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Greetings friends and colleagues,

I’ve been living on the Artists’ Ranch for the better part of a year now, and I’ve had the extraordinary privilege of having an inside view of life around the ranch on this coastal prairie in the redwoods.

This is a place of ephemeral delight.

Every day, there’s a thing or two that I catch at just the right moment – a writer celebrating the completion of a draft, a bobcat prowling through a meadow, the staff learning of a grant awarded or a check in the mail, a hawk entirely still in the wind, a composer getting a commission, the announcement of a prize nomination, new blooms dancing across the hillside, a beautiful dinner prepared by Dan Tosh – to make me especially grateful for this work.

But despite those fleeting joys, for me Djerassi Resident Artists Program represents resolute solidity – in support of artists and in support of a belief that one of the great ways to support artists is by honoring them with time and space in a beautiful place, uninterrupted.

And so it has been particularly gratifying to be here these last few months as five artists from Session 1 continued to shelter-in-place with us beyond their previously scheduled departures. Seeing those artists – Rodney Sharman, Sabeen Omar, Winter Miller, April Sellers, and Erin Bregman – at work and in reflection in these difficult heady months has been a total affirmation to me of what the Djerassi Program does.

It is easier to leave the words to them:

April Sellers said that continuing to operate during these days demonstrates “a deep-seated knowledge that the best investment is giving artists time and space to practice, reflect and generate the questions that will guide our future realities.”

Winter Miller wrote: “What the Djerassi Program has given to me in this time is safety, sanity, and the freedom to dream new work.”

Erin Bregman reported that she could “finish a rewrite of a piece that would have taken me 7 or 8 months otherwise.” She also indicated that being here during the pandemic allowed her to return to her arts organization (Little Opera in San Francisco) with “a calm and collected mental state, [which] has been a huge asset to the whole organization.”

Sabeen Omar says that she wouldn’t have been able to get much done back home in Sri Lanka in the midst of COVID-19, but “being at the Djerassi Program helped me slow down. Knowing the world was closed and I was in an art making haven helped me really, really slow down.”

The world that this pandemic has introduced to us felt unthinkable just months ago, and the world that will eventually emerge from the shadow of this virus is equally hard to imagine. It is clear by now that we are entering a hard time for many out of work, distracted, and demoralized artists. Artists fill many roles in our culture – artists provide lenses of understanding, they inspire, they heal, and their work transforms our world.

And so both today and in the days to come, we need artists. We need artists to be valued and honored and given the time and space to be inspired and to heal and to create new work. And so it brings me immense pride to be here now, in the midst of the pandemic, working with our resilient staff and board to adapt to the times and to ready the Djerassi Resident Artists Program for continued responsible operation in the months to come.

Care & respect,

Peter Bradley
Deputy Director of Programs

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Dear Djerassi Program friends and colleagues,

A Journey of a Thousand Miles

A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.
Contriving you are defeated;
grasping, you lose.

Lao-Tzu, Taoist, 4th century BC

In the past, the future was often left to futurists. These days there is a little futurist in all of us. We are all thinking about the future. Obsessively, compulsively. Desperately. Everyone has a ready answer for what they plan to do FIRST when we’re free to move around the planet again. . . You know, in “the better days” we’ve been promised. Those “better days,” when we have shut the door on the disruption, death and destruction of COVID-19. We’ll be hugging our friends, visiting our parents in nursing homes, snuggling with our grandchildren, eating in restaurants, or visiting Las Vegas (okay, that might be me) as soon as we possibly can. We can frame (or burn?) our masks and cancel our ZOOM accounts. We have collective pent-up demand for a different future.

AND, we will be returning to concert halls, film festivals, theaters and museums. Because, despite the brutal current economic hailstorm artists are now enduring, artists will be the ones to illuminate the present and help us make sense of it. Already I am seeing Djerassi alumni and artists worldwide creating COVID-19 murals, dances, poetry, films, visual art and works for the stage. The future of our memories about these horrific times will be shaped by the vision of artists.

Here at Djerassi, we believe that art and artists matter. We trust artists. And the time for OUR work–the provision of space and time for artists–has never been more needed. Or more fragile. Or more in jeopardy. We still have three artists sheltering with us since they arrived on March 11. But, we have cancelled the next residency and may have to cancel or postpone more. When conditions allow, it is our hope to restore residencies with appropriate COVID-19 modifications. No virus or economy can downsize the artistic heart.

Along with every profit and nonprofit business in the world, cultural organizations like ours are rushing to prepare ourselves for the present AND the future. We have cut budgets and salaries. We have cancelled residencies, retreats and events. The cultural community is adapting to the reality of becoming a smaller sector with smaller finances. But not a weaker one. Nor one with less impact on the world.

Art and artists matter to humanity’s sense of itself. Past, present and future. As we navigate our way through these uncertain times on the way to the future, let’s link arms with artists and walk together–with as much grace as we can muster. One step at a time.

Please enjoy some of the work and accomplishments of a few Djerassi alumni forging their own paths to the future. Check out our social media feeds for on-line immersion into their work and ours. (The bobcat in front of the Artists House could care less about the virus).

And, if you can, press that donate button and help us pave the way.

Care & respect,

Margot H. Knight

Reintroducing…

What a pleasure to welcome Art//Sky AND to reintroduce it—along with the still-new format and a new website to match for 2018.

Already this year we have hosted 26 winter session artists, and two groups of core-season residents, welcomed workshop participants with esteemed alumni Jane Vandenburgh , Sara Shelton Mann , and Nova Ren Suma (whose new book A Room Away from the Wolves is coming Sept 4). We also collaborated to create two week-long experiences for Stanford University creative writing students and a group of artists and scientists working on The Ocean Memory Project for the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative.

The news moves as fast as the fog and weather up here. As our editor, Nick Walsh, often says, “It’s later than it’s ever been.”  Art//Sky —now linked to our website news —is the place for the latest info on our 2400+ alumni and Program opportunities to deepen your relationships to the Program and its artists.

We enjoy a special place in the creative process of artists and the work they produce. Up here where Harrington Creek flows into San Gregorio and heads to the ocean, ideas are hatching and artistic eyes are a-glimmer.

Join us for a hike (the lottery opens Tuesday, June 5) or OPEN HOUSE/OPEN STUDIOS on August 12 (tickets for this always sold-out event are open NOW), or our unique partnership with San Jose Museum of Art to hear from a talented group of writers of the Vietnamese diaspora (tickets available NOW). Please be a part of what generations of artists have called “ The Djerassi Magic.”

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight

Out With the Old…
Welcome to the “refreshed” newsletter, logo, and website.  Art//Sky and the horizon it references is timeless. The transformational experience of artists is timeless. The spectacular sunsets are the stuff of legend. BUT design and communication about what we do needed a re-boot. We are grateful to Jeremy Mende ( 2015 Djerassi alum) of MendeDesign for bringing our look deeper into the 21 ^st century. And I want to thank staffer Judy Freeland for coordinating it all. We are still rustic and safe, but have left “quaint” behind.

Nick Walsh remains our volunteer Art//Sky newsletter editor (and my volunteer husband) but he will be highlighting the news NOT reporting all of it. The hundreds of award, performance and publication notices we receive from and about over 2,300 artist and scientist alumni are now updated WEEKLY directly on the website. Also check out the series of rotating STORIES highlighting the ways Djerassi alumni change the world. There’s also a searchable database of alumni. Oh, and check out the 2019 application or the 2018 workshops. And our Instagram feed!

…In With the New
We also have a new general information email address: info@djerassi.org . Please send all press releases, etc. to info@djerassi.org AND nick@djerassi.org . Add us to your mailing list so we don’t end up as SPAM.

So, revisit the place you know and love by taking a look at the website. See an error or have a suggestion for improvement? Let us know. Want to give some hugely appreciated stock or cash gift as the year comes to a close? GO FOR IT. The alumni challenge is now ON with every alumni gift between now and Dec 31 ^st generously matched by John and Sue Diekman.

As we enjoy these closing days of 2017, we are grateful for your attention, your respect for artists, your understanding of why the Djerassi Program matters and your PRESENCE—physical, spiritual and electronic.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all.

