HFA Residency

May to September, 2021

HFA Asbill.jpg

The Habitat for Artist project was located next to ArtPort Kingston the Spring starting May 1, 2021.

2021 HFA artists:

Habitat For Artists

ArtPort Kingston cooperation

Habitat for Artist project (HFA) is a collective project that uses the idea of the artist’s studio as a catalyst for mutual engagement between artists and communities. The “habitats” are small, temporary, 6’ by 6’ studios installed at a variety of locations: some highly visible to the local community; others, more unexpected venues for experiencing art or connecting with the process of artists engaging in creative work. HFA invites artists to work in these small, temporary studios. And while exploring their own creative process, the artists engage in active dialogues with a new audience from that location. The public, meanwhile, is invited into a new interaction and discussion about art, the artists role, as well as topics which are pertinent or relevant to that local community.

The studios are made from predominantly recycled or reclaimed material and are reused for each new iteration of the project. During short-term residencies, artists work within certain guidelines setup by HFA, either to consider types of materials used or to connect to a certain site in a new context. These intimate work spaces not only ask artists working in them to explore their creative needs, BUT also act as a metaphor for our OWN domestic needs. How might we be more creative about our consumption of materials, our use of energy and land? Could we be doing more with less, yet still create a vibrant, relevant society and culture? They are asked to consider the questions: How Much? How Little? The Space to Create.

Since its creation in 2008, HFA has partnered with more than 20 different organizations (including schools) and involved more than over 50 artists. Since the first collection of studios on a small patch of grass in a parking lot, HFA studios have been installed in a variety of places, including an art park, a scenic park, an environmental education park, a farm, and expos and festivals in New York City.

 
https://habitatforartists.org/ Please follow @hfaeast on Instagram

https://habitatforartists.org/
Please follow @hfaeast on Instagram

Open-call for artist, the residency starts in the summer of 2021

Habitat For Artists Talk, March 27th, 2021

ArtPort Kingston hosted the Zoom talk, HFA Talk, Saturday, March 27th, from 3:30- 5 pm. HFA co-founders, Michael Asbill and Simon Draper spoke about the history of the project, how you can get involved, and two former artist participants, Beth Humphrey and Jessica Poser spoke about their own personal experiences

HFA speakers:

  • Welsh born artist (1960) Simon Draper has lived and worked in the US since 1983, a sojourn that began with a student exchange stint at The School of Art at the Cooper Union in NYC after attending the Bath Academy of Art in the UK. Creating bodies of work, he exhibited and sold in NYC for 15 years as well as forming two companies, Anglia Crating and Art Management Services. In 2007 he formed Habitat for Artists (HFA) a unique collaborative art project that has installed over 50 “habitats” partnering with over 50 different organizations and working with over 100 artists.

  • Michael Asbill is an artist and educator who focuses on listening. His research involves a deep rooting and interfacing in environmental and social systems at the local level. Michael is a builder. His work, produced mostly in collaboration with others, holds space, opens channels, and constructs platforms for creative action. As a core collaborator with Habitat for Artists, Michael contributed to projects for Smack Mellon (Brooklyn, NY), Arts Brookfield (New York, NY), Washington DC’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Corcoran Museum (Washington, DC), and 601 Tully (Syracuse, NY). Michael is a full-time lecturer in the Sculpture program at SUNY New Paltz.

  • Beth Humphrey is an artist and educator living in the Catskill Mountain region of New York.  She is the Education Curator at the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum where she is in charge of all outreach and programming and curates exhibitions for the Youth Exhibition Space (YES) Gallery at WAAM. She is interested in connections between artists, community, the environment and equity. She has been working with HFA since 2016.

  • Jessica Poser is an artist and an educator living in Western Massachusetts. She is assistant professor of art at Springfield College where she directs the studio art program as well as the William Blizard Gallery. She works in mixed media and has shown her work in many venues. She has a MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Doctorate in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is currently in training to become a therapist and is interested in the generative nexus of art, psychology and community work. Jessica has been working with HFA since 2011.