Monson, ME, population: 619

I’m at a residency in Monson, Maine and will be here for the next month. Monson is located in the Highlands of Maine, only about an hour and a half in from the Quebec border. Population, according to the 2020 census, is 609 people, apparently all of them super friendly and born with the ability to learn your name and commit it to memory within five seconds of meeting you.

What this residency, Monson Arts, has to offer the ten of us that are here for the month is completely blowing my mind. I share a massive house with a warm and wise textile artist, Sarah Haskell. I have an incredible studio space that looks out over frozen Lake Hebron – note the pictures. Furthermore, we are fed twice daily by James Beard 2022 semifinalist chef, Lulu Ranta. Her food is divine and a visual feast to boot. Lulu is also effusively friendly- I feel as though she and I have been friends for a lot longer than four days.

And in those four days things have been gelling: I started work on a large painting and have some wonderful connections with my fellow residents, made up of five visual artists and five wordsmiths.

It’s a great group.