ARTIST RESIDENCY
Nestled in Yucca Valley at The Graham Residence, our week‑long artist residency offers an immersive retreat in a secluded, mid‑century modern home tucked among desert boulders. Designed to foster reflective practice and creative exploration, the program encourages artists to engage deeply with the sublime desert landscape.
Residency
Throughout a six-night stay at the Graham Residence, artists will be enveloped into the beauty of the pristine California desert. Against the backdrop of grand boulders, resilient flora, and sprawling skies, the Graham Residence has not only been restorative for us, but at the heart of Herron House’s creative mission. Taking the time to contemplate the natural world, we hope that artists are transformed by the end of this residency. In exchange for the space to create, we ask that artists create a work inspired by the striking environment that surrounds them. Whether it be a painting, sculpture, or something entirely unique, these works will stand testament to the transcendent power of nature.
Georgia Beaumont’s Experience
I came out to California after a period when life was coming at me acutely fast. London’s unrelenting grey winter held a firm grip and I was feeling like I needed a change of scene.
The desert pulled me into a new universe, profoundly beautiful and otherworldly, smacking my senses with its vivid light. It formed a lens through which I could see the world anew. This body of paintings is born from pause, a time of working largely in solitude in a remote landscape. Art making feels to me a therapeutic tool, an act of deep sitting with yourself to find what is honest. So in the desert, I sat.
Nature was great company for my internal inquiry. Its strangeness and wonder has the ability to pull you out of yourself, be present, observe, but also to re-enchant the soul. I would greet the lizards outside in the sun each day. I learned that some species of desert lizards live in family groups. I watched the mice huddling for shelter, and the jays perching on the top of weather worn branches. Tiny desert blooms springing from the dust, the bright silver blue of the juniper berries. I walked and collected stones, surprising in their pastel vibrancy and range. I picked dried desert flowers and watched the black tipped hares hop across the rocks.
From the forms and colours that I observed in the desert, the language of my work grew richer with the experience.I have come to learn that the colours and compositions are my translation of nature. A language that I am imagining from what I have seen. I endeavour to gather what I see, pour it through my sieve of internal feeling, transmute it, and then put it back out into the world.
Artist Maro Gorky speaks about certain lines having dreamlike impressions, striking neural pathways. I imagine my stems as lines of life, denoting a series of unfolding events, stringing together collections of circumstance and synchronicity. The recurring symbols and semi-symmetry speak to concurrence in nature, and the conjoined stems I’ve come to feel represent a meaningful alignment between inner and outer worlds.
Field Notes captures the sentiment that these works are a visual record of the confluence between my emotional cues and sensory impressions of the desert landscape. — Georgia Beaumont
Application
We are looking for reflective and imaginative visual artists who seek a meaningful connection with the natural world. Previous artists who have participated in this residency include Alex Maceda and Georgia Beaumont. Along with lodging, materials will be provided through this program. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. For any questions, please refer to our FAQ page or email info@herron-house.com with the subject line: “Artist Residency”.