Communal creations

Hambidge centers on the arts

With his piano perched on a 600-acre square of north Georgia’s mountainous patchwork quilt, Baltimore composer Tom Benjamin is writing an opera. His instrument, along with less than a dozen cottages and cabins, an Anagama kiln, a waterfall, a great rolling forest and a working grist mill, design the landscape of the Hambidge Center, a residential artists’ colony since 1988. Benjamin is three years into his composition. A recent resident at Hambidge, he returns as often as he can for a month-long stay in the Garden Studio. Photographer Jill Larson drove up from Atlanta for her first residency to write in her journal, research new projects and begin a series on handheld farm tools. On her laptop in the secluded Mellinger Cabin, Floridian Mary Jane Ryals works at revising her novel. Atlanta-based artist Sandra Anderson came back to perfect her plein-air painting from the vantage point of the window-filled Brena Cottage. Potter Sid Luck and his family arrive from Seagrove, N.C., for a special kiln firing.

These are just a few of the artists who’ve been swept up in the quiet spell cast by Mary Crovatt Hambidge, who founded the center as a weaving cooperative in 1934. Born and raised in Brunswick, the 4-foot-9-inch girl headed for New York at the age of 19 to whistle on vaudeville with her mockingbird, Jimmy. She modeled for painter Jay Hambidge, who drew her into the art world and later to Greece, where he would research his theory of Dynamic Symmetry. After Mary discovered Greek women weavers, she returned to the Georgia mountains in the early ’20s to organize local weavers. She presented their work internationally to great acclaim. The center has since evolved into the state’s only residential artist colony and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“Mary’s intense devotion to philosophy, truth, beauty, God and nature played out in her art and life. She was very much a mystic,” explains the center’s executive director, Judy Barber. At Hambidge, the beautiful and intimate setting (only eight to 10 artists are in residence at one time) inspires and supports writers, composers, performers and visual artists. “There’s a spirit about the place. It really refreshes that creative spring in each artist who comes here,” says Annette Cone-Skelton, an Atlanta artist, frequent resident and longtime board member.

A gourmet chef doesn’t hurt either. Cindy Martin, a book artist and jewelry designer, prepares nightly vegetarian dinners for residents from May through October. Martin entertains her enthralled audience with such delights as cold cucumber-mint-yogurt soup, homemade dill bread, coconut curried salmon, melon with anise, and asparagus with sesame goat cheese. Some of the ingredients come from the organic garden she tends in a clearing on the grounds.

And how might an artist become a privileged Hambidge fellow? Residency hopefuls submit applications and work samples for review by a board of professional artists. Those accepted stay from two to six weeks in their own private studio cottages at a token expense. The year-round program operates primarily on gifts from members, corporations and foundations.

Involved with Hambidge for almost 10 years now, Barber is intent on establishing a Hambidge presence in Atlanta. The idea for a revised operating structure is patterned after the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, N.H., with headquarters in Manhattan. “An Atlanta office will give us expanded opportunities to work with the creative community,” she says.

For information on Hambidge, call 706-746-5718, e-mail hambidge@ rabun.net or visit the website at www.rabun.net/~hambidge.