Summer 2007

Landscape and nature inspire creativity at artists’ retreat
 

BY BOBBI BUCHANAN

When the founders of Artcroft set out to establish a retreat center in 1999, they envisioned a place where artists could benefit from the renewal that comes from living close to the land.

As artists and art enthusiasts, Robert and Maureen Barker and Florence Thorne understood the cultural benefit of creative work and the importance of place in nurturing creativity.

For seven years, the pastoral setting of Artcroft has inspired writers and artists from around the world. Located on a 400-acre farm near Carlisle, Ky., about 30 miles north of Lexington, the retreat center features a one-story 1840s Greek Revival farmhouse with four private bedrooms. The property also offers a studio with private bedroom and bath, a rustic cabin still under construction and primitive camping sites.

When poet Kendall Dunkelberg spent two weeks at Artcroft in November 2005, he was the only resident at the time. Dunkelberg is the director of Creative Writing at Mississippi University for Women. "For me, the solitude was ideal," he said. He started his day with breakfast, then used the morning hours to read, revise poems or translate work.

After lunch, Dunkelberg often took a walk in the woods or through the pastures, which is where he wrote the first drafts of many poems. "Over my two-week stay, I wrote almost 20 new poems — most of which I am still happy with — and worked on revising and translating many others."

"For the most part, I was happy to spend my time exploring the farm," he said. "In the late afternoon, I might sit on the porch swing, watch the goats or the sunset, read or revise what I had jotted in my notebook on my walk."

In the evenings, Dunkelberg had dinner with the Barkers. The meal was cooked with vegetables from their garden, which was still producing tomatoes in November.

"Staying at Artcroft is like staying with family who fully understands the demands of your art and respects your need for a private space in which to create it. When you need privacy, you will have it, and when you want company, you couldn't ask for better."

The program offers residencies to writers and visual artists (painters and sculptors). Artists in other disciplines are accommodated as facilities and resources permit.

For more information about Artcroft, or to apply for a residency, go to www.artcroft.org.


Farm on a Hill

By Kendall Dunkelberg

Oh, if I could paint
this hill in a poem,
the way the meadow
sweeps down, pale green
grass and a few junipers
the only signs of life now.
Copses of bare trees
fill the curves of the S
and on top, stands
an abandoned farmhouse,
white, peeling to gray,
windswept and forlorn,
but oh, the perseverance
of those farmers once,
proud, nearly foolhardy
to build their home
where they could
survey their domain.
Safe from floods, yes,
but battered by winter winds
as if defying the elements
that laugh around it now.
Though it wasn’t the wind
that drove the farmer out,
but the volatile price
of corn and the promise
of an easier life in town.


Kendall Dunkelberg’s poems have appeared in The Literary Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Texas Review, Poetry Southeast and others. He has published a book of poems, Landscapes and Architectures, and a book of translations, Hercules, Richelieu and Nostradamus.