When SPACE at Ryder Farm—a longtime haven for writers and artists on a fully operational farm in Brewster, N.Y.—closed its doors in 2024, they said that year’s Working Farm residency would be their last “for the foreseeable future.” It hasn’t taken long, though, for SPACE to resurface, this time under the leadership of original co-founder and executive director Emily Simoness, who stepped away from the organization in 2021 but who just today sent an email announcing a new iteration: A new SPACE Family Residency will take place Sept. 7-12 for artists displaced by the Eaton-Palisades fires, in partnership with Colorado Lodge in Big Bear Lake, California. SPACE’s original Family Residencies, which lasted until the program was put on hiatus in 2024, were originally in association with the Lilly Awards Foundation (spearheaded by Julia Jordan, Marsha Norman, and Pia Scala-Zankel).
“At the start of this year, we were in deep discussion about what the future of SPACE away from Ryder Farm could look like,” Simoness said in her email message. “We were simultaneously watching the devastation in Los Angeles unfold as a result of the Eaton-Palisades fires. It seemed like there might be an organic opportunity to share the essential gifts of community, care, time, and space with those in need.”
Artists were nominated by SPACE community members in June and selected by lottery in July. They are poet/arts educator Dr. Kahlil Almustafa (Growing Up Hip-Hop), screenwriter/performer Julia Ahumada Grob (iCARLY), actor/writer John Lavelle (Iama Theatre Company’s The Very Best People), actor/writer/filmmaker Kristin Slaysman (The Threesome), and director Stephanie Ward (Women by Chiara Atik). The program gives these artists and their families a fully subsidized residency, providing artist-parents with structured time and space to create while their children participate in nature-focused arts programming with professional educators. All residents (parents and children) enjoy three fresh communal meals daily, and will be joined by a community care facilitator during their stay. The residency will culminate in brief, informal sharings of the work created by both parents and children during their time in residence.
Simoness and the SPACE board, which includes Therese Barbato, Monet Hurst-Mendoza, Blair Russell, and Tamara White, are continuing to reimagine what the company can look like without its brick-and-mortar building on Ryder Farm. They urged supporters to consider donations as they create new opportunities for artists.