Care & respect.
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Remastered

I am increasingly struck by the fact that newly “remastered” tunes of some of my favorite singers and bands don’t sound like the tunes I remember. Interestingly enough, they don’t have the same emotional resonance they had when I fell in love with them in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. At least not, at first. I find, if I listen to them frequently, the ways in which the work has been audibly enhanced grows on me. And I fall in love with the songs again—I cry, I laugh, I sing along. They become “new” familiar songs.

Every artist goes through a similar process—smitten by an idea, a vision, a turn of phrase, a plot, a measure or a movement. And every artist is CONSTANTLY remastering his or her own work. Joe Oliveira tells a great story about his late father, the famous painter Nathan Oliveira. The owner of one of Nathan’s paintings asked him to repair a damaged portion of a canvas. Once it was in Oliveira’s studio, Nathan couldn’t just repair it. The collector was quite surprised to get a completely different painting when it was finally returned to him.

Product and Process
The general public may not understand how much sheer work goes into the evolution of a finished book, poem, painting, film, composition or dance. Audiences are definitionally about PRODUCT. Painstaking work goes on in artists’ minds and studios for days, weeks and years on end. That is the kind of work that goes on at Djerassi Resident Artists Program. The time and space to imagine a new work, give a stalled project new oxygen, or put the final touches on a galley. A residency isn’t about the product but about the PROCESS. That’s sometimes difficult to explain to the public and to funders!

Artists understand this. Creativity is in the evolution, in the risk-taking AWAY from what has been done before. Away from the familiar and predictable. The best among them are continually remastering their work and themselves. Which is why places like ours matter so much.

Won’t you help us help artists shape the world’s culture? Come to Artful Harvest , make a donation, volunteer your time or “remaster” your own support of creativity.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. er Knight
Executive Director

Art and Community

“When artists give form to revelation, their art can advance, deepen and potentially transform the consciousness of their community.” -Alex Grey, artist

Last weekend I had the privilege of judging Art in the Redwoods, an annual community art exhibition hosted by Gualala Arts Center. Gualala is a small (pop 2,093) coastal town north of San Francisco. I was struck by several things. First, the QUALITY of the art show was over-the-top. I spent 6 hours with hundreds of paintings, sculptures and boundary-defying pieces and walked away the wiser and more inspired for it.

But what really hit heart/home for me was the quality of the community that supported the center and the event. Over 300 volunteers doing everything from cooking pies to mopping floors to parking cars. My tablemate on opening night proudly shared that he had laid the concrete for the state-of-the-art building. It didn’t just take a village, it took several to create a magnificent gathering place that is a source of pride for the entire region. The parking lot was packed—I met visitors from half a dozen states.

Communities Support Artists
We often think of individual artists—at work in their solitary studio or plein-airing it on a hillside but we forget about the communities that SUPPORT artists. With every blue ribbon we announced, a cheer went up from family and friends. Before we were finished judging, dozens of pieces were purchased. An older artist approached me and proudly stated that two award-winning artists were from “her” sketch group. A group she started 40 years ago to bring artists together.

There are thousands of places like this in urban and rural America. Every one of them matters. They struggle, they ebb, they flow. And the best ones link artists with their community. They don’t just import art—they help foster its creation.

Every artist deserves a circle of support. Every artist deserves a family who “gets” them, agents or galleries that champion them, communities that take pride in them and governments that understand the role artists play in creating vibrant places to live, work, play and visit. Artists are not “the other”—they are us.

Whether you are an artist or an arts-lover, I hope you have developed a community that is fueled and inspired by artists and art. You’ll be the wiser and more inspired for it.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Heads Down, Grazing

Is it just me or does the world feel more chaotic than usual? If my Facebook feed is any indication—we’re living in a swirl of re-evaluation and confusion, punctuated by polarizing anger and bewilderment. Governments, foundations and individuals are all in serious conversations about the value of supporting culture in the wake of social issues exacerbated by the uncertainty that surrounds us.

I lived in Idaho for nine years and our first winter there the temperature was below zero for two weeks straight—dipping to 34 below one morning. Every day, I watched our three horses, anxious for their health. The wind blew and the snow whipped around them. And every day, they kept their heads down, grazing. They had their priorities.

Djerassi Resident Artists Program has its priorities—to provide inspirational time and space for artists and scientists, to shape the world’s culture, to keep our trails open and our forests healthy for generations to come. The health, vitality and diversity of cultural expression and those remarkable people among us—the painters, the filmmakers, the choreographers, the poets, the playwrights, the composers—who illuminate and provide perspective are our priority.

Arts and culture are a cornerstone of civilization. The distraction that recent ship-of-state tsunamis have offered (who will be investigated next?) should not deter us from pursuing the progress that comes with respect (and money) for art and artists.

Artists—both living and dead—and the organizations like ours that trust and present their work compel us to see the world differently. The work of artists summons forth emotions we didn’t know we had. The work of artists engages the intellect with a fierce authority unmatched by the dry musings of politicians or the glib chatter of talk radio.

The political winds are blowing; economic storms are brewing. Up here on the mountain, artists are dreaming. There are no small dreams on the mountain. The dreams of artists transform the world. It is OUR priority to support and sustain those dreams.

Blow ye winds. I hope you will all join me as I keep my head down, grazing. I have my priorities.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Eschewing a Trompe-l’oeil Life

This month’s banner – a rug that isn’t a rug but a painting on the floor of the Artists’ Barn-is the kind of work that surprises. It appears to be one thing, but, it literally (and translationally) fools the eye into seeing something that isn’t there by compressing our eyes’ focus. Pakistani artist Rukhe Zaidi created and gifted the piece to us during her residency last month. If there is a trompe-l’oeil continuum for humans (e.g. a scale with authenticity at one end and audacious fakery on the other), most artists I know are at the low end of the scale. Save for the occasional marketing pitch, serious artists are exactly who and what they say they are.

As a species we are drawn to larger-than-life characters, so visual artists and writers with big storefronts and egos get a disproportional share of attention and money. It is the more subtle forms of human and artistic tromp l’oeil that intrigue me.

Artists in View
Year in, year out, I watch artists at work interpreting the world in the most honest and authentic ways possible. Their work CHANGES the way we see the world-often turning something we think we know into something else entirely. In some ways, nearly every piece of art and literature is both tromp-l’oeil or anti-tromp-l’oeil. Art confirms our biases and rips them apart. It is the super power artists carry with them.

It’s a popular trope to say there is an artist in everyone or that everyone is an artist. I DO believe that immersing one’s self in the creation of art regardless of talent or training is a journey to knowing one’s self in a more honest way. Working with your hands to paint, your legs to dance, or your thoughts to keyboard, changes the way you experience the world. And those who do it for a living change US. It’s an anti-trompe-l’oeil life (and a hard-knock one as well).

See for Yourself
We open up the gates to the Djerassi Program and the talents of artists and scientists during our annual Open House/Open Studios-just around the corner on July 16. Join us. What you THINK you’re going to see just may turn out to be something entirely different. All part of our evil plan to trick your eyes and hearts into a new appreciation for the value of the creative process.

Have no fear – there will be actual pizza.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Creative Confidence for All

Recently I had the good fortune to hear David Kelley, Founder of IDEO (ideo.com) and Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (dschool.stanford.edu/) speak. His new best seller Creative Confidence describes his approach to instill ALL students regardless of declared major with creative confidence. What a concept!

I often bemoan the fact that children will dance, sing and draw at the drop of a hat. Their work graces every refrigerator in the nation. But at some point someone tells the children they’re not good or won’t succeed at art; then they get self-conscious and shut down that part of their soul. And even if they keep the dream to BE, gasp, an artist, we whisper to them at Thanksgiving, “At least, get a minor in business.”

Where Residencies Come In
Residencies provide artists with physical and psychological space to revisit and maintain their creative confidence. As we welcomed our April/May artists (see below) during orientation, I described the characteristics of successful sessions, of artists who leave here happy. And, the rare handful that were not so successful.

We function spectacularly well because we invite artists with creative confidence. Artists who have a vision and the skill set-honed through years of risk-taking-to execute it. Artists not driven by the expectations of others but those who trust their own instincts and creative paths. Artists who take themselves and their work seriously. Artists not necessarily “famous,” but, as I say, “We host the most remarkable artists you’ve never heard of.”

Which brings me specifically to the Djerassi Program staff and Board of Trustees.

