Jeff Broekhoven – Dispatch #1

February 1, 2015

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Welcome!

The dust is beginning to settle at our Outpost here in the Midwest. Welcome to the weekly dispatches from the Outpost Artist Residency Program! We are glad to be sharing highlights from our creative community here at Farmers Park in Springfield, MO, USA.

Why Outpost?

Starting a residency in the Midwest further strengthens the emerging trend of a contemporary art scene that is decentralized from the major arts centers located on the coasts, namely New York and Los Angeles. In essence we are at the front lines, pioneers at the edge of a new art-world frontier; taking place outside of the established major metropolitan centers at a new golden age for art making in America. From our humble Ozark mountain highland outpost we can share what we have already known, that the Midwest is the best!

What’s in Store?

We have many ideas and projects in the works with our resident artists, including temporary and permanent art installations, workshops and market mingles with the farmers market and the greater ozarks community, and the list is growing daily so stay tuned. We are also working on a podcast series to document the startup of a residency program, providing a candid, behind-the-scenes approach to both the exciting and mundane daily activities of launching this program.

We are calling this a beta residency program and everyone involved, artists included, are working together to shape and define the experience. This collaboration aims at creating a unique platform for creative activity here in Springfield, MO, USA.

What Happened This Week?

This is actually the third week of our residency, and the dust has settled enough for us to get into a routine. We meet daily for coffee to keep an ongoing dialogue and sense of community–feel free to drop in and say hello, just contact us through the website! The artists are planning for a series of workshops and public interactions, check out the calendar section of our website. We also celebrated a birthday this week with resident artist Ankica, who shared a homemade meal inspired by her home in Macedonia. Its okay, we had to google to locate it too! The artists will be living and making art at Farmers Park through the end of June, see you out there! Until next week.

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