence Jo entered the Chapelle Sainte Catherine just a few doors down from the Moulin à Nef and was inspired by the light coming through the rose window each morning. Using the morning light she created a series of cyanotypes which she then installed on the chapel floor for people to view. During the open studios Jo demonstrated her process to a curious audience.

More excitement was in store for us when the Tour de France passed by our door. If you were watching the event, you may have seen the 'Caravane' and 'Peloton' come through the village of Auvillar, down the steep winding hill, right past the Moulin à Nef to then cross the bridge over the Garonne River. What fun!"

Six-week residency opportunities, June 1 – July 15, 2023, are available for four VCCA Fellows (two visual artists, a writer, and a composer).

A cultural exchange with the city of Salzburg, this four-week residency in August 2023 is available for a VCCA Fellow (visual artist).

Fellows, share your news. This is a way to tell the VCCA community about your work. We're always especially interested in stories about work created in connection to your VCCA residency.

Traveling Show is a solo exhibition by Renee Piechocki at 820 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. July 1 - September 12, 2022. One piece in the show, Walking: Finding, is an installation of 301 photographs, which was developed in February 2022 during a VCCA residency.

"I just published my debut audio memoir, Dead Dad Club: On Grief & Tom Petty, with Audible as an Audible Original (June 2022). Long before I knew what form it would take, I worked on essays that would contribute to this project at VCCA in 2017, no doubt influenced by great conversations I had with other fellows around meals, playing ping-pong in the basement or sitting by the fireplace."

"My debut novel, The Nobodies, was published by Blackstone on June 21, 2022. I did some of the revisions on this book while in residence at VCCA in February 2020."

Dan Albergotti's new chapbook, Circa MMXX, was published in June by Unicorn Press.

Browse VCCA's page on Bookshop.org to find new books written by VCCA Fellows.

VCCA Fellows: To tell VCCA about your forthcoming books, send us your news.

🧡 Stay safe, and be well.

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