Monson Arts’ Blog
Resident Showcase: Ajibola Tolase
Ajibola Tolase is a Nigerian poet and essayist. He graduated from the creative writing MFA program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His chapbook, Koola Lobitos, was published as a part of the New Generation African Poets Series, edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris...
Abby Burgess Wins The Telling Room Prize for Piscataquis County
Abby Burgess is a Piscataquis Community Secondary School senior living in Sangerville, Maine. She started her poem “Can you hear it in the silence?” while attending Monson Arts' High School Program. While Abby was in Monson this week, we asked her a few questions...
Resident Showcase: Mark Oldland
As an autistic adult, my paintings and drawings illustrate my social range. On one end, there are the most abstract works where the brush strokes are aggressive, bold, and seemingly without reason. In these works, there is a dichotomy between my analytical...
Monson Arts High School Program: 1/15/2025
Welcoming Our High School Students Back for the New Year! Our writing and visual art students dove right back into the work of creating! James Pullen braved the frigid temperatures and hand-cut ice discs out of Lake Hebron to demonstrate what you can create using one...
These Complicated Woods: Paintings and Drawings by Roberta Weaver Jarvis
Paintings and drawings by local artist Roberta Jarvis are currently on view at the Monson Arts Gallery. Roberta studied at the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA. She and her husband, Bob, live in Monson on the shores of Lake Hebron. They moved here permanently...
MONSON ARTS HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM: Off We Go!
Monson Arts High School students have now rolled up their sleeves and gotten down to the business of creating and making work. After a first class of meet-and-greet team activities, getting to know Monson Arts staff and, especially, their fellow students from 6 local...
RESIDENT SHOWCASE: MILLEE TIBBS
Millee Tibbs’ work derives from her interest in photography’s ubiquity and the tension between its truth-value and inherent manipulation of reality. Tibbs is Professor of Photography at Wayne State University, Detroit. She holds an MFA in Photography from the Rhode...
RESIDENT SHOWCASE: KIERON WALQUIST
Kieron Walquist [he/they] is a queer neurospicy poet + visual artist from mid-Missouri. Their work appears in Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, IHLR, The Missouri Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Third Coast, Waxwing, + elsewhere. Their chapbook, LOVE LOCKS, was selected by...
RESIDENT SHOWCASE: FRANCHELL MACK BROWN
Franchell Mack Brown is an artist employing an amalgam of materials in her practice. From the pliancy of crocheted ribbon to industrial cordiing and the solidity of welding, she juxtaposes soft and hard, exploring the dualities of being. Undulating forms and dripping...
RESIDENT SHOWCASE: MITCHELL VILLA
Mitchell Villa is a self-taught artist residing on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Drawn by the endless offerings of painting as a medium, Villa’s work inhabits an area of hybridity invoking the contemporary by employing and reinterpreting the historical. His...
WELCOME
Time and space to create.
Monson Arts is a new artists’ residency and arts center in Monson, Maine. Programs include residencies for artists and writers, intensive shorter workshops, and educational partnerships with area secondary schools.