The Wassaic Project: Art & Community Growing Together
by Jen Kiaba

Guns-n-Gals no. 99 by Disorientalism (Katherine Behar and Mariann Kim) on display in the Maxon Mills, at the Wassaic Project Summer Festival 2010. Disorientalism will be in residence at the Wassaic Project in July 2011 and you can visit them in their studio at the Open Studios event on July 30.

In the heart of Wassaic, the tiny hamlet on the eastern side of Dutchess County, an architectural gem peeks out of the treetops and across at the Connecticut border. A beacon of a bygone era, the 105-foot-tall Maxon Mills grain and feed elevator in Wassaic was given new life several years ago by a tenacious group of young artists. What was once a crumbling relic of the past has now become the home to the Wassaic Project, a multidisciplinary arts organization that brings vibrant contemporary art and artists to Dutchess County from across the nation and world.

The Wassaic Project Co-Directors, Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino and Jeff Barnett-Winsby, have spent the past several years honing and developing the project to focus on community engagement as well as to facilitate the work of artists. While the project functions as a site-specific arts organization and annual summer festival, the efforts of the Wassaic Project are also geared toward the revitalization of the hamlet of Wassaic and its surrounding areas.

Several years ago, residents of Wassaic and Amenia—the neighboring village as well as the town of which Wassaic is a part—had considered demolishing the then-crumbling building. The Maxon Mills, built in the 1950s, is reputed to be one of the most significant feed elevators in the nation and had once been under consideration for state and national historical registries. But by 2005, the mill had been condemned and was slated to be torn down due to decay. Driven by an interest in historic architecture, and a desire to save the Maxon Mills building, New York City architect Anthony Zunino, father to Bowie Zunino, acquired it and began the process of restoring the structure.

As artists interested in community-related projects, Wassaic Project founders Bowie Zunino, Eve Biddle and Elan Bogarin approached Anthony Zunino about the possibility of staging an arts festival in the mill building. While the eventual plan was to restore the mill to become a restaurant or brewery some day, Zunino offered the women the chance to turn the mill, along with the neighboring Luther livestock barn, into an arts festival site. The first festival there, in 2008, boasted over 40 artists, 15 musicians and 500 visitors. By 2009 the festival saw almost five times as many visitors and included over 100 artists and 25 bands.

Last year’s musical line-up offered festival-goers a diverse experience, with performances from rock by the duo She Keeps Bees to atmospheric folk from The Points North. Those that awoke early enough on Saturday morning even got to join in on a yoga session led by rock drummer Stef Schneider. The 2010 festival’s art performances were equally diverse. Christopher Domenick offered an integrated powerpoint presentation and meditation session on memory called Waterfalls. On the porch of the Maxon Mills building, dancer Malinda Ray Allen performed The Part of Me in You, exploring the range of emotion associated with love. Homage was also paid to the surrounding area in Darryl Lauster’s We the People: The Hudson Valley’s History Then and Now.

By 2010 the Wassaic Project also began to develop another facet. The old stalls in the Luther barns were transformed into artists’ studios, enabling the development of artist residency programs and community art workshops. For six months of the year, a rotating roster of artists from all over the world are invited into the community of Wassaic and given studio space in the barns. “We have between 11 and 14 artists every month,” said Biddle. “It’s a super strong group this year, and the way that we’ve structured our festival now is to feature our resident artists. They are becoming the core of the festival.”

The Wassaic Project residency program differs from many similar programs throughout the country in that the artists are fully integrated into the life of the hamlet. Other “artist colonies” are exactly that: “the artists are tucked away at the end of a long driveway in a secluded area... Those programs provide the food and the cleaning, but our artists live in the hamlet during their residency,” Biddle pointed out. “They attend the firehouse pancake breakfasts and are out there during the community tractor pulls, cheering.” This, Biddle said, creates a natural dialog between the artists and the community. “We think that’s really important,” she said. “And while it may be a small drop in the bucket, the project’s artists are contributing to the local economy and investing their money into the community.”

As working artists themselves, the Wassaic Project coordinators emphasize the symbiotic relationship between communities and artists. This is why, Biddle said, the project operates on a gallery model, rather than a museum model. “It is important to us to help support the artists, not just with the residencies, but also with the sale of their art,” she said. “It’s important for the artist to sell their work in order to survive.”

With this in mind, the project coordinators hope to expand the residency program in order to offer residencies nearly all year long. The project has also recently expanded to include Last Saturday programs from May through October, in which resident artists open their studios to the community. On these days “the artists are at the end of their month-long residency and have used their studios to the fullest capacity,” said Biddle. “People are invited to come in, ask questions and see month’s worth of work.” Visitors who come first to the open studios and then to the summer festival get the biggest reward out of the encounter, said Biddle: “It’s great to have a sense of who the artists are and why they are making what they’re making, and see the continuity in their work,... to experience the art from conception to execution.” The Last Saturday programs also feature educational programs geared towards children, developed by Education Director Amy Russo with various resident teaching artists, said Biddle.

The main summer events at the Wassaic Project kick off on July 9 with a summer fund-raising party at the Maxon Mills—welcome support for a project that survives on grants and donations. The 2011 Summer Festival itself will take place from August 5 through August 7 and will feature art, music, dance, and performance, both inside and outside the mill building. Performances and film screenings are also slated to take place in the Luther barn building.

While the Wassaic Project Summer Festival is a free event, a $20 suggested donation goes towards helping support the continuity of the festival, as well as supporting the residency, education and community-outreach programs of the project. Visitors are encouraged to camp onsite to experience the festival.

The Wassaic Project Summer Festival is accessible by car or by Metro North. To donate or get involved, visit wassaicproject.org.