Grant will support I-Park residency

EAST HADDAM >> A $1,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Middlesex County will allow The IPark Foundation to award a Middlesex County artist a fully funded residency during the 2017 season.

“We are grateful to receive this support from CFMC in order to encourage local artists to participate in our international artists-in-residence program,” said I-Park’s Cofounder and Executive Director, Joanne Paradis in a press release. “One of our goals for 2017 is to further our community engagement

“One of our goals for 2017 is to further our community engagement initiatives, and there is no better place to start than by offering a residency to a talented artist right here in our own community.” — I-Park’s Cofounder and Executive Director, Joanne Paradis

initiatives, and there is no better place to start than by offering a residency to a talented artist right here in our own community.”

To be eligible, the artist need only be a permanent resident of Middlesex County.

At I-Park, artists live in a renovated 1850s-era farmhouse with private studios and a meal program. They work in a collegial setting with six other artists from various creative disciplines, according to the organization. There is a public open studios at the end of the residency during which visitors experience the creative process and artworks developed during the grant period.

Additional resources include: an extensive system of art and nature trails, ponds, fields, streams, woodlands, miles of stone walls, workshop space and access to an array of tools, equipment and materials, including I-Park’s Junk Trail, which features the accumulated remains of 15 years of prior art installations and other reclaimed materials, the release continues.

The public is invited to attend one or more of IPark’s events this year, including the Site-Responsive Art Biennale on June 4.

I-Park’s mission is to nurture individual artists and the process of artistic creation. Established in 2001, I-Park is both an open-air and a closed-studio laboratory for creative pursuits, according to the release.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Denise Iris, Barbara Holmes, Ryan Sarah Murphy, Remy LeBoeuf, Sara Pirkle Hughes, Brendan Neubauer, Olivia Valentine and Michael Fairfax were among the 2016 June artists in residences at East Haddam’s I-Park.