The Djerassi Program succeeds at providing transformative experiences for artists-thereby shaping cultural landscapes worldwide-because of our staff, the bulk of whom are artists themselves. Terra Fuller, Development Manager, recently had a show of her textiles in Philadelphia (interview below). Bookkeeper Carolyn Bush creates dramatic wearable art; Tim DeVoe, Facilities Manager is a long-time ‘Burner’ (Burning Man devotee) who has worked with David Best to construct his iconic temples in the Nevada desert and Nepal; Residency Coordinator Judy Freeland is a landscape painter; Chef Dan Tosh is a ceramicist (his artistry with food is WELL established: [article below by Melanie Bishop (2016)] Moreover, half of our Board members are artists: writers Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Karl Soehnlein, and Peter Fish; visual artists Binta Ayofemi and Lauren DiCioccio and our new Chair, Jeanne Finley; architect Cass Calder Smith and filmmaker Dale Djerassi. Easily googlable and gifted artists all, who find the time to support other artists.

We pride ourselves on trusting artists. No small thing in a world more inclined to simple answers that marginalize the nuanced work of artists and intellectuals. We have the board leadership and staff skills and aptitude to continue to do so. Which makes this particular former actress (long off-stage) and writer (with no time to write) VERY satisfied with her job.

Join us.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

A Year in (Pre)view

My husband and I spend an hour or two each New Year’s Eve to review where we’ve been and what we’ve done the previous 12 months. We then make some simple resolutions. (This year’s are: Read More. Eat Less. Exercise.)

At Djerassi it’s easy to make a list of artists and scientists (all 67 of them, see photo below), new sculptures (SEVEN were installed this year), old and new partners (Pace Gallery, National Academies Keck Futures Initiative, Sequoia High School). We can’t thank every artist, hiker, partner, donor, Trustee and staff member enough for a very inspiring and productive year.

What ISN’T as easy to describe is the exuberant HOPE we feel as we enter the new year. (Yes, I know, hope isn’t a strategy BUT it IS essential to any successful enterprise). We have three new employees with high hopes: Director of Development Gregory Stock, Environmental Stewardship Associate Felicia Herron and Facilities Manager Tim DeVoe (we bade farewell to Tom Shean a couple of weeks ago as he starts a new adventure up north).

With their help (and YOURS), we will be elevating the preservation of our land and buildings. The soundness of our buildings and the health of our grasslands and forests are inextricably linked to the creativity of Djerassi residents.

With their help (and YOURS)-along with the wisdom of former Trustee and fundraiser strategist par excellence, Kay Sprinkel Grace-we will create a plan to preserve our lands, buildings and programs in perpetuity. For the benefit of art and artists for all time.

With their help (and YOURS), the Djerassi gift of uninterrupted time will continue to coax brilliant ideas to fruition and provide a proving ground for untested concepts. The Djerassi Magic is forever. Artists are squeezed for time, money and space in ways most workers don’t experience. I don’t think the next few years will be any easier on those counts.

THOSE are resolutions we can keep. After all, a plan is nothing but hope held together with a timeline.

Merry EVERYTHING and Happy New Year!

Care & respect
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

We’re All Wet

Thanksgiving greetings from the ‘greenish’ mountain after the 2nd wettest October since 1921. Good thing that artists and other Djerassi lovers are made of hardy stock. The 40 mph gusts and horizontal rain did nothing to dampen the spirits of the 130 souls who braved the foggy road and muddy parking to celebrate Artful Harvest. Their rewards were plentiful – spectacular performances by master puppeteer Basil Twist, stirring prose by Ingrid Rojas Contreras and Michelin-star level food prepared in the Artists’ Barn open and chilly garage by chef Mark Sullivan from Woodside’s famous Village Pub. Thanks to EVERYONE who helped make what could have been a disaster, a success.

I’m also pleased to welcome two new employees – BOTH of whom will be helping “green up” the place. Felicia Herron is our new Environmental Resources Associate. Not only is she a seasoned ranch hand, she has a BA in Environmental Conservation and Restoration Studies from Sonoma State. Felicia will be our point person to insure the Program’s land management and conservation mission has equal billing with our mission to support artists. The two are inextricably linked, historically and forever.

Gregory Stock joins us in the newly revitalized position of Director of Development, seeking the kind of green to keep it all going. Most recently, Gregory was Director of Public Affairs with ILLUMINATE where he helped raise $4M to usher Leo Villareal’s The Bay Lights back to the Bay Bridge.He is clearly a champion of the creative process.

The ground is saturated, our hearts are full. Our last group of core artists will take their leave within a couple of weeks. Hello and goodbye. Hello and goodbye. The seasons change and the creative talents who spend time here are nourished. And then go out to nourish the world.

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

“Awumbuk”

I generally do not find time to reach much outside of the news, nonprofit management tomes and books by Djerassi residents. So this weekend was the exception that proved the rule as I downloaded an amazing book, “The Book of Human Emotions: From Ambiguphobia to Umpty-154 Words from Around the World for How We Feel” by Tiffany Watt Smith.

I fell into the world of nuanced emotion and found that much of this lexicographical grand tour describes feelings I have about art and artists. These are the feelings that fill in the gap between mad, glad and sad. More interesting, these are the words that embrace the idea that feelings matter. That, in and of itself, is a revelation in America’s hard-driving DNA.

Awumbuk is a word used by the Baining people of Papua New Guinea to describe “the feeling of emptiness after visitors depart.” I tell artists they are not allowed to feel sad about LEAVING our residency until 48 hours before departure. But the staff and I are constantly saying hello just to say goodbye to some of the most memorable people I have ever met. The Baining people fill a bowl with water and leave it overnight to absorb the festering air. The next day, the family rises very early and ceremonially flings the water into the trees, whereupon “ordinary life resumes.”

Fortunately, our awumbuk is the world’s joy, as artists return to their homes, hometowns, galleries and public spaces. They return refreshed and well-fed-ready to re-engage with their communities and their day-to-day lives. They often return with tens of thousands of new words, scores of new sketches and pages of new musical notes.

As the national meeting approaches of the Alliance of Artists Communities – a gathering of ALL the people who invest their time in supporting artists and the artistic process, there will be a whole lot of awumbuk in the air.

Regardless of where YOU live, embrace the artists who live there. It matters.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

P.S. And COME to Artful Harvest on Sunday, October 16-it is a celebration of all 2,400 artists who have graced us with their presence over the past 37 years!

Playing the Glass Bead Game in the 21st Century

The rules of the glass bead game, a central tenet of Herman Hesse’s prophetic novel, Magister Ludi are, (according to Wikipedia) “only alluded to-they are so sophisticated that they are not easy to imagine. Playing the game well requires years of hard study of music, mathematics and cultural history. The game is essentially an abstract synthesis of all arts and sciences. It proceeds by players making deep connections between seemingly unrelated topics.”

At play in the fields and forests of Djerassi, the glass bead game is explored with wit and vigor. Here at Djerassi this game is not an abstract idea-it is as real as the creative minds we welcome each month. And though Hesse’s imagination created no scoreboard (NOR could women play!), the artists and scientists who come here have not only ideas but also books, art, music, poems, installations and dance to show for it. Who and how the ideas are generated are as magical as the sudden appearance of a Pokemon Go character. The fog inspires, a walk excites, a casual conversation over bagels hatches some new idea. Ideas are not captured but set free again and again.

Our mission to preserve-without interruption-this kind of internal and external exploration is as dear to us as our promise to preserve the redwood forests and coastal grasslands. Artists come here for themselves and each other with few, if any, outside commitments. In a transactional world plagued by divisiveness, the currency of the glass bead game-Djerassi style-makes the world a better place.

You can help artists at play and work (is there a boundary?) with your support. Artful Harvest, our annual gala, is coming up on October 16. Buy a ticket or a table and celebrate creativity with us. And numerous Fellowships are available as well.

In the meantime, give your own mind some time to play the Glass Bead Game. Imagine a world where artists and scientists are trusted. Where ideas free themselves from rigid ideologies and evolve and grow through mutual trust. Imagine Djerassi. And help make it real.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Artists Lead The Way

Sometimes artists need to get away from the world in order to explore it. As with astronauts, a remote perspective clarifies the shape and substance of the world. Those now-famous pictures from space reframe our place in the world. The same happens when artists create literary, musical, visual and choreographic pictures.

