Naturally, there are as many resident artist living arrangements as there are artist residencies. I’ve spent from one week to several months living and creating in: a swank bungalow on an island, an otherwise vacant conference hotel, a couple of cabins in the woods, and a sweltering inner city dormitory with four bunk beds, vinyl mattresses, and sealed shut windows, that could have doubled as a pizza oven.
Luckily, my longest residency has been matched with my best living situation. My apartment at the Penland School of Craft is tiny and spare and light-filled and I absolutely love it. It’s perfect for one person but couples and even families have managed to live in them. I arrived with minimal furniture and over the last 2.5 years I’ve curated a collection of furnishings that are low, reflective, or see-through, which keeps them from eating up too much floorspace or view.
Luckily, my longest residency has been matched with my best living situation. My apartment at the Penland School of Craft is tiny and spare and light-filled and I absolutely love it. It’s perfect for one person but couples and even families have managed to live in them. I arrived with minimal furniture and over the last 2.5 years I’ve curated a collection of furnishings that are low, reflective, or see-through, which keeps them from eating up too much floorspace or view.
Half of the residents live by the studios, and half (including me) live about an eight-minute walk down a windy dirt road. Our little complex is made up of two duplexes, and I live in half of one.
The approach to my unit takes you past all the other units on one side, and on the other there’s a steep hillside covered in invasive but pleasantly swishy miscanthus grass. In these woods right outside my door I have seen and/or heard deer, raccoons, skunks, opossums, and one bear (!). I once saw 24 coyotes in the field behind the house.
Because we’re so deep in a hollow, my porch only gets early sun, but that makes it a great place to have breakfast or coffee in warmer months. All my vintage aluminum outdoor furniture folds for storage; the chair came from a thrift store and I pulled two rockers out of a dump and replaced their rotten wooden slats. In cold weather I hang a suet block for the birds, but soon I’ll switch it out for a hummingbird feeder and bring some of my larger plants outside.
The approach to my unit takes you past all the other units on one side, and on the other there’s a steep hillside covered in invasive but pleasantly swishy miscanthus grass. In these woods right outside my door I have seen and/or heard deer, raccoons, skunks, opossums, and one bear (!). I once saw 24 coyotes in the field behind the house.
Because we’re so deep in a hollow, my porch only gets early sun, but that makes it a great place to have breakfast or coffee in warmer months. All my vintage aluminum outdoor furniture folds for storage; the chair came from a thrift store and I pulled two rockers out of a dump and replaced their rotten wooden slats. In cold weather I hang a suet block for the birds, but soon I’ll switch it out for a hummingbird feeder and bring some of my larger plants outside.
Just inside the front door there’s a tiny entryway bursting with coats, bags, shoes, and other things intended for the outside world. There’s also a door to the laundry/water heater room, which is part hellhole (where I stash everything I don’t want to deal with) and part paradise (where I can do laundry without waiting in silent fury for neighbors to get their clothes out of the machine!).
The bathroom is the next door down the little hall and you’re not seeing it because it is fiendishly difficult to keep clean. It has the same challenges as the rest of the house (grit blown and tracked in from the dirt road outside, cobweb jungles that spring up overnight) plus a tenacious turquoise tinge from the copper in the water that makes everything look like it’s had a blue rinse, scrub as I might. I put a filter on the shower, which has helped some. During the great toilet paper scare of 2020, I bought a stainless steel shattaf (a Middle Eastern type of bidet that is easier to keep clean and perhaps healthier for women) and it is also handy for spraying down the shower during cleaning. There is a tub!
The bedroom is at the back of the house. For reference, my bed is a full and there’s plenty of room to maneuver around it. There a couple of built-in cabinets, a long closet with sliding doors, and a small open closet (perfect kayak storage) made from closing off a superfluous doorway to the kitchen.
I like to look out the window behind the bed first and last thing each day. At night I peep at the moon, stars, or lightning bugs, in the morning I greet my favorite tree; if I’m up early enough I can turn my head uphill towards main campus and watch the top of the mountain blush pink as the sun touches it.
Oddly, this is the only room in the house that doesn’t have a heated floor, so I pile on blankets in winter. In summer, the ceiling fan runs non-stop and the windows are usually cracked.
My collection of lacquer dishes and a self-portrait by my favorite college professor hang on the wall, and on the bed I keep a blue-and-white antique coverlet similar to those that were woven here at Penland when it was first started. That reminder of the history and creative continuity of this place helps me to keep my own experiences in perspective.
The bathroom is the next door down the little hall and you’re not seeing it because it is fiendishly difficult to keep clean. It has the same challenges as the rest of the house (grit blown and tracked in from the dirt road outside, cobweb jungles that spring up overnight) plus a tenacious turquoise tinge from the copper in the water that makes everything look like it’s had a blue rinse, scrub as I might. I put a filter on the shower, which has helped some. During the great toilet paper scare of 2020, I bought a stainless steel shattaf (a Middle Eastern type of bidet that is easier to keep clean and perhaps healthier for women) and it is also handy for spraying down the shower during cleaning. There is a tub!
The bedroom is at the back of the house. For reference, my bed is a full and there’s plenty of room to maneuver around it. There a couple of built-in cabinets, a long closet with sliding doors, and a small open closet (perfect kayak storage) made from closing off a superfluous doorway to the kitchen.
