Nyla S. Truzy

Nyla is an African American self taught female artist. While at Slough Farm, Nyla, focused on “time”. In their own words:
“There is time to play, to explore, to love. As a child, I was told stories of marauders who died pure and whispering miracles on their deathbeds. I fell in love with this whimsical storytelling, but became fixated on having a legacy. I spent most of my childhood putting intense pressure on myself, praying for an outcome of greatness. It is just now occurring to me that legacy and child contradict themselves. However, I put falsely these words next to each other in my mind as if one simply falls into the next. Now I’m not a child, and I’m no longer stuck on my death and what could come after that. This year I have challenged myself to sing a new prayer of time.
At Slough Farm, I want to use my time disconnected from societal pressures and develop my skills as a painter. This project will be a series of acrylic and oil-based portrait paintings on canvas depicting individuals, specifically African Americans, using their time to play, explore, and love. Blackness and play are two other words difficult to put together, but not impossible. So often in media, African Americans are depicted racing against time, something that deeply resonates with me. Through past works, I have explored the connection of blackness to water, anger, and pressures on female artists. I hope this project and others will help me connect to myself and continue to be a storyteller for unheard voices.”

Simon Han

Simon is the author of the novel “Nights When Nothing Happened”. He was born in Tianjin, China and raised in various cities in Texas. His short stories and essays have appeared in *The Atlantic*, *Virginia Quarterly Review*, *Guernica*, *Electric Literature*, *Lit Hub,* and the *Texas Observer*. Simon has received awards from MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, and Vanderbilt University, where he earned his MFA. Simon lives in the Boston area, where he is a professor of the practice of fiction at Tufts.

Alex Huey

Born and raised in inner-city Atlanta, Ga., Alex Huey’s songwriting roots deeply in southern folk and rock music. A self-taught guitar player since around the age of 10, she’s been known to describe her style of playing as being “sort of made-up”. Over the years, that lack of proper music theory has allowed her to bend the rules a bit–never quite being boxed into a specific sound. Today, she marks her greatest inspirations in writing to be artists like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Nick Drake, Adrianne Lenker, and (if we’re talkin’ Southern folk) of course, the Indigo Girls.

Justin Dougan-LeBlanc

Justin Dougan-LeBlanc is a deaf and queer fashion designer and installation artist. He is a Professor of Fashion Studies at Columbia College Chicago, where he is based. He teaches fashion, art direction, and installation design. His interdisciplinary career spans fashion, textile art, architecture, and technology. LeBlanc aims to push art and education can be advanced by combining the strengths of emerging technologies such as 3D printing with the traditions of the hand. His work focuses on knowledge passed down through our understandings of artists and cultures. This knowledge and his experience in multiple disciplines allow him to exploit and fuse different approaches. resulting in artistic expression that can not be conveyed solely through one discipline. All of his works address the issues and perspectives of Deaf culture and LGTBQIA+ people.

Madison Feely

Madison Feely is a textile artist from Trumansburg, NY. She grew up with an interest in fiber crafts of all kinds, from yarn spinning to crochet to quilting. While working on her degree in fiber science and apparel design at Cornell University, she found an affinity for digital weaving and knitwear design. Focusing on quilting and weaving in her work, she explores traditional American quilt designs and incorporates quilted patterns into woven textiles, all while highlighting the intricate process of handwork.

Sarah Nelson

Sarah Nelson is a visual artist living and working in Martha’s Vineyard, MA and New Orleans, LA. Though a born and raised islander, Nelson relocated to New Orleans in 2012, after graduating from the University of New Hampshire with a BFA in Painting and Printmaking. Her recent work focuses on the abstract and emotive qualities of the sky and how the visual quality of atmosphere works in conjuncture with her imagery. Her work has gained recent recognition through her current participation in the *Louisiana Contemporary* exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. She regularly participates in the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Contemporary Crafts Exhibition and was a regional semifinalist the Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series. Nelson also displayed her paintings in the Louisiana State Museum’s *Art Melt* exhibition, a juried exhibition honoring contemporary artists at the state capitol center in Baton Rouge. Her work is shown in galleries, private residences, and public collections throughout the nation. recently gaining a permanent display at the new Louisiana State University Hospital.