The divisive malaise that hangs over so many people in so many communities provides unimagined and unimaginable opportunities for self-expression. Artists driven by their personal response to political and social unrest are busy. So, too, does a more collective, engaging muse drive artists. Time and history will reveal what art created today will be valuable tomorrow. But, for the time being, many people in Orlando, Dallas, Ferguson, Minneapolis, Istanbul and Nice are discussing how best to memorialize and reconcile the loss of their loved ones. Despair and hopelessness can overwhelm. But art and artists endure. And artists are rarely blind to the forces that surround them.

Though artists are protected physically from the outside world while they are in residence here, they are deeply connected to their cultures back home. At the Old Barn, Paola Cabal, from Chicago worked on Eclipse, an installation about the complex topic of officer-involved homicides. In the first two residencies this year, artists painted, composed and created work about dislocation, race, gender, patriarchy, masculinity, culture and mental illness. The resident artists see things how they were, how they are and how they wish them to be.

Give artists time and space and they will give you a new perspective on the world. I’m counting on it.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

The Arts Endure

Is it just me or is the exponentially increasing nastiness on the news dinner plate each night wearing heavily on your soul? Nothing is more unconsciously contagious than negativism and nastiness. The twitter outrage of the month has given way to the twitter outrage of the DAY. I have only two minutes a day for “ain’t it awful,” (a longstanding rule of mine) but it’s getting harder and harder to maintain. I have lost my temper a couple of times in the last few months myself – and was instantly saddled with sleepless nights punctuated by bad dreams.

Living together – whether on the planet, in the country, OR at an artist residency isn’t easy. We are increasingly rewarded for taking the I-got-mine road. The generative power of empathy got lost somewhere. People make mistakes, accidents happen, the wrong words are used, good intentions don’t matter. There is a deficit of trust. Or is that just the nightly news getting into my head?

I have always relied on art to be a bridge – among people, among ideas, among governments. Illuminating the human experience provides an avenue to see the world through the eyes of others. I desperately but firmly believe that theater, photography, painting, dance, music and literature can actually CHANGE worldviews. Art can transcend and expand the personal experience and make it universal. Art IS our salvation.

I had the good fortune to see Hamilton on Broadway last week. Yes, it lived up to the hype. But more importantly, there is a moment after George Washington’s number, “One Last Time” that provoked sustained applause. It struck me that the applause was not just for the excellent performance but also for the American principle that our democracy prevails and thrives under changing leadership. I am clinging to that belief, even as FB page comments have become reluctant battlefields of vitriolic volleys. The power of art to give us hope is real. The power of art to allow us to communicate and reflect upon our deepest desires is real. Yes, The Arts Endure.

And The Program endures! Please make your reservations for OPEN HOUSE/OPEN STUDIOS on Sunday, July 24th. It WILL sell out (and quickly!). [Click here or below for tickets]. The lasting beauty and magic of art and science along with the redwoods will dazzle you.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Time…to be, to reflect, to create, to hope

The frantic pace of providing for and running an artist residency program is diametrically opposed to the experiential outcome we want for the artists who are invited to come here. We work very hard to create a sense of sweat-free serenity while madly managing grant deadlines, planning events and struggling with the Internet. The grass needs mowing, the rats need exterminating (sorry, zen-like animal lovers) and the trails need maintaining. All of this matters because artists matter.

“What keeps you going?” a friend asked over lunch a few weeks ago. “The artists,” I replied. As we welcome the first group of the 2016 season, every interaction with the group listed below lowers my blood pressure and stills the hammering in my head. What these, and ALL artists, do for me is writ large. They make me see the world differently. They force me to question my assumptions. They allow me to grow. Collectively, artists make the lives of every single individual on this earth BETTER. Though this is rarely acknowledged, it is still a truth I cling to.

Artists make our lives possible.
Artists make sense of nonsense, stories from random bits of data, symbols that reflect our deepest desires. Artists make our lives bearable, through song and dance and words and images. Artists lay bare our hypocrisies, lighten our moods and deepen our understanding. Artists illuminate the human experience. Their work can elevate the level of debate – a soft sword against the vulgar coarseness that masquerades as public discourse. Artists are among the bravest people I know, taking more risks in a day than I take in a month.

The 11 sterling representatives of the worldwide tribe of artists we have on the mountain this month give me hope that, well, having hope is NOT a stupid thing to hang onto. There can be no crying over yesterday, only a desirable future state. For me, that journey must include artists every step of the way.

Multiple opportunities to experience the work of artists first-hand are listed below. Whether you read Djerassi alum Viet Tranh Nguyen’s 2016 Pulitzer-winning novel (CONGRATULATIONS, VIET) or catch an exhibition or see a dance, create some time in your busy, frantic life for art. You’ll be glad you did.

Care & respect
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

A New Season

As the winter residents stream in (see the hardy group below)–bundled and equipped for the coming El Nino storms–we close another year at the Artists’ Ranch. 70 artists and scientists from 17 states and 8 countries spent time with us in 2015-racking up another 2,100 (!) artist-days, every one of which makes the world a more vibrant place.

From these creative minds, I learned about particle physics, social justice movements in far-flung places, personal stories that transcended the personal to the universal, the interface of nature and urban life. Every artist has something to teach us. Every scientist connected to art has a revolutionary perspective to share. EVERY resident who spent time at Djerassi contributes to the health of the universe in seen and unseen ways.

It is ALSO that time of year when we seek support from everyone and their brother!

Please, don’t just delete the e-blast or throw the letter away unopened.

Please, imagine a world without art, without artists. Please, imagine the sheer wonder and awe and MEANING produced in 2,100 days on our mountain.

Please, open as large a pocket in your philanthropic wallet as you can and support the careers, the lives, the important work of painters, playwrights, choreographers, filmmakers, poets, photographers and all manner of boundary-crossing work that goes on here and BEYOND the mountain.

A joyous holiday season to you all.

Care & respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

JOY TO THE ARTISTS

As the winter residents stream in (see the hardy group below)–bundled and equipped for the coming El Nino storms–we close another year at the Artists’ Ranch. 70 artists and scientists from 17 states and 8 countries spent time with us in 2015-racking up another 2,100 (!) artist-days, every one of which makes the world a more vibrant place.

From these creative minds, I learned about particle physics, social justice movements in far-flung places, personal stories that transcended the personal to the universal, the interface of nature and urban life. Every artist has something to teach us. Every scientist connected to art has a revolutionary perspective to share. EVERY resident who spent time at Djerassi contributes to the health of the universe in seen and unseen ways.

It is ALSO that time of year when we seek support from everyone and their brother!

Please, don’t just delete the e-blast or throw the letter away unopened.

Please, imagine a world without art, without artists. Please, imagine the sheer wonder and awe and MEANING produced in 2,100 days on our mountain.

Please, open as large a pocket in your philanthropic wallet as you can and support the careers, the lives, the important work of painters, playwrights, choreographers, filmmakers, poets, photographers and all manner of boundary-crossing work that goes on here and BEYOND the mountain.

A joyous holiday season to you all.

Care & respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

WHY, HOW and WHO (Because We Know WHERE)

As we wind down the regular season (only good weather!) of artist residencies and prepare for winter artists and weather surprises, I contemplate the grass-covered hills from my office window and ask myself ‘WHY?’ On the heels of another record-breaking Artful Harvest gala followed too quickly by a national gathering of the tribe of people who do what we do, I ask myself ‘WHY?’

WHY, when we revere artists and look to them to create meaning and imagery and text and movement to illuminate the human experience, is it so challenging to support artists?

WHY, after artists form beachheads in cities across the country do they get priced out of the very communities they created? WHY is the simple “gift of time” – a transformative opportunity to expand the cultural landscape – such a tough case to make?

WHY is the concept of supporting art, artists and the creative process for its own sake so hard to explain, so hard to understand? WHY are artists valued more for what they DO – whether it’s revitalize neighborhoods, teach our children, write novels or create murals – than WHO they are and HOW they work?

The work of the 68 artists who have joined us in 30-day stints will continue to ripple across the world in quiet and noisy ways. Many will soon win awards and recognition for work inspired here this year. Many won’t see recognition for years. There are no gestational boundaries for creativity or credit. Many will return to teaching positions – refreshed and renewed – to instruct a new generation the value of expressing themselves creatively. Many will return to other so-called “day-jobs” as editors, scientists, curators, wait-staff, or professional poker players (Okay, we had ONE).

