Monson Arts’ Blog
RESIDENT SHOWCASE: DAYRON LOPEZ
Dayron Lopez, a Monson Arts Resident in the fall of 2023, co-founded the art collective Chachacha! in the Azcapotzalco neighborhood in Mexico City in 2010. Dayron started Chachacha! with his best friend, Raymundo Rocha, in an effort to bring art into their community...
HIGH SCHOOL BLOG POST #6: BUILDING CREATIVE TOOLS
We’re getting down to crunch time in the Monson Arts High School Program. Students are honing in on their final projects, getting feedback, crossing out lines, rewriting, erasing, painting over, and starting fresh with more tools in their creative arsenal. Teachers...
RESIDENT SHOWCASE: JEFFERY RENARD ALLEN
Jeffery Renard Allen was a Monson Arts Resident in the Winter of 2023. He is a Chicago-based writer who has published six books of fiction and poetry. Among many other accomplishments, he is a recipient of the Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for Fiction, the Ernest...
HIGH SCHOOL BLOG POST #5: WELCOME BACK!
Welcome back students! It was good to have the Monson Arts High School students back in action after winter break on January 9th. To re-engage our creatives we hosted noted outdoor writer, guide, journalist, and tv presenter Aislinn Sarnaki. Both student visual...
RESIDENT SHOWCASE: ASH DAVIDSON
Ash Davidson is the author of the novel Damnation Spring. Her work has been supported by Monson Arts, MacDowell, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. What was the best part for you about being at Monson Arts? Being gifted the...
RESIDENT SHOWCASE: NEENA PATHAK
Neena Pathak is a writer, producer, and editor whose work has appeared in podcasts like Invisibilia (NPR), This American Life, Another Round (BuzzFeed), The Daily and Still Processing (The New York Times). Her work has been honored by the Pulitzer Prize Board,...
High School Blog Post #4: Making Books!
The last session before Christmas break saw both the Visual Arts and Writers come together to create hand-made books led by guest teacher Rebecca Goodale. Mixing it up, students took pre-made patterned paper as covers and layered in pages with both string and glue,...
RESIDENT SHOWCASE: DAMILOLA ONWAH
Damilola Onwah is a Nigerian writer and culture critic whose work explores identity and belonging, unconventional family structures, the struggles and triumphs of the underdog, and how faith is gained and lost. She moved from Nigeria to the United States in 2014, and...
HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM BLOG POST #3: Delving Deeper
The latest rounds of the Monson Arts High School Program saw students take the first steps in editing creative pieces through peer feedback and layered exercises, taking these focused moments and going back to the canvas and page to build more complicated works. In...
Resident Showcase: Loretta Violante
Loretta Violante is an interdisciplinary artist living in New York City and recently earned an MFA from The City College of New York. Loretta did a Monson Arts Residency in October 2023. 1) What was the best part for you about being at Monson Arts? It's so difficult...
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.