Danielle Moore, Writer, Composer, Producer

Danielle and her troop came to Slough Farm to work on Danielle’s musical Ink and Paint about the first women of Disney animation’s story department. Ink and Paint was a semi-finalist for Live & In-Color‘s 2023 incubator.
A finalist for the 2021 Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project, Danielle was a member of Maestra Music’s 2023 mentee class, and was named one of New York’s Best New Dramatists by regional playwright incubator Playground-NY (2023). In 2024, she was selected to participate in the Rooftop Writers Initiative, a joint venture of Broadway’s *Merrily We Roll Along*, the Stephen Sondheim Foundation and the American Theater Wing’s Jonathan Larson Grant. She was also invited to participate in the 2024 Nautilus Music-Theatre / Alliance for New Music-Theatre Composer-Librettist Studio as a Composer.

Emily Gui, Artist Residency

March 2025
Emily Gui (pronounced "Guy") is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in California. Her research focuses broadly on consumerism and the hazy space where collective and individual actions, responsibilities and desires clash in the face of climate change. Gui's current projects re-materialize the invisible, hyper-ordinary or inconspicuous to examine nuances of human relationships with materials. On the verge of familiar, her projects invite the viewer to investigate the systems that have built our modern world. Lingering in complexity and anxiety, Gui's work unearths questions about our habits and assumptions with levity, but without offering a comforting solution.

Journie Cirdain, Artist Residency

March 2025
Journie Cirdain is an emerging artist who makes drawings that explore themes of magic, wildness and the feminine in order to dive deeper into human interaction with the non-human in ways which do not reinforce fantasies of human power or superiority, but instead interpret this relationship as far more complicated and mutually generative. Using graphite on paper, Cirdain utilizes discursive drawing styles in order to engage in different qualities of thought. She earned a BA from the Great Books program at St. John’s College and an MFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has shown nationally and internationally in group shows, and her most recent solo exhibitions include Memento Vivere at Western Exhibitions in Chicago, and Growing Out at Gallery A in Seattle.
Journie’s project at Slough Farm was the contemplation and creation of a body of work of contemporary drawings using graphite on paper. She focused on human interaction with non-human beings (plants and animals) In this relationship the usual privileged power dynamic is reversed or complicated. These drawings emphasized new narrative possibilities, in terms of a mutually respectful relationship, as well as the ways in which direct and indirect influence occurs between species.

Justine Gelfman, Writing Residency

January 2025
Justine Gelfman is a Brooklyn-based playwright. Her work has been developed or produced at Ars Nova, Williamstown Theatre Festival, IRT Theater, Theater Masters’ Take Ten, ESPA/Primary Stages, Dixon Place, The Story, Crashbox, Pete's Candy Store, New Women Space, New York Fringe Festival, UT Austin, Northwestern University, and Kenyon College. She has been a resident at Yaddo, Colt Coeur, SPACE on Ryder Farm, Slough Farm, Sewanee Writers' Conference, Vineyard Arts Project, and Kenyon Playwrights Conference. Justine is a New Georges Affiliated Artist and her writing has been published by Concord Theatricals.

While at Slough Farm, Justine used her time to immerse herself in the landscape of long-form improv and the culture of consent on college campuses. She wanted to interrogate the thorny complications of saying no in an environment that prioritizes saying yes. Additionally, she experimented with how improv functions inside her play HAROLD. Justine held writers work shops and presented excerpts of her play at a writers dinner.
Justine’s Testimonial: “Residency at Slough Farm was a vital and life-changing opportunity. Time away at the farm deepened and unlocked new dimensions of my work. The organization's thoughtful and extraordinary staff supported me with the obvious gift of time and space to write, but also with a sincere and meaningful investment in my work. I am forever grateful to Slough.”