Their job here is TO BE. We are no vacation, as they dive deeper and deeper into their respective muses. Here they wrestle with ideas, fight with paragraphs, figure out keys and clefs, sort out colors and soothe aching, dancing joints. Here they are artists with all the rights and privileges they ought to have accorded to them year in and year out.

The more time I spend with artists the less I ask WHY. And the more I ask myself HOW. Djerassi Resident Artists’ Program is part of the HOW. And then I ask WHO. And I sure hope it’s YOU.

To quote Alice’s Mock Turtle – Will you won’t you, will you won’t you, will you join the dance?

Care and Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Bringing in the Sheaves

Harvest is in the news. The long, hot summer has meant an early grape harvest for many California vintners. But, rain or shine, the artful harvest continues both uncapitalized (pun intended) and CAPITALIZED. As in ARTFUL HARVEST – the Djerassi Program’s bang-up, annual gala to celebrate the year-round work of artists here at Djerassi.

Artful Harvest is not just about reaping what you sow – more importantly it is about SOWING what we reap. Yes, the work of choreographers, writers and visual artists will be infused and highlighted prominently during the event. You will catch a snippet of Anne LeBaron’s newest opera, LSD: The Opera, and former California Poet Laureate Al Young will read work inspired during his time with us.

Money raised will allow artists from around the world to plant themselves here on the mountain for 30 days. The time is THEIRS – to take risks, to follow their muses wherever our 583 acres take them, or to just BE. Djerassi is a place for artists to nourish themselves – away from the press of day-to-day intrusions and distractions. Here artists are trusted and revered and supported. In a world that is often unkind to artists, the gift of time is an extraordinary one.

Why does Djerassi matter? The rest of ART///SKY tells that story. Performances, books, exhibitions, plays and concerts – many inspired or created here. Because what happens on the mountain DOESN’T stay on the mountain.

Please join us on October 11 and harness yourself to the idea that this perpetual sowing and reaping of all things artful is important.

Care & respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Celebrating Babies

Celebrating Babies Now that the Program has passed its age of trust birthday, 30 (thanks, Abbie Hoffman), our thoughts are turning to the future. The birth of Beatrix Hofland, daughter of staffer Michelle Finch Hofland and her husband Aren got us to thinking – when was the LAST baby born to a staff member? No one could remember. So we started to wonder about Djerassi babies in general. While there are certainly more, editor Nick Walsh has accumulated a few pictures of babies created, born or incubated here, including the first one, born to artist Barbara Greenberg (1981) while she was a resident in Pamela Djerassi’s house in the first incarnation of the Program – when the Artists Residence was just a baby itself.

Okay, you’re thinking. Babies. Click-bait for a better open rate on ART///SKY. But what has this got to do with ART?

Babies make me think about the world they will inherit from us. Will following in their artistic parents’ footsteps be a viable option? How much WILL an MFA cost in in the 2030s? Will there be ballet? Books? Will places like Djerassi be treasured as hotbeds of creativity or just dinosaurs, once critical to the artistic process but no longer important? These are the things that keep me up at night. These are the things that inspire me as we advance a Djerassi Forever initiative.

Now is a good time to ensure the gift of time for those babies who decide to become professional painters, playwrights or poets. Seats at our spectacularly nourishing and exciting (LSD, THE OPERA!) Artful Harvest are going fast. For alumni artists, the portal is now open for December winter residencies. Invitations for 2016 resident artists will be mailed early next month. Six fee-based workshop retreats in 2016 are ready to accept participants.

In the meantime, enjoy the baby pictures. And be grateful there are no kitten connections to exploit.

Djerassi Forever.

Care and respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

The Road Less Travelled

Bear Gulch Road is not eponymous. There haven’t been bears here for well over 100 years. And, if we’re being honest, it is the bare definition of a road, more like a terrifying old logging trail that has some asphalt on it. But it is the road – the ONLY road that gets artists and visitors alike to Djerassi Resident Artists Program.

We will have many newbie drivers on July 19th for our Open House/Open Studios (reserve a spot at www.djerassi.org). A few will terrify themselves or blame us for their brakes burning out, or swear they’re never going to return. One guest last year asked where the road OUT was, not realizing it was a two-way road. (Yes, the look on her face was priceless). We have asked our residential neighbors to be kind to people who don’t see the turn-offs and seem unwilling or unable to drive backwards. And, for goodness sakes, if you’re coming, CARPOOL!

Regardless, each year about half of the Open House attendees are return visitors. Like spawning salmon they return for the nourishment provided by the landscape, the artists/scientists and Chef Dan’s delicious pizza. They get a map to explore the trails and ephemeral sculptures and a tiny bit of what artists lovingly call the “Djerassi magic.” When people come, they “get” it. They understand why places like this exist, why artists and the artistic process matter.

We would love to throw open the doors more frequently BUT an understandably stringent county-use permit and our own mission to give artists uninterrupted time preclude us from making this a public space.

We are always looking for ways to take what happens on the mountain off the mountain. We don’t want what happens here to stay here. For the current group of artists and scientists there is a lively blog provided by our partner LEONARDO, The International Society For The Arts, Science and Technology, and, down the line a video, LASER talks (see their website) and a section in a 2016 issue of LEONARDO, the magazine.

Like our July 19th visitors, the artists and scientists of Scientific Delirium Madness 2.0 are taking risks while they’re here. Painting with nanoparticles? Exploring jazz rhythms and bird songs? Diagnosing patients through art-trained observation? Dancing to the geometric rhythm of the Fibonacci series? Yes, yes, yes and yes. When we say YES to artists and scientists, they are free to say YES to themselves. It’s a wild ride.

We invite you to join us – either on the road or on the internet. I promise a deeply satisfying journey, well worth the traffic.

Care and respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

From The Artists’ Ranch to The Sea Ranch

“Experience wonder with regularity.” Luckily for paperwork-burdened arts administrators, this unwritten job responsibility makes mincemeat of our financial insecurities and misunderstood missions. I successfully met this job requirement over the weekend at Kronos Quartet’s (see photo, left to right: David Harrington, violin; John Sherba, violin; Hank Dutt, viola; and Sunny Yang, cello) world premiere of The Sea Ranch Songs by composer and Djerassi alum Aleksandra Vrebalov (2014).

I am still quivering from the experience; my instinct is to say, “You had to be there.” But the artists and organizers deserve recognition for creating an immersive experience that defines and elevates how the arts can create a sense of place. This is too long for a newsletter column, but bear with me. Because art matters.

Every square mile of this earth has a history – of geologic time, of its flora and fauna, of the ideas of the peoples who have made it their home. But few geographies ask that a gifted composer, intuitive video artist and world renowned string quartet express that history creatively.

Harmony with Land and Sea
In seventy minutes and thirteen songs, Aleksandra captures what is eternal to not just The Sea Ranch and its environs but the oft-elusive, hard-wired dream many share about living in harmony with nature. One of the original Sea Ranch architects, Donlyn Lyndon notes, “It was the setting for something bigger as well as for something smaller.” The Sea Ranch was and is a small, but intentional, component of the continuum in the historical nautilus of the astronomical, geological, biological, and human cultural time-line.

The Sea Ranch Songs are achingly lovely in their exploration of the stars, rocks, forests and ferns. The songs about the elements and the ocean quicken the pulse. I could hear my heart pumping in time to Sunny Yang’s cello as the relentless sea pounds the sand and rocks. There are nods to the native rituals of the Pomo Kashia Indians (the tribe’s shaman and other tribal members attended Sunday’s performance) and the earliest Russian settlers. Staccato strings mark mankind’s measurements as The Sea Ranch’s first buildings are built and preserved. Coyotes recorded during Vrebalov’s Djerassi residency intertwine with her equally wild piano melodies to symbolize the land’s rambling spirits.

The music and Andrew Lyndon’s seamlessly integrated video/animation sequences focus on the constants, not on the houses that now grace the property. On the eternal. On the commons. On the sea and its creatures. On the stars. On the sea – always the sea. It is art that focuses on the vision and philosophy that guide the community. One hundred years from now, the piece could be performed and would resonate with as much truth and beauty as it did over the weekend. The work is the setting for something bigger and something smaller.

