{"id":2088445,"date":"2026-08-11T16:04:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T13:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2088445"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:04:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T13:04:36","slug":"arts-southeast-revives-residency-program-on-georgias-ossabaw-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2088445","title":{"rendered":"ARTS Southeast Revives Residency Program on Georgia\u2019s Ossabaw Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\tARTS Southeast, an artist residency nonprofit based in Savannah, Georgia, will launch a new residency program on Ossabaw Island, the state\u2019s third-largest barrier island.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Ossabaw Island Residency will host two week-long sessions, one in fall 2026 and one in spring 2027, with six artists for each session. The fellows will receive a stipend for their participation, as well as have their travel and accommodations to Savannah and to Ossabaw covered. Because of the length of the residency, there is no expectation for production of any kind of work while in residence, with the purpose being on exploring the various parts of the island, which comprises 26,000 acres, nearly 9,000 of which are high ground, and convening for meals and conversation each evening.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe\u00a0Ossabaw\u00a0Island Residency [gives] artists the opportunity to have a unique experience in a magical, remote, wild place,\u201d ARTS Southeast executive director Emily Earl told ARTnews<\/em> in an interview. \u201cThis place is still totally raw for the most part. It\u2019s never been paved over. It has 500-year-old trees. There are alligators, snakes, bugs, donkeys\u2014it\u2019s truly wild.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe continued, \u201cYou get the distinct feeling that you\u2019re at the mercy of nature when you\u2019re out there. It can be an uncomfortable experience for anybody, even if you are an outdoorsy person. But it\u2019s an opportunity to really connect with nature in a way that we just don\u2019t get the opportunity to do anymore. We just want to give artists the space to have that experience\u2014 whatever that means for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Aerial<\/div>\n<\/div>
The Ossabaw Island marshes.<\/span>Photo Teake Zuidema<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe first cohort, running October 24\u201331, includes Jessica Rankin (New York), Le\u2019Andra LeSeur (Tulsa, Oklahoma), Michi Meko (Atlanta), Blanche Nettles Powers (Savannah), Dana W. Richardson (Savannah), and Claire Sherman (New York). The second cohort, who will head to Ossabaw Island from April 27 to May 4, includes Shanequa Gay (Atlanta), Marsalis Eason (Savannah), Sonya Yong James (Atlanta), Dionne Lee (Columbus, Ohio), Beili Liu (Austin, Texas), and Jerome Meadows (Savannah).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe selected artists were invited to apply to the residency program from a pool of around 70 applicants nominated by the residency\u2019s advisory committee. A smaller selection committee also chose the winning fellows, with a focus on assembling a multidisciplinary cohort.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe hope is to bring together artists working in different ways so that the conversations on the island can move beyond any one medium or discipline,\u201d Earl said. \u201cWe want the artists to have room to think broadly\u2014about place, history, ecology, process, and whatever else the island opens up for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Ossabaw Island Residency is somewhat of a revival of a legendary residency program that ran on the island from 1961 to 1982. Founded by island co-owners Eleanor \u201cSandy\u201d Torrey West and Clifford B. West, the Ossabaw Island Project (OIP) hosted artists such as Agnes Denes, Amy Sillman, Anne Truitt, and Harry Bertoia; authors Margaret Atwood, Annie Dillard, and Ralph Ellison; and composer Samuel Barber. (The history of the residency program is currently the subject of an exhibition at Telfair Museums in Savannah.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think people just had a deep experience out there. They\u2019ve never forgotten this place. They had these experiences that changed them forever,\u201d Earl said. \u201cWe are taking a lot of inspiration from how Mrs. West did things. She didn\u2019t want to tell anybody what to do or what their experience should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"View<\/div>\n<\/div>
