I stayed in an old Victorian style farmhouse dubbed Victoria that had been abandoned on another farm for about 50 years before it was moved over to Art Farm and turned into living quarters. Most things arrive on Art Farm like this\u2014someone else\u2019s trash gets turned into a living or working space by and for artists. Though it is called a farm, the real work of the place is just maintaining the studios and living quarters and the 10 or so acres of trails that wind through tall grasses and mulberry trees to various structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/cyrus-stuvland-Rural-Residency-2-edited-.jpg\")
I was there with visual artists, writers, filmmakers, fiber artists, sculptors, you name it. One couple was there making a giant single-note wooden instrument. There was a writer who wrote an essay about lamps then pasted it on the walls of the bathroom. Installations like this were common; I left one too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/cyrus-stuvland-Rural-Residency-3-edited-.jpg\")
Every morning around 9 we\u2019d meet up with Ed, the director of the farm and the man who inherited it and turned into what it is now, to discuss our work projects. My first day\u2019s project was cleaning possum poop up from under the floorboards of a studio. One day I went with a carful of people to a nearby town to get a piece of old printing equipment for the Art Farm print shop that\u2019s being set up this summer. We spent all afternoon trying to figure out the best way to get the enormous, heavy piece of equipment onto a pallet jack and from there, up a ramp we\u2019d built into a pickup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the allotted three hours of work from Monday \u2013 Thursday, I\u2019d grab some books and my laptop and head out to the little camper that had been turned into a studio near a structure known as the Barns because it was made up of several barns combined. I would write for a few hours, read for a bit, maybe collage or play in the woodshop, then usually chat with other residents over food or drinks. That, I think was the real magic of Art Farm\u2014the impromptu conversations and connections we made. There was a reading and gallery night where we visited each other studios, but more often the sharing was unplanned. My second night there a sculptor made a cast out of my butt. One morning we were late getting to work after a spontaneous discussion on what it meant to \u201crequeer\u201d something over funfetti pancakes. Even though I\u2019m still struggling to understand the shape of what I\u2019m writing right now, I got a couple great leads for my dissertation\u2014books and artists I\u2019d never heard of\u2014from fellow artists and writers. It was energizing to be in such a shared creative space and hear about what others were working on\u2014which was everything from giant, one-note wooden instruments to films about gay cowboys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/cyrus-stuvland-Rural-Residency-1-edited-.jpg\")
When my two weeks were up I was sad to leave, wishing I could push back my departure. Apparently this is common. People get sucked into Art Farm, not wanting to say goodbye to how the time moves there\u2014slow and full. There was a painter in Victoria who woke up every day thinking she might leave. She\u2019d been there since April and to my knowledge is there still. It just feels easy to settle in and not think too far off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Needless to say, I\u2019m planning on applying again next year and I encourage other MFA students to as well. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MFA Candidate in Creative Nonfiction, Cyrus Stuvland recently attended a writing residency in Nebraska and writes about their experience: Earlier this month I got to attend my first ever writing residency at a place called Art Farm, a strange little oasis in between fields of corn and soy near the tiny town of Marquette, Nebraska. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2664"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2672,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2664\/revisions\/2672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}