Two years ago, the residents of The Sea Ranch had the foresight to think BIG about the 50th anniversary of their 10-mile California coastal community. Under the able leadership of local gallery owner (and Ansel Adams’ biographer) Mary Alinder, there have been community potlucks, architectural walking tours, lectures and even vow renewals for twenty-seven Sea Ranch couples. Iconic Bay Area choreographer and Sea Ranch resident Anna Halprin led a group in dance on the beach. And, they reached out to SF-based Kronos Quartet who commissioned Aleksandra Vrebalov to tell the community’s story.

I was overwhelmed by the music and video to be sure. But I was also humbled by a community who cared enough to make the past year happen. This is a group of people whose homes are not an accident of ancestry but a geographical and philosophical choice. These are not the people of Mad Men’s 60s who littered public parks and sought relief from their “outsiderness.” These people see themselves as inside the historical nautilus the community’s logo represents – The Sea Ranch nestled next to the past, the future and the cosmos.

The Challenge of Success “Now that’s it has become so financially successful, it’s attracted some people who sort of don’t get it,” worries one Sea Rancher in the sampled oral histories that comprise Vrebalov’s multi-textured score. I could hear the audience’s silent agreement. Sky-high lot and home prices, airbnb rentals and the passing of the first generation of Sea Ranchers are a challenge to maintaining the fragile sense of community.

The Sea Ranch Songs reminded me that you can neither invent or buy a sense of place. But you can invest in it. By investing in art and artists to tell their story – to literally play their songs – the good people of The Sea Ranch have secured for themselves an eternal berth in the idea of the State of California and the state of wonder. I’m a proud citizen of both.

Care and respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

The Voice of the Turtle

The peace and chaos that descends upon us when the first group of artists arrive is palpable. We are doing what we are meant to be doing – letting artists BE. No bedtime, no alarm clocks, no outside demands. They are here to follow their muse wherever she takes them. Bewilderment in the wilderness leads to poems, plays and paintings. It sounds like, to use a Biblical phrase, the voice of the turtle in stereo.

We have some new water tanks and a refreshed kitchen. The artists are safe in this rustic setting. We constantly work to make sure they are supported while they are here. That takes warm hearts and cold cash.

We are participating in the giving program, Silicon Valley Gives (see here and below) AND are identifying donors to underwrite individual artists.

Join us in whatever ways you can to support artists. Go see one of the many shows and exhibitions listed. Buy a book. Embrace the peace and chaos that art-making provides.

Happy Spring.

Care and respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

SPRING! We’re BACK.

Spring is springing up here on the mountain. As the rain brings green grass, the collegiality provided by Djerassi alumni workshop/retreats has jump-started the creativity of dozens of writers. Acclaimed authors Jane Vandenburgh (2010, winter 2013) and Heidi Durrow (2005, 2013) started the year coaching participants through the complexities of writing their novels. Before the first group of resident artists arrive in April, noted writer Ann Fisher-Wirth (1996) will be guiding artists in the process of memoir and nature writing. And San Francisco media artist Ian Winters (2013) will host a group to explore sound and media installations. The creative spirit is busting out all over.

Preserving the redwood forests and coastal grasslands is a critical part of our mission as well. I am pleased to say that, once again, ALL of our public hikes are “sold-out,” and a few spots remain for my Director’s Hikes. I want to thank our stalwart crew of trail docents for their work. Creating time for our Bay area neighbors to experience this magical place is critical to our vitality. And helps keep our reputation as one of the top artist residency programs in the world.

Next week (the deadline is March 15), we expect close to 900 applications from artists who need uninterrupted time to do their work. With the help of experts in the fields of poetry, prose, playwriting, visual arts, media arts, choreography and music composition, we will select 72 of the finest and most promising artists in the world. While most are NOT household names, their work advances the worldwide cultural landscape in remarkable ways.

Happy, creative Spring.

Care & respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

In Celebration: Program Co-Founder Carl Djerassi 1923-2015

Dr. Carl Djerassi passed away on Friday, January 30, 2015. He was 91. Dr. Djerassi led a life immersed in both science and the arts. A renowned chemist whose many achievements included the oral contraceptive and antihistamines, to name a few, was also a Stanford professor as well as a noted author, playwright and poet. A bibliography follows.

The Program’s friends, benefactors and former residents all appreciated Dr. Djerassi’s foresight in founding the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. After the tragic suicide of his artist daughter Pamela in 1978, Dr. Djerassi and his soon-to-be wife Diane Middlebrook, were in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, Italy, by the Uffizi. There they decided, as a tribute to Pamela, they would convert his ranch in the hills over the Pacific into a place to nurture living artists.

He is survived by his son, Dale Djerassi, grandson Alexander Djerassi and stepdaughter Leah Middlebrook.

From the Executive Director
Djerassi Forever
Founders loom large in the evolution of nonprofit organizations. As hundreds of worldwide obituaries and news stories attest, Carl Djerassi loomed large in the world. Carl was more than “The Pill,” more than his patents, more than a scientist. He was a playwright, a poet, a professor and a philosopher. He was a father and a grandfather. He loved art and he respected artists. No small thing in this transactional world.

Past trustees gathered earlier this month for the annual Founder’s Dinner, the first without Carl in 21 years. In a moving tribute to his father, Dale Djerassi noted that, “Death is, in fact at the very root of the Program,” a reference to the suicide of his sister, Pamela (the Program’s namesake) in 1978. “I think we all thought Carl would live to be a centenarian,” he continued. “He wanted that extra digit, but cancer intervened.”

Because Carl had a reputation for being difficult, I met him with some trepidation when I was first hired. He was blunt and direct — I responded in kind. He loved dark jokes and wordplay. We enjoyed a good relationship that included a new understanding on his part about the Program’s fragile finances and buildings. He graciously funded improvements to the Artists’ House and a new roof for the Administrative Offices. He corrected my grammar, sent ideas for potential donors and, just within the past few months, shared his vision for the Program’s future.

Several artists and donors have asked if residencies will continue now that Carl has died, unaware that the Program has been an independent nonprofit for the past 20 years. (The Program supports itself via a wide array of foundations and individual donors.) The answer is a resounding, “ABSOLUTELY!” We matter too much to fail.

The family has created the Carl Djerassi Memorial Fund to honor his legacy. As you read the scores of testimonies that follow, please allow the enormity of Carl and co-founder Diane Middlebrook’s work to sink in. Thousands of paintings, poems, symphonies, dances, films and plays exist because of their shared commitment to living artists. The lives and careers of artists were transformed because of them.

Our mission is as simple as it is timeless. Artists need time and space to take risks. To nourish themselves. To JUST BE. The best way to honor Carl is to harness ourselves to his vision. To see what he saw. Artists and the artistic process matter.

Djerassi Forever.

Care & Respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Secrets of the Ranch

Over 2,000 artists have roamed these 583 acres over the past 35 years. They have shared secrets, discovered secrets and left secrets. Every once in a while we find a sculpture we didn’t know existed. Or we find a note in a book, a poem in a drawer, a carving on a tree stump. But before there were artists, there were Carl Djerassi’s short-horned, polled Herefords. And before there were beef cattle there were dairy cattle. And loggers. And, a sawmill that made 3-foot shingles, whose workers lived in 6 or 7 small cabins near what we now call the Picnic Grounds.

I had the good fortune to walk the property with one of its former residents, a rancher named Joe Vierra. Joe lived here between 1941 and 1953. He and his young wife raised their youngsters in a house behind the Old Barn. The kids rode horses to school; there was no electricity and their sole road accessing the property was the one that runs to the east of the current gate. They cultivated hay and sold their milk in San Jose.

A place is everything it has been and everything it is going to be. A place is its history AND its future. Throughout generations of various uses, the land upon which Djerassi Resident Artists Program sits has been key to the health and happiness of the people who lived on it. Now the fertile land nourishes fertile minds.

We sometimes think, living as we do in the cradle of the new – in the heart of Silicon Valley – that our sense of place has been irreparably redefined. Everything here is always about the NEXT, the start-up, the deal. But if you look hard enough, it is the past that makes our particular corner of the earth feel so special.

Spending time with Joe reminded me how much people love the places that nourish them. How memories are as vivid as what today’s eyes see. There may be no trace whatsoever of the house he lived in, but I felt its presence in his eyes as he described it. His photo album, aptly titled “Those Grand Days” shows rolling grasslands and hilltops that have changed very little. The fashions were different but the smiling faces look just like those of last month’s artists.

