Mallory Craig
Photo credit: Forest McMullin
“Early in the residency, a fellow resident shared a copy of Mary Oliver's “Of Power and Time,” a short essay that explores the ways in which an artist must negotiate between the wielding of their own imagination to shape change and the very stuff of life that has us all obligated to day-to-day routines. The essay felt like a call to protect the dreamy spaces I don't allow myself to fully dwell in for too long.
As an artist whose practice is rooted in resource-sharing, caregiving, and garden-based programmatic design for young people, it isn't easy to give myself permission to stray too far from those daily operational and logistical concerns. But it was clear I would need to stray from these concerns in this rural setting away without the immediacy of internet and cell service, given the keys to Foxfire studio, a studio blessed with the original presence of a former teacher who partnered with his students to create a youth-led magazine documenting place-based ecological knowledge. It's difficult work, not allowing yourself to mire away with emails and spreadsheets and instead focus on the "whys?" and "to what ends?" bit of the work you do. But I had the Hambidge trails to hold me in these unnerving questions. I found all the awe, joy, and wonder that I wanted to infuse into the curriculum I was writing by walking through this special place teeming with the biodiversity that being at the crux of the Appalachian and Blue Ridge mountain brings; making my way to my favorite place, the earthen dam where water sprayed out and rhododendron branches spiraled over the edges of streams.
While at Hambidge, I mapped out the Summer growing plan and devised a garden design for a Children's Learning Garden of 33 beds. I wrote several lesson plans and created several samples for a forthcoming curriculum, Regenerative Futures. I also developed unit plans for a place-based children's learning program around the themes of art in the gardens, flavors of home, gardens for wildlife, and a place to grow.”
– Mallory Craig, New York, Arts & Culture Administration, Leaders in the Arts Fellow