I like to look out the window behind the bed first and last thing each day. At night I peep at the moon, stars, or lightning bugs, in the morning I greet my favorite tree; if I’m up early enough I can turn my head uphill towards main campus and watch the top of the mountain blush pink as the sun touches it.
Oddly, this is the only room in the house that doesn’t have a heated floor, so I pile on blankets in winter. In summer, the ceiling fan runs non-stop and the windows are usually cracked.
My collection of lacquer dishes and a self-portrait by my favorite college professor hang on the wall, and on the bed I keep a blue-and-white antique coverlet similar to those that were woven here at Penland when it was first started. That reminder of the history and creative continuity of this place helps me to keep my own experiences in perspective.
With the exception of the bathroom and the laundry, the house is just one big room with a high ceiling. The kitchen is essentially a room divider that stretches partway up to the ceiling, allowing for the free circulation of cooking smells and cool breezes.
Storage is minimal and counter space is miniscule. Thank heavens for a previous resident who built the shelves on the left in what used to be a doorway to the bedroom: I don’t know what I would do without these!!
Our hot water, appliances, and radiant floors run on propane—which yes, I realize is an environmental disaster so I will avoid it when I am able to make such decisions for myself—so when the power goes out we are still able to make tea.
Storage is minimal and counter space is miniscule. Thank heavens for a previous resident who built the shelves on the left in what used to be a doorway to the bedroom: I don’t know what I would do without these!!
Our hot water, appliances, and radiant floors run on propane—which yes, I realize is an environmental disaster so I will avoid it when I am able to make such decisions for myself—so when the power goes out we are still able to make tea.
I have spent hours, perhaps days, looking out this window. That’s the tree that I think of as a neighbor, and yes, I do periodically go out and hack bits of ivy off of it. Most of my plants were tiny when I bought them for a dollar at the grocery store and a few are now getting too big for the sill. I made the willow chair at a workshop here sometime around 1999 with the magical furniture maker Clifton Monteith; I made the paper lamp in a workshop with Mario Messina.
If your eyes are sharp, you may spot a number of black dots on the wall. These are false ladybugs that were introduced to the area to control pests but turned out to prefer lounging around in nice warm houses. My place is crawling with them, as well as with stinkbugs, glass spiders, and silverfish. Or “roommates”, as I’ve come to call them.
If your eyes are sharp, you may spot a number of black dots on the wall. These are false ladybugs that were introduced to the area to control pests but turned out to prefer lounging around in nice warm houses. My place is crawling with them, as well as with stinkbugs, glass spiders, and silverfish. Or “roommates”, as I’ve come to call them.
On the opposite site of the room from the big window are these three windows (which will be open all summer), looking out to the porch and the bird feeder shenanigans.
The vintage rattan sofa came all the way from Seattle and it’s one of my favorite pieces of furniture; it splits into three sections so I can easily move it all by myself. I pieced the slipcover together from old jeans. Four plywood crates provide storage for books and canned goods underneath, and additional seating options on top. One is cushioned with a woven denim mat. The light has a woven aluminum shade.
The side tables are a vintage Thonet and a thing that I cobbled together from plywood that doubles as a writing lap desk. The coffee table is a vintage Japanese steamer trunk covered in aluminum that I bought when I was working at Hosekibako, a Japanese thrift shop that is one of Seattle’s hidden treasures; on the move here it held all my most fragile artwork.
I’m not naturally very tidy or very hospitable, but I’ve been working on it. So far this year, I’ve had at least one person over for coffee or a meal each week. This virtual “tour” aligns with that habit, but my goals in sharing go even further. When I was considering this residency, a couple of previous residents showed me their living spaces and the effect was to make the possibility of the residency more concrete. I figure there’s a good chance that someone reading this post is debating whether or not to apply for the Penland residency; perhaps seeing my living arrangements can help to settle the debate, help to make this leap of faith seem more doable. And perhaps one of my readers will even be the next person to live in—and love—my apartment!
The vintage rattan sofa came all the way from Seattle and it’s one of my favorite pieces of furniture; it splits into three sections so I can easily move it all by myself. I pieced the slipcover together from old jeans. Four plywood crates provide storage for books and canned goods underneath, and additional seating options on top. One is cushioned with a woven denim mat. The light has a woven aluminum shade.
The side tables are a vintage Thonet and a thing that I cobbled together from plywood that doubles as a writing lap desk. The coffee table is a vintage Japanese steamer trunk covered in aluminum that I bought when I was working at Hosekibako, a Japanese thrift shop that is one of Seattle’s hidden treasures; on the move here it held all my most fragile artwork.
I’m not naturally very tidy or very hospitable, but I’ve been working on it. So far this year, I’ve had at least one person over for coffee or a meal each week. This virtual “tour” aligns with that habit, but my goals in sharing go even further. When I was considering this residency, a couple of previous residents showed me their living spaces and the effect was to make the possibility of the residency more concrete. I figure there’s a good chance that someone reading this post is debating whether or not to apply for the Penland residency; perhaps seeing my living arrangements can help to settle the debate, help to make this leap of faith seem more doable. And perhaps one of my readers will even be the next person to live in—and love—my apartment!