Half of our dual mission is to preserve, in perpetuity, the land upon which the Program is situated. As we launch into our year-end fundraising campaign, it is not just artists and the future of art that matter to us. It is the uninterrupted stillness, the far-as-the-eye-can-see landscape and the redwood forest’s rebirth that we value. It is all part of keeping the Djerassi magic alive. That is the secret. Please help us keep it.

Care and respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

home and Home

As an Army brat, I have always had two kinds of homes – the “capital H” Home, which is wherever I am currently living, and the “small h” home, all the places I previously lived. Djerassi Resident Artists Program is my capital-H HOME, the 24th I have had in six decades. My chief job is to ensure a safe, rustic and welcoming small-h home to artists from around the globe.

Surrounded by artists, this feels like one of the most important capital-H Homes I have ever had, shared not only with family but with the most courageous people I have ever known. I have the privilege of meeting artists who deliberately cast off the familiar in search of the new, artists who take more risks in a day than I take in a month. They inspire and humble me.

But what about artists – what role does 30 days here play in their notion of home? “What would New York City be if all the artists stayed home,” asks Polly Carl in a recent issue of HOWLROUND. In this brilliant essay about art, body, sexual identity and humanity, she goes on, “What do we do with our own border crisis? We’re all living on the edge.” She talks about theater as her imaginative home – an analogy that matches what we and other residency programs provide.

Here at the edge of the mountain, where art meets sky, the disruption from capital-H Home and its day-to-day distractions provokes residents to erase boundaries. We trust artists to fly here, and fly they do. Composers write poetry, books are finished, sculptures spring from the trees, poems are begun and dances move from studio to field as parallel artistic lives play themselves out. Lifelong collaborations and friendships are made. The nature of time itself is transformed as new artistic rhythms driven by internal MUSE-ical clocks are allowed to replace mechanical ones.

What would happen if all artists just stayed in their capital-H Homes? It’s impossible to say. Illuminating the human condition through art and literature requires a wanderer’s mind and an explorer’s heart. It is a privilege to provide a creative way-station on that journey.

Care and respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Collaborative Chemistry

Kander and Ebb, Simon and Garfunkel, Ginger and Fred… Collaborations don’t just spontaneously generate. They are the result of a delicate combination of talent, time and trust. And a willingness to take risks. Djerassi Resident Artists Program – with no required work outcomes for our residents – is devoted to the artistic building blocks that generate collaborations. Sometimes we are the petri dish, sometimes the incubator, sometimes the lab for artistic trial and error. The bottom line? What happens on the mountain doesn’t stay on the mountain – the relationships with art and people that are created here reverberate through a worldwide cultural landscape.

Utterback and Foehringer, Abraham and Wise, Tromble and Sumner, Conrad and Vikram. You may not recognize Camille & Mark, Ralph & Nina, Meredith & Dawn, Cummings & Seth. Yet. But the collaborative fires sparked here among these 8 residents alone have resulted in the world premiere of Dances of the Sacred and Profane at Ft. Mason’s Cowell Theatre, the on-going success of The Kepler Story, a new sculpture AND visualized dream installations AND a groundbreaking opera, The Golden Gate, drawn from a groundbreaking book in verse. What’s more, Conrad Cummings and Vikram Seth have a new collaboration: Two Premiers and a Reunion at the National Opera Center in New York. In a more commercialized enterprise we would be shouting, “The hits keep on coming.” (See Comings & Goings for details).

By and large, artists arrive at the Artists’ Ranch alone. They travel to do THEIR work – to focus on their own individual muse. We often say we support the individual artist. But then the Djerassi Magic takes hold. And one becomes two. And sometimes two become three. Before you know it, the composer is in the media arts studio and the poet is in the choreography studio.

“Will you won’t you, will you won’t you, won’t you join the dance?” cries Lewis Carroll’s mock turtle. Please join our work – come to Artful Harvest, make a donation, go the Arts Silicon Valley/San Francisco Art Fair, attend a performance of one of our alums, make a connection. Join the dance. Because investing in artists makes the world a more vibrant place.

Care and respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

People+Money+Artists = A Quantic Equation

As a society, Americans marginalize artists. We rely on artists to illuminate the world but reject them when we don’t like or understand what they show us. We encourage our kindergartners to draw and dance but tell our high schoolers to stop wasting time. We ask artists to perform for free, donate their artwork for causes and play piano at parties. We ask them to fix education, revitalize inner cities and develop the local economy. They are the butt of jokes and the thing we don’t want our children to become (unless they get a minor in business, too.) The success of individual artists is often measured by their commercial success, not in the number of lives they touch or lumens of meaning they unearth. Our measurement maps rarely fit their territory.

People who love artists are the most astute people in the world (okay, I’m biased). So, it warms my heart to see Janet Brown, Executive Director of Grantmakers in the Arts talk about Support for Individual Artists as a key strategy in her important organization’s work.

Not surprisingly, support for the institutions that hire, preserve, collect and present artists has dwarfed direct and capacity-building support for working artists. Few institutional donors or ticket-buyers have a direct relationship with a choreographer or playwright. Even fewer directly support the research & development portion of the creative process. Or even know how to.

Artists need maps to navigate the various institutional affiliations and bureaucracies needed to advance their creative lives. Cultural organizations have fundraising staff, infrastructure and boards of directors. Individual artists have themselves, a phone and, if they’re lucky, a computer. The business and fundraising side of things are hard to balance with the demands of creation.

Creative Capital, New York Foundation for the Arts and Fractured Atlas, among others, are key providers of financial and administrative support. The Affordable Care Act may turn out to be the largest federal government investment in artists ever. Crowdfunding is off to a promising start for project-based work. As incubators, artist residency programs create space and time for artists.

Let’s work together to turn things around. Let’s figure out how to value artists. Let’s embrace the dreamers and those driven to create. Let’s open our eyes and recognize that their work surrounds us daily. Let us celebrate the individual artist as a walking embodiment of the U.S. Constitution’s first amendment.

I don’t think creativity is fragile, but support for its practitioners is increasingly scarce. It is deeply gratifying to see the people behind the foundations and corporate givers of Grantmakers for the Arts jump into the challenge to elevate the status and support of individual artists. As Janet Brown recently commented on her Facebook page, “It all starts with artists.”

Respectfully yours,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

Let the Cerebration Begin!

Yes, cerebral exercises are underway. Poets, biologists, industrial engineers. Oh my, it’s Scientific Delirium Madness. The idea of combining scientists and artists on the ranch has been a dream since I first took this job, inspired by meeting Carl Djerassi (the Program’s founder), and furthered by the work of Nina Wise (2006, 2013) and Ralph Abraham (2006) on the The Kepler Story, a scientist-artist collaboration and direct result of our “curating people” for a stay at the ranch.

So many thanks to Roger Malina and our partners at LEONARDO/The International Society for Arts, Sciences and Technology. In addition, to the brilliantly abstract random cultural historian and cognitive scientist Piero Scaruffi and to the trustees and staff of Djerassi who graciously threw themselves into this wild idea that artists and scientists living communally for 30 days was an idea worth executing. And to the project’s patrons and funders: National Endowment for the Arts, Lava Thomas and Peter Danzig and Fellowship Partners Pat Bashaw and Eugene Segre. But this dream has an even longer history.

An Army brat, finding myself at a new high school, in suburban Washington, DC, I did what many brats do – I made as many friends as quickly as possible. I had jock, theater, genius, hippie and even “preppy” friends. And I was also in love with authors Colin Wilson, Thomas Disch, Harlan Ellison, George Gamow, Ray Bradbury and Hermann Hesse. To unify my world, I took inspiration from The Glass Bead Game, Hesse’s last novel about a utopian but flawed future.

The Game basically encourages players to make deep connections between seemingly unrelated topics. I wanted to play that game. So I threw a party. My friends were just bound to get along, mix in and enjoy each other’s ideas. I knew we could link music, science, poetry and math.

To their credit, my friends at least showed up. But no crowd emerged. There was no mingling, no networking, no bridging across the divide, just a bunch of people I liked who couldn’t – or wouldn’t – talk to one another. I was heartbroken. But I never stopped trying to connect people.

