From Ragdale to riches

For most of us, being connected means packing as many electronic devices as possible. But for many artists, being connected means channeling a muse, which isn’t easy when some gizmo is constantly beeping for attention. True, Hart Crane loved to blast music while he wrote poetry, and more than a few painters keep a television playing in their studios. But for most creative types, it’s the old room of one’s own dilemma: Where to work undisturbed? For 30 years, Ragdale, in north suburban Lake Forest, has been that place. And continuing through January 13, this artists’ retreat celebrates itself with “Time + Space: Ragdale Foundation 30th Anniversary Exhibition” at the Chicago Cultural Center.

Established in 1976 by poet Alice Hayes and situated in the former summer home designed by her grandfather, architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, the Ragdale Foundation welcomes writers, musicians and visual artists, offering them anywhere from two weeks to two months in which to focus on their work. That may not seem like a lot of time, but as artist E. W. Ross explains, every unfettered moment is a boon. “I work full time [as dean of continuing studies and special programs at the School of the Art Institute] and teach and have a family, so my studio practice is somewhat down the list of priorities. So to go up to Ragdale for two weeks and be able to work 12 hours a day is a delight. They provide The New York Times in the morning, a nice prairie to walk in and dinner, where all the residents get together. I don’t know if it gets any better than that.”

Author Jane Hamilton (A Map of the World) has sojourned at Ragdale a number of times over the past 20 years, and says it can be tough to leave. “It’s wrenching. And when I’d come home and feel I wanted to tear my hair out over the ordinary chaos of regular life, I would go to Green Bay Road in my mind, walk down the street, enter those doors and try to find a kind of peace that way.”

Ragdale accepts emerging as well as established artists, and the work on view at the Chicago Cultural Center evinces the foundation’s open eye when it comes to matters of style and content. Ed Hinkley’s Airy is an almost brutally rendered triptych, the most potent images of which conjure a defiled natural environment and a seemingly burdened figure. The roughly applied paint suggests an antique fresco undone by time, but there is no nostalgia here. Barbara Cooper’s Fall, an undulating construction spun from curlicues of wood veneer, rests on the floor and rises against the wall. The piece not only reconstitutes nature, but emits a kinetic kick that recalls Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase.

An oil on aluminum piece from V. Kim Martinez’s “Mujeres de Colores” series depicts a muscular woman in a lucha libre–like outfit, fists raised, face contorted. Audrey Niffenegger’s Old Masterish, Bad Fairy presents a far less empowered female with a bad dye job holding a wand topped by a star. A black-and-white image by Barbara Ciurej and Lindsey Lochman reads as a mandala—in its center, a nude, with long hair flowing down her back. An image of (perhaps) the same figure—folded over itself and shot from the side—is arranged in two concentric circles around the central image.

Touring this visual-art show, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the bulk of Ragdale’s residents have been writers. To keep them on our radar, the foundation has arranged for Alex Kotlowitz (There Are No Children Here) and Niffenegger (The Time Traveler’s Wife) to read from their work and discuss their Ragdale experiences. That program, “Ragdale Review: From Residency to Bestseller and Back,” will be in the Claudia Cassidy Theater, January 11, at 7pm.

“Time + Space” is at the Chicago Cultural Center through January 13.