Hill House Artist Residency Deadline Approaching - PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 24, 2015

Contact:
Mollie Thomas
231-622-5252
mollie@crosshatch.org 

Northern Michigan's Hill House artist residency application deadline approaching soon.

BELLAIRE — Crosshatch Center for Art & Design’s Hill House artist residency applications for the June 2016-December 2016 residency season are due April 1.

The program supports musicians, writers, theater/performance, visual artists, and now parent artists as well.  Artists who apply to the program will go through a jury process. Selected artists are awarded time and space to create new work, with a two- to four-week stay in a semi-secluded log cabin near East Jordan, Michigan. The musician residency also offers a small stipend to emerging songwriters to aid in professional development. 

The cabin is surrounded by forest and is within walking distance of the Jordan River. It includes a well-stocked kitchen (with locally sourced food when available), a selection of instruments and some basic recording gear. Artists are invited, but not required, to engage in community outreach through performance, readings and workshops with coordination and promotion help from Crosshatch. The Hill House residency program is unique as it accepts parent artists, artists who want to bring a pet, and allows artists from different disciplines to be in residence together. The only cost for an artist to participate in the Hill House residency program is a $25 application fee.

"My Crosshatch Hill House residency provided me an invaluable opportunity to work uninterrupted, connect with the land and deepen my own understanding of what it is to be an artist and human being," says Jeff Morris, one-half of Charming Disaster along with Ellia Bisker, (musicians-in-residence, January 2016).

Crosshatch is a non-profit organization based in Northern Michigan that builds strong communities through the intersections of art, farming, ecology and economy. For more information about the Crosshatch Hill House residency, including a link to the online application system, visit our site or contact Yvonne.

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Hill House Current and Past Artist News

Current HILL HOUSE ARTIST NEWS

Join us in welcoming Katie Ford to the Hill House. Katie's practice explores the concepts of personal landscape and intimate space through the construction of mixed media installations, objects, and works on paper. From Katie's website: 

I see my experience moving through the world as fundamentally linked to the landscapes I inhabit and those that are made through my interactions with the people and spaces around me. These may be the physical space of a conversation, a familiarly traced path through a neighborhood, or the emotional tug of two people in faraway cities. My work comes out of the desire to dig into the relationships we build around our physical and emotional habitats.

Katie has exhibited her work nationally and has been awarded residencies with organizations such as Elsewhere (Greensboro, NC), Have Company (Grand Rapids, MI), Cabin Time (itinerant), and the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. She will be at the Hill House until mid-March. Welcome, Katie!

 

Past Hill house Artist News

So much is happening with so many of the Hill House alums; we're just going to go ahead and blurt it all out right here! Seeing all this creativity and momentum from so many Hill House artists really truly makes our hearts warm. Y'all deserve a hearty pat on the back and a hug (and fair wages and compensation for your art!). Keep up the awesome work. 

New Albums/Published WorK/Exhibits/Music Videos

Brandi George, poet, earned her PhD from Florida State University last week, and published her first book of poems, Gog, in November 2015 with Black Lawrence Press. 

Scott Hocking will be featured in Essay'd, 30 Detroit Artists, available August 2016 through Wayne State University Press. 

Trevor Grabill, Skye Livingston and Thais Beltrame artwork featured on Michigan Writers Dunes Review Journals.

Erik Jarvis has a new EP coming out soon. 

Max Lockwood released a new EP Dudee Free in December 2015.  

Rebecca Rego and The Trainmen successfully funded their new album through Kickstarter. 

Phillippe Nash's new track, "Something in My Eye" was released in January 2016. 

Jason Ackman's work was featured in the exhibition, "Transition," earlier this month at The Applebee Art Gallery at MacMurray College.

Katie Vota is currently running a solo exhibition and participating in a residency at Corner. The exhibition, entitled "Transference of Touch: From Garment to Body" is in collaboration with Chicago's 2nd Floor Rear Performance Festival.

Performances

Matthew Kennedy has programmed 'The Last Place on Earth,' a double concerto for saxophone, percussion, and string quartet for the University of South Florida's 2016 New Music Festival. 

Rachel Cole's film Monsters and Animals will show at the Queens World Film Festival on March 18. 

Artists at Other Residencies

Christy George is in residence at 'A Studio in the Woods' for Spring 2016. Christy is one of seven artists awarded a Flint and Steel Residency this season. These residencies match artists with faculty members to create risk-taking new works designed to fuel social change. 

Erinn Beth Langille runs an artist residency, The Lemon Tree House, in Tuscany for emerging and established artists, musicians, and writers, with an upcoming deadline of March 30, 2016. 

Awards Season

Max Lockwood is up for two Jammie Awards: BIG DUDEE ROO - I Know You Know is up for Song of the Year and BIG DUDEE ROO - Heavy Dudee is up for Best Alternative Album. 

