How often has an artist at a residency felt that their work was deeply informed by and related to the ecology of that place? How about the local economy (such as it is)? How about the local cultural community (such as it is)?

Beyond that, how many artists have felt that they are bringing their home community (if they call one home) with them to inform their work or to relate to the work of the residency?

My guess is that these kinds of scenarios are not-too-common happy accidents. I’ll also guess that the results of these accidents produce some of our best stories to tell funders and our communities.

Our organization, the Institute for Sustainable Living, Art & Natural Design (ISLAND) has a lofty conceptual goal: to re-teach ourselves how to live as part of an integral, coherent place on Earth. We’re learning to live in-place, as a part of the ecologies, economies and cultural communities of our area. Our syllabus for this life-long course includes geology, geography, history (including art history), literature, forestry, tracking (morels, turkeys, trout), animal husbandry, mapping, biology, agriculture, permaculture, green building, community relations, anthropology, waste management and a whole host of topics we’ve yet to discover.

I’m saving the arts for last, because they are both central to and all encompassing of this process. We’ve just begun to learn how to use the creative energy of local and visiting artists to craft new perspectives of our place. Want to learn about soil? We can look to soil maps, or we could work with one of the many local potters using indigenous clay. Want to understand the way the sun moves over the landscape? We could just Google sun charts, but we’ll learn more talking with the local artist who designs sundials and builds stone circles. The artists give answers that are rooted in place and context, not the answers of specialists who don’t look beyond their field. Further, we are beginning to harness the same creative energy to create models (such as our own stone circles or songs) that increase our own and others’ understanding of our home.

Our goal is to facilitate the creation of alchemical art, that at once enriches where we live and changes us in the way that we relate to this place. As a bonus, artists from anywhere in the world can visit and immediately respond to the works that have preceded them, not just as cultural capital but as signposts to understanding our small place on Earth. In this way, creativity works within a deeply rooted context, causing all art to become local and a place – this place – to become more whole.