Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center Plans Growth With US$1.2 Million Behind It
The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, is planning to grow, and a municipal board has put US$1.2 million of support behind the effort, The Art Newspaper reported.
The centre sits in Provincetown's quiet residential east end, on the tip of the Cape Cod peninsula. It has been a place for working artists for more than half a century. A group that included painters Robert Motherwell, Myron Stout, Jack Tworkov and Fritz Bultman founded it in 1968.
Its best-known offer is the residency. A residency is a set stay in one place, where people live and work for a fixed period. Each year, the centre gives ten artist fellows and ten writers lodging and studio space for seven months, from October to April.
This year's artist residents include Abigail Dudley, Alina Perez, Nasim Hantehzadeh and L.J. Roberts. Sharon Polli is the centre's executive director.
The main grounds are called Days Lumberyard. They include living units, studios, offices, an auditorium, a gallery, an outdoor area and a printshop. The printshop houses Robert Motherwell's press, the equipment he used to make prints.
Early residents included painter Sam Messer and Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. In 1972, the centre bought a heating supply building for around US$120,000. That building is part of the story of how the site grew from a handful of structures into the campus it is today.
The centre's website says its job is to give artists and writers time, space and creative connections, and to serve the Outer Cape Cod community. It describes its aim as offering time and space to emerging artists and writers early in their careers. Past fellows listed on the site include Firelei Báez, who was a Visual Arts Fellow in 2013 and 2014, and the novelist Susan Choi, a Writing Fellow.
For the people who use the place, the appeal is simple. A residency gives a writer or painter months without the usual rent, travel or day-job pressures, and a shared space to work in. Expansion would mean more room for that work. The Art Newspaper's report describes the centre as planning future growth, and the US$1.2 million is the support it has been given so far for that plan.