Rebecca Rego and the Trainmen have been nominated for Emerging Artist of the Year by The Deli Chicago. The Deli is an independent publication and website that focuses on local indie music scenes and emerging artists. 

Tiny Desk Concert CONTEST

Many of the Hill House artists are entering the NPR Tiny Desk Concert contest. Check out these videos!

jessicaintherainbow.bandcamp.com jessicaintherainbow.com facebook.com/jessicaintherainbow

Phew! That's a whole lotta alumni news. Check back soon as we're constantly getting emails and updates about all the cool stuff Hill House alums are up to. 

And if you're interested in becoming a Hill House alum yourself, check out our Artist Residency page to learn all about it. Our next deadline is April 1, so get moving!

Cheers,

Crosshatch

2016 Farm Route to Prosperity Summit

Registration closes a week from today for the 2016 Farm Route to Prosperity Summit - register now. This summit, being put on by our friends at the NW Michigan Food and Farming Network will focus on what's being done and what we should do to continue working toward the goal of 20% local food by 2020. We need your voice! 

After a certified local foods lunch, there will be break-out sessions to brainstorm ideas, make plans, and commit to taking action over the next 12 months. Session topics may include: education, wellness, direct/indirect sales, farm to institution programs, agribusiness and more. There's something for everyone to learn, share, and take action. 

The summit is intended for anyone interested in the northwest Michigan food system (so if you live and eat here, that's you!). Farmers, consumers, institutions, non-profits, students and more: come and work together at the summit. 

Registration is $15 for farmers and students, or $30 for all others. Registration closes at 8:30am on Friday, February 19. 

We'll be there! Will you?

Cheers,

Crosshatch

The first Crosshatch artists-in-residence: Charming Disaster

We've had many, many artists come and stay at the Hill House. Hundreds of words written, strings strummed, brushstrokes painted. And we have truly loved getting to know all the souls who have come north to stay. Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris (musicians in collaboration) will hold a special place in our hearts though, as the very first *CROSSHATCH* artists-in-residence. 

Ellia and Jeff arrived in January as ISLAND residents, but will leave February 10th as Crosshatch residents. We're stoked to have such fine people staying at the Hill House during this momentous time.  

Ellia and Jeff come to Michigan from Brooklyn, New York where the both work and live. For 10 years, Ellia has been playing her songs about doomed love, works of literature, and existential mysteries as Sweet Soubrette. She is also the singer and lyricist of Funkrust Brass Band, a 20-piece punk marching band, and plays in the "parlor-rock" ensemble Kotorino, headed up by Jeff. Jeff started playing music in New York with improvisation-based theatrical bands before forming Kotorino. 

Since 2012, Jeff and Ellia have played together as Charming Disaster. They came to the Hill House to work on this project and it looks as though they're having fun - check out the videos below that were recorded at the Hill House during their stay!

Jeff and Ellia are planning to attend the Short's Open Mic night this Tuesday, February 9th at 7:30pm before they say goodbye and head home on the 10th. Come out and hear Charming Disaster in person! Let's go ahead and call it "pub-rock". We'll see you there. 

Cheers,

Crosshatch

We Are Crosshatch.

Dear Hatchers [Hatchies? Crossies? We're workin' on it, we'll come up with something good, we promise]:

Eleven years ago we started a nonprofit and we called it the Institute for Sustainable Living, Art & Natural Design, or ISLAND. We thought it was pretty good – who doesn’t love a good acronym? But over the past decade and then some, we’ve grown – our island turned into a cluster of islands; we are no longer a rock, an iiiisssland, we’re a whole damn community of farmers, artists, gardeners, learners, lovers, eaters, growers, doers, movers and shakers. And so we’re changing our name. We’re departing the island (but it’ll always have a special place in our hearts).

We shall henceforth be known as: Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology. We remain a small, all-hands-on-deck, passionate organization that focuses its efforts on strengthening communities through the intersections of art, farming, ecology, and economy. 

The first lifecycle of ISLAND required a lot of experimenting and learning from trial and error. And it was fun! But Crosshatch is a tween now, we’re old enough to know what we’re doing and where we’re going: Phase Three.

Phase three will be the development of the Crosshatch property located in Bellaire, Michigan. While Crosshatch currently is, and always has been, a “homeless” organization, the property will someday be the location of a working farm, multiple artist spaces for residents, a community building, and more. The Crosshatch property will materialize our longstanding concept of integrating art with farming and ecology: Where Art meets Earth.
 

TL;DR: We used to be called the Institute for Sustainable Living, Art & Natural Design, but now we’re called Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology. We continue to dig in, dive deep, get up early and stay up late in the name of creating stronger communities through the magic of art, farming, food, ecology, economy, working together and having fun. We are trying our best and we love you.

Cheers,

Crosshatch