We’re lucky, here in Peterborough, to have the thriving Macdowell Colony. Writers, artists, composers, photographers, filmmakers and sculptors come to Peterborough to live in one of the 32 studios at the retreat. Once accepted, an artist can stay for as little as a couple of weeks, or as long as a couple of months. When they arrive, they find a kind of isolation — there’s no phone, no internet, no fax, and no family. It’s just a cabin in the woods.
(Alexander Studio at Macdowell Colony. Photo credit: Victoria Sambunaris)
And there’s a famous tradition: every day your picnic basket lunch is silently delivered to the doorstep of your cabin.
( Photo credit: Victoria Sambunaris)
In the history of the colony there have been over 6000 supported artists in residence, and in 2007, the colony celebrated its centennial with a yearlong celebration.
About once a month the Macdowell Colony sponsors a current resident at a downtown event. And this month it was Brian Selznick! Brian gave a very visual and entertaining talk and covered some of our favorite books, including The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, Walt Whitman and, of course, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
It was great to see a huge turnout and variety of age groups — very young, medium young, young and old. As a finale he showed the movie A Trip to the Moon, by Georges Méliès, and he provided the words while a cellist from the colony (I missed her name) performed accompanying music. It was quite funny, and fantastic!
He also talked about what he’s working on while he’s at the Colony (I’ll repeat here what was in the announcement for the talk):
Familiar now with the rewards of risk-taking on the heels of Hugo’s success, Selznick remains interested in seeing what else he can do with books. “I like taking what I’ve learned and doing something new with it.” His current novel-in-progress, Wonderstruck, is a fitting example: Though it will feature visuals in a prominent and inventive way (much like Hugo), it will also weave together two separate stories that take place in two different time frames. “One story, which takes place in the 1920s, will be told entirely in pictures,” reveals Selznick, who is hesitant to give away too much about the book’s plot. “The other, from the 1970s, will be told with words.” Wonderstruck is scheduled to be released in 2011.
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