Fast forward 44 years. So far, our residents are letting fly with views on chaos theory, fracking, life on Mars, acoustics, pattern recognition and 3-D television. For thirty days we will live our core value to TRUST artists and scientists. Now I know: unlike my failed experiment in high school, collaborations will be formed. Life-long friendships will be created. Residents will be transformed. It’s what artists for the past 35 years have called the “Djerassi magic.”

Please be sure to look in on the blogs at the LEONARDO website. And, especially, mark your calendars for Sunday, July 27 for a special LASER (Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous) DAY during our annual Open House/Open Studios. Thrill to the sights and sounds of “Scientific Delirium Madness.”

Respectfully yours,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

P.S. Another new addition to Open House is a plein air paint out along the trails from 10 to noon. Thanks to our partners at the Arts and Culture Committee of the Town of Woodside.

Bit by bit

In the stillness of the mountain, the little things add up. Word by word, poems are crafted. Sentence by sentence, short stories take shape. Note by note, orchestrations emerge. Stroke by stroke, brushes create walls of color. In the Artists’ Barn, on the decks of the Artists’ House, in the solitude of the Old Barn, under the solar panels of The Middlebrook Studios, artists do what they do best — they observe, they reflect, they create.

The little things around them do not go unnoticed. The red-shouldered hawk swoops on an unsuspecting rabbit. Twig by twig the swallows build their nests. Delicate velvet grows on antlers. Inch by inch, banana slugs move. The fog ebbs and flows revealing and hiding the ocean. The wind blows and branches fall.

Staff has a role in all this creative work as well. Many are artists themselves. They wash sheets, chop vegetables, dig drainage dishes, organize sculpture hikes, capture misguided snakes and pick up mail.

The gift of time has many enablers here at Djerassi. We have 82 artists this year-selected from 847 applicants — who are worthy of YOUR support. They are here for 30 sunrises and sunsets. They tell us this time informs their life’s work in unexpected ways.

Please say YES when our annual appeal finds its way to your in-box or snail-mail box. Help us help artists make their world AND ours a more vibrant place. Because the little things add up, bit by bit.

Respectfully yours,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director

The Recursive Sounds of Spring

A little bit of rain goes a long way towards greening up the mountain. We’re looking like Ireland these days. Which always has me singing Danny Boy unconsciously under my breath. Which makes the series of serendipitous events the past couple of weeks a lot of fun.

We are privileged to have noted composer Aleksandra Vrebalov with us this month. She is working on a commissioned piece to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Sea Ranch, a planned development on the California coast that joins the environment, the landscape and architecture harmoniously. Aleksandra’s work will be performed by Kronos Quartet in May, 2015. And I fully expect to hear her recordings of the yipping coyotes that woke her one morning last week.

Joan Jeanrenaud (2007), a former member of Kronos Quartet, now enjoying a brilliant solo career, used sounds from old farming implements at the Ranch in the piece “Air and Angels” on her Grammy-nominated album, Strange Toys (Talking House Records, 2008) during HER residency.

Yesterday, we were honored to welcome two visitors: Donlyn Lyndon, one of the original architects and visionaries of The Sea Ranch and his wife, artist Alice Wingwall. They are both board members of Kronos Quartet as well. They generously shared Kronos’ latest offering, A Thousand Thoughts (Nonesuch, 2014), with me. (For the record, I am a HUGE fan of Kronos – they had me with their rendition of Jimi Hendrix’ Purple Haze).

I read the liner notes and popped the CD in the car player. And there was Joan Jeanrenaud, playing cello on several cuts. And the last song that was playing as I rounded the road to the Artists’ Barn surrounded by the green hills? A dramatically rousing and mournful rendition of Danny Boy featuring country/blues legend Don Walser. I had to stop the car to listen.

The point? Art and artists deepen the human experience and make it better. At Djerassi, artists connect to the land and each other. Before they come and after they leave – they doggedly green up the globe by illuminating the human condition. They nourish their muses here so they can influence the world. We can’t say it enough. Art and artists matter.

P.S. Are you an alum, former staff or former Trustee living or visiting the Bay Area in mid-May? DO NOT MISS our alumni gathering, Sunday May 18th at artMRKT San Francisco from 1-3 pm. Your link to a FREE pass to the show is embedded below. And act quickly – the free registrations are capped at 75 this year. A big thank-you to Max Fishko and his colleagues for hosting this event for us.

Respectfully yours,
Margot H. Knight,
Executive Director

Trusting and Revering Artists for 35 Years

The saw is buzzing as resident Anthony Heinz May works to create another site-inspired sculpture. Happy to be out of the Brooklyn winter, he welcomes spring in shirt sleeves and safety goggles. In the choreography studio, San Francisco choreographer (and mother-to-be) Jodi Lomask works with her dancers on a new neuroscience-inspired dance. Composer Eric Wubbels sorts out the mysteries of sound, crafting contemporary pieces that defy convention and excite my ears.

Performance artist and writer Lauren Crux writes more of her “rambles” and Diane Middlebrook Fellow, poet Camille Dungy’s muse runs toward the mysteries of the landscape AND her 4-year old. Annagret Hoch of Munich paints. Di Fang of Queens and Shenzhen, China and San Franciscan Mirka Morales are dreaming about fades and camera angles. Philadelphian Rachel Blau DuPlessis is birthing a new long poem. And New York playwright Brian Quirk has the voices of new characters dancing in his head. Just another day on the mountain.

We happily welcome artists for our 35th year. It feels a little like Christmas – all these artistic packages unwrapping themselves before us. Already what the artists said they planned to do has morphed into dynamic new directions. (The redwoods do that to people). Founder Carl Djerassi came to visit their first Sunday here and exhorted them to do things they wouldn’t normally do – to experiment, explore and take risks. Most are bravely complying.

Djerassi Resident Artists Program. That is who we are – that is what we do. We trust artists. And sincerely hope they trust themselves during their intense, compacted 30 days on the mountain. The organization is taking some risks too. We are developing new partnerships with organizations such as LEONARDO, The International Society for the Arts, Sciences & Technology and the Town of Woodside Committee for Art & Culture. We will be welcoming both scientists and artists in July for a special themed residency SCIENTIFIC DELIRIUM MADNESS. We are launching a new series of workshop/retreats with alumni of the Program as faculty members. “Change or die” is the phrase heard ’round the nonprofit arts world. We, too, bravely comply.

“Gamblers and artists are defined and redeemed by risk,” said Dostoyevsky. I am willing to roll the dice with artists by my side any time.

Last week’s deadline for 2015 residencies attracted a record 867 applicants. So it looks like we’d better get busy making sure we have the resources to do it all over again. Join us.

Respectfully yours,
Margot H. Knight,
Executive Director

What inspires you?

For 35 years we have been one of the foremost global inspiration factories. Our resident artists cite the silence, the landscape, the towering redwoods, the ability to hear themselves think, and the freedom accorded them to follow their muses undisturbed. Our 26 alumni winter residents enjoyed a too-dry, albeit beautiful few weeks. Participants in the first-ever Djerassi Writers Workshop & Retreat (with more on the way!) with renown author and alum Nova Ren Suma experienced the same Djerassi magic.

We are in the inspiration business – and the product reviews we receive energize us to do it more and do it better. The 81 artists joining us in 2014 from 14 countries (do YOU know where Burkina Faso is?) and 16 states have no idea. Yet. We are just one of those places you can’t “get” until you come. Thirty-four miles from San Francisco yet in a galaxy far, far away.

We are constantly assessing what artists need. And how we can best share why it matters to them and the cultural landscape around the world. Yes, sometimes it is just the quiet. But sometimes it means a new wood saw, fluffy towels, a branch-free trail or gluten-free food. That’s where you, gentle readers, come in. Alumni rose to the John & Sue Diekman alumni challenge, tripling the number of alumni who gave financial voice to a place dear to their hearts. We will be working to attract the casual hiker (reservations available February 26 at a minute after midnight), to attend an expanded Open House (imagine plein air painters on the trail in July) or Artful Harvest.

One of our past slogans urged people to Get Closer to the Heart of What We Do. That invitation still stands. As we launch a new and inspirational year, join us. Artists and the worlds they illuminate deserve no less than our full attention and respect.
Care & respect,
Margot H. Knight
Executive Director