A Weekend at MacDowell
Originally written in for the 2025 MacDowell Medal Day Weekend. I am keeping it here as part of an ongoing story with a place that continues to shape my work. The images above were captured by me on my visits.
Each summer, I find myself returning to MacDowell.
Not out of obligation. Not even entirely out of tradition.
But because something in me recognizes the rhythm of that place.
The weekend begins quietly. A gathering under a white tent. Artists, supporters, neighbors, friends. Music drifting into the evening air. Conversations that stretch just a little longer than expected. There is a sense of shared purpose — not loud, not performative — simply present.
Supporting that evening has never felt like attending an event. It feels like tending something. Like saying yes to the long, steady work of artists who need time and solitude in order to bring something new into the world.
Then comes Sunday.
The wider community arrives. A medal is awarded. Applause rises and settles. And afterward, the woods seem to draw everyone inward.
Studios open. Doors that are usually closed reveal glimpses of work still becoming. You step from one quiet space into another — a writing studio, a composer’s cabin, a painter’s room filled with light — and you begin to feel the invisible discipline that lingers there.
Years ago, I stood on the porch of one of those studios. A bicycle leaned against the railing. Light filtered through the trees in a way that made everything feel both expansive and contained.
I did not know it then, but that moment shifted something in me.
It shaped how I would later imagine Tahilla Farm — not simply as a home, but as a place where creativity could be held gently. Where solitude and community might exist side by side.
MacDowell helped me understand that creative life requires structure and stillness. That beauty is often quiet. That places matter.
Now, through Tahilla Gatherings and the evolving circle of friends who gather here, I find myself returning again and again to that early impression — that light through the trees, that sense of contained possibility.
Some places alter your course without announcement.
MacDowell was one of mine.
With warmth,
Jeanne