Katie Walenta, writing Residency

January 2025
Katie is a Nebraska-raised, Brooklyn-based writer with two great loves in this world: Love Island and the prairie. Her recent work investigates the class dynamics of the Midwest and evangelical purity culture. Playwriting credits include Be a Duck; Let it Roll Off (The Tank, 2019) and Flax (Workshop Theater, 2023). They graduated with a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU in January 2020.
Katie’s Testimonial: “My time spent as a resident at Slough is something for which I will be forever grateful. I was able to dig into a project in a way that would not have been possible amidst the chaos of my regular schedule. They provided time and resources to write, introduced me to other wonderful creatives, and kept the farmhouse stocked with coffee! The farmhouse itself was stunning and the animals were a joy to watch through the window as I worked. Thank you Slough!!”
*Photo Courtesy of Dena Porter*

Dede Bandaid & Nitzan Mintz,
Artists Residency

July 2024
***Dede Bandaid***
Dede is a Tel-Aviv based, urban narrative artist, who utilizes various mediums to communicate within the public arena. He started creating his works after finishing his military service, and continued to develop and elaborate them while completing his undergraduate studies at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Nowadays his works can be viewed at galleries, exhibition spaces, various art events and in the streets of art capitals around the world, such as London, New York, Berlin and Tel-Aviv.
***Nitzan Mintz***
Nitzan Mintz is a visual poet based in Tel Aviv. She began working a decade ago in the streets of Tel Aviv, where she would create visual poetry for specific locations in the city. She later continued to create studio pieces as well.

Heartwood songwriting residency at Slough Farm

January 2024
November 2022
April 2022

Heartwood is a trio of singers and composers, including Heidi Wilson, Sarina Partridge, and Willy Clemetson, who create new music born from time in wild places. With simple lyrics and rich vocal harmonies, these singers and
instrumentalists compose music in collaboration with the natural world and seek to create songs that invite people to connect more deeply with the cycles unfolding around and within us.
In April 2022, the Heartwood artists came together for a twelve-day stay at Slough Farm. During their time creating new works the singers invited the community to engage with their music through a Baby-and-Caregiver Sing-a-long and Community Sing! event.
The Heartwood singers returned in November 2022 for a second residency focusing their time on their most current project. This second creative stay culminated in an intimate dinner and song-sharing session held at the Farm.

Slough is excited to host the Heartwood artists again in January 2024.

Listen to Heartwood’s music, recorded in the Slough Farm Silo, April 2022, below

Iconoclast Dinner Experience Collaboration with The Trustees of Reservations and the Farm Institute

August 2023
August 2022

The Iconoclast Dinner Experience (IDE) is an interdisciplinary platform challenging paradigms through programming that invites the diverse voices of those, from around the globe, making significant contributions to culture. Annually, IDE hosts five signature events designed to elevate the representation of chefs and beverage professionals of color in the higher echelons of culinary culture.
In 2022, Slough Farm partnered with IDE to host the chefs and provide food for “The King is Dead”: a reception and dinner promoting Island-based sustainable agriculture and emerging female culinary and beverage professionals. The highlighted professionals that year included Jessica Craig, Cassandra Felix, Jae Jung, Misti Norris, Whitney Thomas.
In 2023, Slough was home base, again, for visiting chefs Courtney Evans, Zarah Kahn, Kim Mok and Lateisha Wilson in the week leading up to the second “The King is Dead” dinner.
The chefs and culinary artists invited to contribute to this event spent their time on island visiting local farms, meeting with representatives from various Island-based food equity groups to discuss and explore the challenges that face the community, and hosting a “family dinner” at the farm for IDE partners and supporters.

*Photo Courtesy David Welch Photography*

View the Iconoclast Dinner Experience 2023 Highlights Reel below, with the King is Dead and Slough Farm featured at minute 1:15

July/August 2023 Eric Bornstein Residency

Eric Bornstein, of Behind the Mask Studio, is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and yoga instructor from the Boston area who came to Slough to share his myriad skills with the island. During his time at the Farm, Bornstein hosted a range of workshops for the community. The week included multiple Mindful Flow Yoga classes; Family Pizza and “Amazing Arepas” cooking classes; and a two-day animal drawing and painting workshop hosted at the Farm. Additionally, Bornstein visited with the Plum Summer and Sense of Wonder summer camps to share his passion for mask making and engage the children in this unique artwork.

To see more photos and follow Eric Borntein’s work, find him on Facebook.