Parker Stewart, Behind the Main House<\/em>, 2024.<\/span>\u00a9Parker Stewart\/Courtesy the artist<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tOssabaw Island also holds a special place in Earl\u2019s own family history. Her parents met on the island as OIP residents in the 1970s. \u201cMy mom was from New York, and my dad was from a tiny town in Georgia; the two of them were never going to meet,\u201d she said. \u201cIf Mrs. West and Mr. West hadn\u2019t made the decision they made to protect that island and bring all types of creatives there, I probably wouldn\u2019t exist\u2014and I wouldn\u2019t be here to bring people back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWith encouragement from Jimmy Carter, the former governor of Georgia and then US President, the Torrey-West family sold Ossabaw Island to the State of Georgia for $8 million in 1978. Shortly afterward, it was named Georgia\u2019s first Heritage Preserve, a designation created by Carter when he was governor. The Ossabaw Island Foundation, which is partnering with ARTS Southeast on the new Ossabaw Island Residency, was formed in 1994 with the mission to promote \u201cexceptional educational, cultural and scientific resources that are designed to maximize the experience of Ossabaw Island, while minimizing the impact on its resources,\u201d according to its website.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarl began visiting Ossabaw Island about a decade ago and began to connect with the Ossabaw Island Foundation team. Then, around four years ago, she met Betsy Cain, a local artist who was a friend of Sandy West, and Beryl Gilothwest, a curator who is Sandy West\u2019s grandson. Over the years, there had been growing interest in reviving the residency program on the island, Gilothwest had told her. \u201cIt was meaningful that they thought of us and believed in us enough to ask us to take it on,\u201d Earl said.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarl soon formed a committee that included Gilothwest and Cain to begin formalizing the residency program and to map out what it would look like and which artists would be invited.<\/p>\n

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\"Suzanne<\/div>\n<\/div>
Suzanne Jackson drawing on Bradley Beach, Ossabaw Island, Georgia, 2010.<\/span>Photo Imke Lass<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tIn the decades since, the Ossabaw Island Foundation has also facilitated the visits of numerous other artists, including Suzanne Jackson, who has lived in the Savannah since the 1990s when she took up a teaching post at the Savannah College of Art and Design. She had taken one-day trips out to the island before but a 10-day session with other artists left a lasting impact.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe walked jagged paths. We were guided to interior forests, aged tabby houses and waterway edges. We indulged our pleasures by painting, drawing, writing, music, photography and daydreaming together\u2014sometimes in solitude,\u201d Jackson recalled in an email to ARTnews<\/em>. \u201cMagic Ossabaw Island is a raw, untamed, mystical, memory-embedded history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHer foundation, the Suzanne Fitzallen Jackson Foundation, is among the Ossabaw Island Residency\u2019s supporters, funding the fellowship for one artist in each cohort; the foundation is also covering the travel sessions for all 12 artists in the inaugural cohort. Alongside the Judith Alexander Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Laney Contemporary, a commercial gallery in Savannah.<\/p>\n

\n\tARTS Southeast officially became a nonprofit five years ago, but its history dates back to 2014 as an artist-led space that was set up as an LLC, though \u201cwe weren\u2019t super interested in making a profit,\u201d said Earl, who was one of the three founders. \u201cThe initial mission and interest was just to give artists space and to create community around art in the South.\u201d That led to the creation, in 2018, of the On:View Residency, which at first focused only on local artists. Since 2022, it has expanded to include international artists for the month-long program. Two years later, ARTS Southeast launched the Incubator Artist Initiative, which supports emerging Savannah-based artists with free studio space for six months to a year. The organization now has 20 studios in Savannah\u2019s Starland District available for both programs.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI feel like I didn\u2019t really understand the importance of providing space in that way for artists until several years in,\u201d Earl said. \u201cNow, we\u2019re excited to take those residency ideas and \u00a0bring them to a really beautiful, magical place, a hard-to-get-to but important place [near] Savannah that\u2019s not an urban setting at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Correction, August 11, 2026:<\/strong>An earlier version of this article stated that Jimmy Carter designated Ossabaw Island as a Heritage Preserve in Georgia. He signed Georgia\u2019s Heritage Preserve Act into law in 1975 as governor before becoming US President in 1977.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5.jpg?w=1024″] ARTS Southeast, an artist residency nonprofit based in Savannah, Georgia, will launch a new residency program on Ossabaw Island, the state\u2019s third-largest barrier island. The Ossabaw Island Residency will host two week-long sessions, one in fall 2026 and one in spring 2027, with six artists for each session. The fellows will receive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2088445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2088445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2088445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2088445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2088445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2088445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}