AIR - Resident Archive

Laura Powers-Swiggett

May 2024

A residency is, for me, about total immersion. It is about creating the time and space to concentrate with intention on a particular project (or, in this case, a particular place) for a defined period of time, trusting that something new will be born. What would happen if I immersed myself in all that is Caumsett, a place that I love deeply? What would grow in me that might be expressed through my art? What new things might I discover — about Caumsett and myself? It would be a collaborative process with a life of its own.

I hope to capture the joy and wonder of a walk through the meadows and woods, a great horned owl’s gentle “hoo hoo” in my ears, the flight of a red-tailed hawk traced in the sky. Or my excitement as I glimpse the salt marsh through the tree canopy. When the view opens up at the end of the fisherman’s road, revealing Long Island Sound and the Connecticut shore beyond, I have questions — would one blue violet brush stroke be enough to describe the intersection of land, sea and sky? What does that junction really mean to me? There are discoveries to be made in the juniper and scrub pines, as their shapes play against the subtle colors of the sand spit’s underbrush, a palette of neutral grays that varies with the time of day, weather and season. The return walk along the bluff offers a bird’s eye view of shifting tidal patterns and blue cast shadows — a natural tutorial in organic abstraction.

Caumsett is a visual feast. I will open my senses and imagination to all that is there, and share what I find with others through open studios and community walks devoted to seeing like an artist. I will engage in a conversation with the landscape through a series of field studies, deepening my connection to this place that I love, and my understanding of who I am within it. I am curious what might be revealed over time. As I find rhythms and themes that excite me, I will expand my explorations to larger works in the studio. My ultimate hope is to distill what I have experienced into something that is both specific to Caumsett and also universal.

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Stephanie Perry

September-October 2023

Stephanie’s work is inspired by the delicate complexity of nature. Her oeuvre combines elements of botanicals, feminine, classical, and contemporary high and low art. The main elements of focus in her work are: form and surface. Her vision as a modern artisan is to play with these two elements to make something durational and enduring.

Stephanie is an avid explorer of Caumsett, interested in our collective relationship with the natural world. She will be focusing on the rhythm and narration between the work and the environment.

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Lauren Skelly Bailey

July-August 2023

Lauren Skelly Bailey is a ceramic artist based out of Long Island, NY. She holds a Master of Fine Arts, Ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design. As well as a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Adelphi University in Fine Arts. Skelly works in layers, in a sometimes modular recursive process.

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David Almeidia

July-August 2023

Our first artist was David Almeida, a photographer and multimedia artist who is heavily inspired by nature and its preservation. Originally from Lisbon, Portugal, Almeida moved to London in 1998, where his interest in photography began. He currently lives and works locally in Cold Spring Harbor.

Most recently, Almeida has been collecting plastics and balloons along the Caumsett seashore and transforming the found trash into highly polished works of art. Almeida’s body of work entitled Seascapes flaunts colorful horizon lines with a sophisticated nod to minimalism, and yet, as a viewer, we are confronted with the knowledge that all of Almeida’s materials were once scraps of waste, polluting our environment.

Photo: David Almedia, Study for a Plastic Landscape (Caumsett 2119) #08, 2019, Archival Inkjet Print