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-Vashon Island has always had a place in my heart,
and I’m not actually sure why,
except that it just is what it is --
some kind of special sauce.
And I have, for a very long time,
wanted to start an artist residency on Vashon Island.
It’s not about doing it anywhere,
it was really very much about doing it here
and this house that the residency is in,
and the property that it's on,
seemed like it would work.
This house is kind of strange.
It meanders, it has large community,
open space, shared space.
And so it’s turned out to work really, really well.
It did happen in the middle of the pandemic,
and it came together much faster than I thought it would.
And in May of 2021, we opened with our very first resident,
and we’ve been going ever since.
By the end of 2023, we will have hosted more than 110 artists
of varying disciplines from all over the country
and some from other parts of the world.
-I’ve only been to Vashon Island
as a day tripper, previously, and it is just so wonderful
to have an extended period of time
to engage with this magical place.
I was drawn to Vashon Island because of its edges,
that it’s this beautiful rural environment
in very close proximity to the urban center of Seattle,
and there are beautiful edges
between land and water and tides and time.
The work that I’m developing here
examines the way that signals light
and sound move through the landscape
and waterways in and around Vashon Island.
-I never think of my music
as something directly related to a place,
and it’s hard to know exactly where it comes from.
But the space that I’m in sets the tone
for my entry into the music.
This thing that I’m starting to write,
I think I’m writing it for a specific pianist,
but I’ll find that out
as the process of the composing goes on.
-It’s because of the residency
that I now know there is a Vashon Island.
I’ve never been to this area, so it was all new for me.
And I’m from the Netherlands. I’m absolutely a water person.
And so for me just to be on an island,
just the idea of it and to be surrounded
by all this water, for me, it’s very inspiring, I love it.
-This space is my world for the past few weeks.
I look out over Quartermaster Harbor.
I feel like the open expansiveness of this view
above the desk in this large window,
it just helps inspire openness and expansiveness
in my own writing.
I’ve been thinking about my childhood
and writing poems inspired from my childhood
in Southern Virginia.
And so this is a poem --
it’s an ode to a box turtle that I kept as a pet.
"Virginia. Covenant. Quiet. You were first love.
How you could shut yourself in your own body
and wait out the world.
How you would try to get back home for years.
But I learned we can learn to leave
what crawls entangled in tall grass,
solitude, and early autumn rain."
-I think being around artists every day,
I feel like I learn something new every day.
I feel like I’ve learned more about myself,
how we create family with people that you’ve never known.
And you realize we live across the world
or across the country from each other,
and -- and we have so much in common.
And I also feel like a proud parent,
you know, when they do really well
or when I see on social media
that they’ve had some big success
that they’re really excited about.
My life on this island feels huge
because I learn so much from all these people.
-So here you’ll notice this incredible music stand,
which is a painter’s easel that one of the artists here
helped me mount and put together -- Nelleke.
And this is just one of these technical issues
that a composer faces, is that you have a keyboard,
but you need something to really press against
so that I can just be writing and then push against it.
And a flimsy music stand just doesn’t do the same trick.
So this is the -- this is the concoction
we’ve come up for this studio.
-I really am excited
that there are other artists here,
in particular, non-writers.
The fact that there’s a composer here
and then visual artists.
I like to have the conversations in the evening
when we’re all cooking dinner about,
like, what they’re working on,
what their process is like, what they’re learning.
-One of the things I love most about my life,
and I do love my life,
is that I have a life that revolves around art,
I make art, I see art, I just feel incredibly fortunate
to be able to offer this residency
to artists of all kinds.
I was raised in a family that was very philanthropic.
I’m also Jewish, and there is an overarching umbrella
of both philanthropic ideals and the idea of tikkun olam,
which is to repair the world.
I really try to approach
each residents experience here
without expectation.
What I want to make sure is that they feel comfortable and safe,
and that they have the time and the space
to do whatever they need to do.
There are people who arrive here exhausted,
just completely spent
from whatever’s been going on in their lives
or whatever it took for them to get here.
And there are other people who arrive just, like, raring to go.
So I think it’s been really important
to not have any expectation.
That said, if I had any at all,
they would always be blown out of the water.
You know, people make incredible art here,
pretty much without exception.
The real experience of them being here
and being influenced by this place
and making work here is always kind of magnificent.
-More information about the Vashon Artists Residency
is on their website.
And see more of Cathy’s work
at cathysarkowskystudio.com.
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Catch Art Zone Friday nights at 8,
and anytime online at SeattleChannel.org/ArtZone.
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