ARTS Southeast’s forthcoming Ossabaw Island Artist Residency will be a semi-annual program that invites artists to experience the magic of Georgia’s third-largest barrier island. The residency will provide artists the time and space for ideas to emerge and take shape among the island's 26,000 acres of maritime forest, tidal wetlands and wide beaches set on the Atlantic Ocean. An unspoiled place only accessible by boat and protected by the State of Georgia as a heritage preserve for natural, scientific, and cultural study, research, and education, Ossabaw has a rich cultural history and a more than 60-year legacy of hosting artists.
ARTS Southeast is excited to reinvigorate and expand upon the ambitious residency programs initiated in 1961 by former island co-owner, protector and matriarch Eleanor Torrey West and her former husband Clifford B. West. The Ossabaw Island Artist Residency will give artists the opportunity to unplug, immerse themselves in nature, and explore this unique locale’s rich cultural history and ecology.
Betsy by the dock causeway. Photo by Carmela Aliffi
“Over the many years that I have been coming to Ossabaw, I have done small drawings sitting out in the maritime forest, on the side of the dirt roads, on causeways and by the ocean, preferably on the edge of transition zones. I was lucky enough to be a guest of Sandy West, spending hours exploring and sitting in that wild place with my dog Jasper, who was good company.
These are the only drawings I have done from life “plein aire”, save figure drawings with a model in the studio. My enjoyment from making these drawings comes from sitting in relationship to the day, the hour, the moments of seeing… and hoping to see clearly enough to capture some of the powerful energies on this island... Surprises abound.
It takes a dedicated effort to shake off the incessant demands of our lives… and just sit and observe and ingest what is seen and heard. All senses are alert and alive when you position yourself in wildness. Sandy understood this power and how it changes you.”
– Betsy Cain, December 2024
