Dora Maar fellows

High on the hill of Menerbes, we gathered with local inhabitants to attend the monthly Salon provided courtesy of the artists working for the last month at the Dora Maar residency program, an off shoot of the MFAH, (Houston, Texas). They shared their works in progress. First  Morgan Puett, an multimedia conceptual ex-fashionista spoke about Mildred's Lane, an art cooperative and philosophical community she has fashioned in the rolling hills of rural northeastern Pennsylvania. While at Dora Maar, Morgan is working on a Mildred's Lane dictionary and the lexicon of a new philosophy of collaboratively making art while creating meaningful community. Her passion in this life long undertaking was heady and left me quite blown by the knotted, convoluted, and unique use of jargon. Intellectually I was primed for the poetry reading that followed. Geri Doran, the author of two books of poetry has been writing her third while in residency. Geri was on sabbatical from her professorship position at the University of Oregon. She had filled the year with travel and her next stop- after France- was a residency in Spain. Her poems were tender windows onto suffering and longings. I asked to see the written poems after the reading... finding myself needing a visual... sometimes the sound of words is not enough for me. It was satisfying, she was accommodating. Her last book, Resin, winner of some Walt Whitman award, is going into our collection. The night wrapped itself around us with the third fellow, Jason Anthony, speaking about his times in Antarctica, hinting at fatalistic forecasts for us all, and sharing his book of Antarctic cuisine, HOOSH. Hoosh is also in our library now as well!

after the presentations each artist answers questions

The evening ends with a fabulous meal wrapping us into the next day.