About
Located in rural Massachusetts amongst apple orchards, the 10 acre farm property once belonged to our founder, Meredith Combs McAlister’s parents. The 1848 farmhouse can house up to 6 residents at a time. Each resident will have a private bedroom and share a bathroom with one other resident. The large kitchen and living room are the heart of the home and will serve as the primary common space for our residents, as well as the assembly hall for our guest lectures, and a small library of art texts. The studio spaces will be converted barns and sheds situated throughout the property. Amenities for residents include a carpentry workshop outfitted with tools and saws, as well as a swimming pool that can be enjoyed in the warmer months.
Residents will be surrounded by nature and can explore the property for inspiration. The property has been a family home, a school dorm, a working farm, and in the last century a family home again. Harvard itself is rife with history which includes the communities of the Quakers and Transcendentalists, both of which can be explored at the local Fruitlands Museum. The surrounding area includes many historical sites from the Revolutionary War (near Lexington and Concord) and the Industrial Revolution (like the Lowell Mills) as well as the exquisite nature found at Walden Pond or the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge. Finally, we are located thirty minutes from Worcester’s cultural center and forty-five minutes from all that Boston has to offer.
Residents will be walking distance to The General Store, Harvard Public Library, FiveSparks (a local arts organization), Bare Hill Pond, and Carlson Orchards’ Cider barn. There are a variety of restaurants, stores, and activities within a 20 minute drive. We encourage residents to bring a car if they have access to one.
Studios
Our studios will be converted from farm sheds and a pool house, which offer intimate spaces for all steps of the creative process. Each studio will have a workbench, stool, outlets, WiFi, and air conditioning. The studios are staggered throughout the property, so there is opportunity for connection or isolation as one pleases.
Each studio will be roughly 10 ft x 15 ft in scale. In addition to studio space, there will be a large outdoor art sink available to residents, as well as a woodshop that may be used during specified hours.
As part of participating, each resident will receive an honorarium of $1,000 and a materials budget up to $300, as well as a budget for groceries.
In terms of accessibility, we are committed to supporting our residents. Currently, there are ramps into the main house and one accessible bedroom and bathroom. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.
Programming
Each week, residents will engage in three mandatory activities. The first, is a family meal, which will be prepared by two residents who collaborate on a large meal to be shared between all residents. The second is a weekly critique, where all residents will unite to share what they are working on and to gain insight and feedback from their peers on their creative endeavors. The third branch of programming is dedicated to weekly lectures from seasoned arts professionals, including curators from galleries and museums, working artists, and other arts workers and administrators from the field.
Within this lecture series, we aim to dedicate half of the talks towards helping our residents garner inspiration and refine their crafts, with the other half dedicated to financial and business-management literacy to maintain and expand their studio practices. In other words: our artist and curator talks are designed to inform and inspire, while our professional development programming is geared towards helping our residents gain expertise in marketing, networking, and managing their finances. We believe that each resident’s creative practice is akin to running a small business, and that they should be educated on the fundamentals of professionalizing their passions.
Each program cycle will conclude with an exhibition or showcase of work completed by residents. The exhibition and/or showcase will be tailored to each year’s round of residents, and presented in a dedicated gallery space on the property. Throughout the program, residents will be given mentorship from Greenhut leadership, which may include one-on-one studio visits, if desired by the resident. Upon completing the program, residents are inducted into our network of alumni, who convene annually for a program reunion.
In addition to this series of internal programming, we plan to engage with the community of Harvard and beyond through public programs. Specifically, we aspire to connect with the local community in three main ways. First, by offering one “open studio” event per residency session, where the public can come visit the residents and learn about their work while residents are in session. The second is through a separate series of public lectures which will take place throughout the year when residents are not in session. These public programs will include lectures by visiting or local artists, panel discussions featuring artists, curators, and scholars, and thematic Art History presentations by our staff. Lastly, we hope to work closely with the other arts organizations in our region such as FiveSparks, Fruitlands Museum, and the Rose Art Museum to generate collaborative programming.