While some places see the winter as an “off-season,” Sound View Greenport starts its new cultural calendar, kicking off its eighth annual Uncommon Arts Residency. Monday, Jan. 19, Queens-based artist John Roach. The hotel’s Nameless Writers Salon also returns for its third season on Thursday, Jan. 22.
Both programs welcome nationally recognized artists and authors to the North Fork for intimate public experiences.
“I hope that people who are coming to the residency get to connect with themselves as much as they get to connect with our ecosystem that’s out here,” said Kara Hoblin, director of guest culture and co-creator of the writers salon. “Not just the environment, not just the land, but the community, the people, the food, the culture. I hope that that transcends into their work in some future way.”
The artist residencies run until the end of April, each lasting a week. Mr. Roach will host a free artist talk and studio tour Saturday, Jan. 25, from 5 to 6 p.m. Reservations are free and can be made online.
During his week in Greenport, Mr. Roach will collect field recordings from Greenport Harbor, Hashamomuck Pond and Long Island Sound. He will also conduct interviews with local community members to construct an immersive sound work that explores the relationship between wind, memory, myth and environmental change.
The residency was founded by Erik Warner, the co-owner of Sound View.
Ms. Hoblin, who created the North Fork Art Collective in 2017, is also an artist, mostly known in the area for her work with chalk. She was one of the first artists to do the residency at Sound View in 2018. Though she lives in Greenport, she felt as though she was “on another planet.”
Now, in a full-circle moment, she hopes artists who take part can get as much out of it as she did.
“What I got out of it was the ability to take space for myself,” she said. “Aside from having that personal time, the other really beautiful thing, and what I hope people get when they come to this residency, is that they’re connecting with the North Fork. They’re connecting with how we live out here, which is very connected to nature. You can’t not appreciate it.”
The first Nameless Writers Salon event this year will feature Isaac Fitzgerald, author of “Dirtbag, Massachusetts.” He will be joined by fellow authors Tara Westover, Nana Kwame Ajei-Brenyah, Daniel Loedel and Sanae Lemoine. Reservations are free and can be made online.
