Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and Residency, Captiva Island, Florida
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For the most part, getting access to the programs I am interested in visiting has involved simply writing a letter of introduction, usually to the Executive Director of an organization, explaining the intent of my sabbatical trip and talking a bit about our program at Cassilhaus. Doors have been generously opened around the county. Early in my research I discovered the unparallelled arts philanthropy work of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in NYC and their residency program on Captiva Island Florida. They have no less than 5 separate grant programs to support artists and arts organizations. I spent hours on their website and I found a video about a conference that took place on Captiva in 2015 for their SEED grantees that I thought would be the all time motherlode for my research-a week-long convening of more than 30 innovative and mostly emerging arts organization from all over the US that the Foundation had identified as up and coming and worthy of support. ALL OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS' TOP PEOPLE WERE THERE TOGETHER IN ONE PLACE. I found out that the summit was every two years but there was zero information about it on the web. I couldn't even find a date for 2017 and I desperately wanted to find a way to be invited. I contacted Christopher Rauschenberg, Bob's son, who is President of the Foundation Board and a major force in the photo world. I had met him at various photo conferences. He advised me that the summit was just for grantees but offered that Ann Brady, who directs the residency on Captiva, would be happy to talk with me about their amazing (but unrelated to the SEED summit) residency program. I contacted Ann and gently pleaded my case. She kindly agreed to show me around and talk with me about their program but not during the summit and said that only the director of philanthropy in NY, Risë Wilson, could authorize an outside observer coming to the SEED summit. Undaunted, I put on my charm shoes and contacted Risë and we hit it off. After a brief conversation she invited me to come as an observer for the first two days of the conference. I WAS IN! AND it was in Florida where I was already headed AND the dates were perfect for my schedule AND for 2017 they had added all (more than 20) of their Artist as Activist grantees, some of the top social practice leaders in all media and fields, to the summit cohort. Kid in a candy store!!!
The experience was incredible. On Monday Ann Brady spent over two hours with me on the deck of Rauschenberg's Fish House (third photo above) giving me the benefit of her 20 years of experience in the residency world and making me feel very much at home there. That evening we had dinner and orientation with the entire group and some fun ice breaker exercises.
Ann and Risë
On Tuesday I was able to sit in on several of the excellent content sessions on non-profit management etc. and Tuesday night was the "artist showcase" where several artists from among our ranks performed for the group. I was blown away. It was also a great opportunity to get to know a bit about the participants and their organizations and I have already set up meetings with two groups later in my trip.
I had to drag myself away from Captiva but I was due in Dallas. I serve on the collections committee at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University with Nancy Nasher, whose father Ray endowed the museum. At an April meeting I told her I would be in Dallas in May and she insisted I attend "the most unusual and amazing musical event I would ever experience"-a fund raiser called Cancer Blows featuring 20 of the world's top trumpeters. Unusual indeed! It was quite an affair and I got the VIP treatment as Nancy and her husband David were the lead sponsors.
Arturo Sandoval was amazing! I was shocked to learn that Doc Severinsen was still alive! Quite a dresser.
I had a wonderful chance to reconnect with my cousin Carol and her husband John who hosted me in Dallas. We were pretty close growing up but I hadn't seen her in a long time.
Ellen and I decided to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary by spending 13 days together on the road so she flew into San Antonio and I drove down from Dallas to connect with her and stay with her nephew and his family there. We launched the hash tag #thirteenyearsthirteendays to track our trip on Instagram. I have been using the hashtag #frankssabbatical on my whole trip.
Ellen joined me the next day for an interview with Veronique Le Melle, the Executive director of Artpace, in San Antonio. They have a distinguished history and an amazing list of artist alumni including Mark Bradford, William Cordova, Dario Robleto, Christian Marclay, Glenn Ligon, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Tracey Moffat. They have an unusual model where for each artist-in-residence session they appoint a curator who selects one international artist, one US artist, and one artist from Texas to form a collaborating cohort.
After our interview we headed off to one of our lifetime bucket list items-a visit to one of the art world Meccas, the small West Texas town of Marfa. You need to be dedicated. Marfa is basically three hours from ANYTHING. First off who knew that the legal speed limit was actually 80mph anywhere???
Ellen wanted to take the slow Southern backroads route. The drive was stunningly beautiful. We were in West Texas reverie. So much so that we forgot to fill up the car and ended up having a white knuckle adventure with dreams of spending the night on the side of the road. At 10 o'clock at night without any cell or internet service we realized we were 70 miles from the next gas station, were on E, and to add insult to injury were driving a diesel car and didn't even know if the distant gas station was open or if it had diesel. The VW Jetta's 46mpg paid off. We got to a gas station with 12 miles left on our range indicator but the station was closed. There was a trucker there at the 24 hour diesel pump and he put a code in for us to use the pump and we filled up! I have never been so happy to see a gas station in my life. We pulled off to celebrate the stars.
Marfa did not disappoint. Incredible vibe and people and we had a fabulous airbnb. Lavish brunch our first morning on the back deck.
Marfa is home to the Chinati Foundation which houses the estate collection of a vast trove of work by Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Carl André, John Chamberlin, Robert Irwin, Roni Horn, and others. We took the 5 hour!!! complete collection tour and it felt like we only got a short look. Particularly breathtaking were the 100 untitled works in milled aluminum by Donald Judd from 1982-86 and the single untitled fluorescent light installation across SIX ENTIRE BUILDINGS! by Dan Flavin.
photos from the Chinati website
More Judd work in concrete outside of the exhibition buildings.
Another amazing treat at Chinati was a newly completed installation occupying an entire building by Robert Irwin.
We spent a lot of time just walking around town.
A few years ago when we were in Austin we bought a print called Women's Studies at Flatbed Press by an artist named Julie Speed. The piece is actually up in a show called Exquisite Corpse at Cassilhaus as we speak. Download Exquisite Corpse Gallery Guide
Just by chance I found out she lived in Marfa and I contacted her and she graciously invited us over for cocktails and a studio tour. Amazing work and a great human to boot! We also got to meet her wonderful and very accomplished musician partner Fran Christina.
At the suggestion of our Chinati tour guide, we took a drive out route 2810 almost to the Mexican border, what she said was Donald Judd's favorite drive, to have a picnic and watch the stars.
My trusty steed logged its 8000th mile.
I used a 30 second exposure and a flashlight to "paint" a portrait of Ellen gazing at the stars.
Another night we checked off another bucket list item by going to Prada Marfa, a permanent public art installation in the form of a fake Prada boutique right on the highway near Valentine TX. Again we used the 30 second exposure and flashlight technique to take a night shot and illuminate the sign and logo for the photograph.
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find the dark, too blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
--Wendell Berry
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