This writers' musicians' and artists' retreat is open just one day a year to the public, and for 2022 that was today. We saw the medal award ceremony and had time to visit five fascinating writers and artists in their studios. The grounds themselves are beautiful, including gardens where much of the food served to the fellows is grown.
You must visit on medals weekend. Check the website for details. The staff is friendly and helpful, but very protective of the privacy of the artists. Well worth a visit. The colony sits on 450 acres of forest and meadows.
This place is so cool for artists of all kinds. It's open to the public one day each year. Otherwise they work on their stuff as much or little as they want.
We met writers, composers, musicians, graphic artists, and many more.
Each person talked about their work and showed what they could.
Open to the public once a year, on Medal Day in August. Check the website for details.
We have both been MacDowell fellows and feel infinitely grateful to this place. Special thanks also to the outstanding staff.
At its founding in 1907, the Colony was an experiment with no precedent. It stands now having provided crucial time and space to more than 8,000 artists, including such notable names as Leonard Bernstein, Thornton Wilder, Aaron Copland, Milton Avery, James Baldwin, Spalding Gray, and more recently Alice Walker, Alice Sebold, Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon, Suzan-Lori Parks, Meredith Monk, and many more.
In 1997, The MacDowell Colony was honored with the National Medal of Arts — the highest award given by the United States to artists or arts patrons — for “nurturing and inspiring many of this century’s finest artists” and offering them “the opportunity to work within a dynamic community of their peers, where creative excellence is the standard.”
Medal Day is not to be missed. Not enough room to describe the amazing day filled with art, artists and picnic blankets. Seriously, look it up and attend if you're in a six-hour radius.
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