JuNe 2023 Studio North Intensive Hosted at Slough Farm

2023 marked third year Martha’s Vineyard received a unique creation by Moskow Linn Architects’ Studio North intensive. Studio North is a week-long intensive building workshop which offers ten college-age students interested in architecture the opportunity to imagine, develop, and construct design
solutions. Each session investigates a specific use for the site and responds with the design and construction of a complete prototype structure. All projects share a vocabulary of two-by-four framing members, galvanized metal fasteners, translucent fiberglass, and materials gathered on site.
Slough Farm hosted the students as they spent their week working at and with local non profit Island Grown Initiative to construct a multi-purpose shed deemed the “Tool Temple.”

March 2023 Firelight Media Residency at Slough Farm

Founded by award-winning filmmakers and Island seasonal residents Marcia Smith and Stanley Nelson, Firelight Media is a nonprofit organization that supports and develops nonfiction filmmaking by and about communities of color. Four filmmakers supported by Firelight—Brittany Ferrell, Sequoia Hauck, Karla Murthy, and Raúl Paz-Pastrana—were in residence at Slough Farm ahead of the 2023 M.V. Film Festival. Each artist spent time focusing on new documentaries at various stages of development, and the week culminated with a public, ticketed screening of the works at the Grange Hall in West Tisbury

*Photo Courtesy Featherstone Center for the Arts*

November 2022 Slough Farm & Literary ARts At Featherstone Center for the Arts Residency At Slough Farm

In its second year, this collaboration between Slough Farm and Featherston invited underrepresented writers/poets from off-Island and paired them with Vineyard writers/poets. The participants in 2022 included non-fiction writer Damon Young; African American fiction writer and producer Essie Chambers; local teacher, writer, essayist, artist, entrepreneur and activist Jessie Jennings; and, Island poet Donia Elizabeth Allen.
Over the course of one week, the chosen individuals worked on new and ongoing writing projects at the Farm, hosted public workshops for the community and lead workshops at the Featherstone campus for Vineyard high school students from Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School. The workshops were designed for students who will benefit from hearing diverse expertise, histories, and perspectives that further develop a sense of place and belonging while also honing the students’ writing skills.

September 2022 Radio Play(s) Writing Residency At Slough Farm

The Radio Play(s) Series is a collection of works with each episode presented “like a stage-performed podcast…unpack[ing] a timely theme(s) through a collection of real world stories told through the spoken work, music and theatrically projected sand animation.” In September 2022, Slough Farm hosted Guy Mendilow, Regie Gibson, Alison James and Chris Baum in a
residency to support the creation of Episode 3.
The interdisciplinary collaborators explored themes surrounding myths and used their time together to write, compose and gather stories. In addition to pursuing their own creative process, the artists’ worked with students from the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School. The week-long residency concluded with a community dinner event held at the farm.

October 2021 Slough Farm & Literary Arts at Featherstone Center for the arts writers residency at slough farm

Slough Farm and Literary Arts at Featherstone (formerly Noepe Center for the Arts) partnered to create an invitation and application-based writing residency for historically underrepresented writers from on and off Martha’s Vineyard. The residency was designed to provide established and emerging writers alike with the time, resources, and community necessary to develop their craft.
In its inaugural year, the residency brought together Brooklyn-based writers and poets Shira Erlichman and Angel Nafis, along with Island-based writer Esper Gaspardi. The three writers devoted their time to new and ongoing projects. Together they lead a single session, intensive writing workshop for students from the Martha’s Vineyard Charter School and the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, hosted at the Featherstone campus.

March 2021 Slough Farm & The Yard interdisciplinary residency at slough farm

Curated collaboratively with The Yard and Slough Farm, our March 2021 residency exemplified the foundation’s interest in exploring the intersection between the culinary and the creative arts. For ten days, acclaimed dancer and tradition-bearer of Black Social Dance forms LaTasha Barnes and dancer and choreographer Caleb Teicher came together with
culinary artists Katie Yun and Sachi Nagase to live and work together in creative proximity at Slough Farm. All four artists engaged the Island community through workshop, performance, and by contributing to Slough Farm Suppers.

Read more about the collaboration in the MV Times and Vineyard Gazette