On my first day here, one of the first things I did was try to find as much art on the grounds as I could. 

Among them, I saw Hear -- and installation by Aristotle Georgiades.

The wire supporting the opening had popped. When I got back to my studio, I googled Aris and sent him a note asking if he would like me to try to repair it. He said yes, so I asked Tim and Valerie to help me find wire. Now deep in week 3, I'm finally getting to this simple repair.

[I wasn't sure how I would feel about a residency with art on the grounds. I am used to the joy of opening up CDs and books created by former artists in a residency library, but as someone who is something of land-use artist, I felt oddly skeptical of art in the landscape. But just as the books on the shelf are a joy, so too is the discovery of art nestled in some corner of the grounds here.]

Hear is weighted with a stone and when I first saw it, I lifted up the small end to my ear to 'hear' the hills. I neither knew its name nor its purpose. I just felt I was at the seashore putting a shell to my ear to hear the ocean or in this case, wind as it travelled through layers of valleys on the way to or from the ocean.  The next day Danny, one of the art-tour-guides, took a few of us out on a more formal tour, and in this case, he raised the small opening to his lips and hooted once, loudly; we heard 3 hoots as it bounced off 2 layers of hills. 

A residency is always so much more than time and space to think. It is also a recognition of the heartening lineage of those who make - to value and situate that valuation, differently. And to have that value be sounded and heard.