Summer 2025 News

Sitting on the work table inside the Lab Library is Jim Stevenson’s snappy, baby blue manual typewriter.  Each artist-in-residence is invited to type answers to the same three questions:

• What is most important to you in maintaining and nourishing your creative life?

• What has been a seminal experience on your creative journey?

• What piece of advice can you offer for sustaining a creative life as an artist?

At a time when scrolling has multiple meanings, the Lab Library’s scroll is indeed an invaluable and inspiring archive of thoughts, documenting a journey of creative pursuits.  With every AIR’s shared experience, these typings grow deeper, like roots on a tree.

Thank you Lost and Found residency alums, for contributing your wisdom on life as we know it.

Josie Merck and Tyler Gillespie at the Yale School of Architecture

In March, the Lab hosted Florida-based poet, writer, professor/author, Tyler Gillespie.  A treat to have another native Floridian at Lost and Found Lab.  Tyler made the most out of the Lab’s proximity to New York City, pairing his focused, solitary writing time with trips into Manhattan and Brooklyn to take in theater, performance art, readings, and museum exhibitions.

Tyler Gillespie leads his Open Studio Poetry Workshop

Lab friends who attended his Open Studio were treated to an afternoon workshop in ekphrastic poetry, inspired by visual materials Tyler gathered from the New York Public Library’s extraordinary Picture Collection. It was a welcome opportunity to create together while gaining insight into Tyler’s personal art practice.  His students at Ringling College of Art & Design are lucky to have him as a dynamic resource and a thoughtful mentor.

Dr. Patrick Sweeney, Herbarium Collections Manager, Yale Peabody Museum, with AIR Margot Glass

In May, Margot Glass joined the Lab as a resident, bringing her enthusiasm and focused creative energy into the studio. Over the course of the month, she continued work on her intricate gold and silver point illustrations, drawing from—quite literally—inspiration in the surrounding Lab landscape.
A highlight from her residency was a visit to the Herbarium at the Yale Peabody Museum, where Herbarium Manager Dr. Patrick Sweeney set aside an impressive collection of specimens for her to study—most notably, a variety of pressed dandelions and grasses. Gathering with Yale curators and Lab creatives is always a curious deep dive into observation, reflection, and quiet wonder.

Margot’s Open Studio provided Lab friends with a closer look at her meticulous working process. We were all treated to a parting gift of acorn ink made by Margot, and a recipe for creating our own ink from collected lichen samples. It was a lush and water-filled month of May for Margot in residency - she shared that the Lab felt like she was living inside of a terrarium…. a perfect metaphor for how the Lab operates on any given month - a protected and fertile silent environment for all those who enter and settle in.

Janine St.Germain with Rigoberto Luna, curatorial fellow from NXTHVN, and Lab alums Victoria Martinez and Vick Quezada.

We’ve been following the stories of many Lab alums who continue to thrive—creating, evolving, and steadily cultivating their own creative journey.

Just to name a few...
Congratulations to Cary Gitter on the recent release of his book Cammy Sitting Shiva (Penguin Random House). Hats off to Blanka Amezkua for her dedicated work building and celebrating community in the Bronx and Manhattan.  Applause as well for Vick Quezada for organizing the Queer Latinx Art Symposium held this month in Berlin, and to Armando Veve for Soft/Cover, his exhibit currently on view at the Fabric Workshop Museum in Philadelphia. A special shoutout to Laura Glazer, whose boundless enthusiasm continues to shine out in the Pacific Northwest—most recently through her involvement in the L.A. Book Fair as well as her on-going work producing published work by young students within library settings. And, bravo to David Opdyke, who began work on his film Waiting for the Future while in residency at the Lab.  We loved watching its premiere live, projected up on the Lab's gallery walls last April on WNET, Channel 13.
Big cheers to all the Lab alums!

James Stevenson, Untitled No. 049, undated, oil on canvas, 36 x 48”

And last, but certainly not least—at the start of this summer season, we are also celebrating the work of James Stevenson in a form rarely seen by many: his oil paintings on canvas - featured at the Tori Jones Studio on Block Island.  While many of us know Jim Stevenson for his prolific work as a cartoonist and writer for The New Yorker, The New York Times, and for the many children’s books he created over a lifetime, this exhibit offers a rare glimpse into a lesser-known yet deeply compelling side of his artistry. Such beautiful choices were made to include in this June show titled: Porches, Still Lifes, and Connecticut Coasts: Oils by James Stevenson.  

Now as we settle in for the warm summer month’s ahead, we look forward to our upcoming artists in residence soon to arrive at Lost and Found Lab for the summer and fall season:

Visual poet, Monica Ong is with us in July, painter Michael Cline will join us in September, and our last AIR for 2025 will be text/textile artist Dianna Frid.

As summer unfolds, we hope all of you find time to make, to pause, and connect — and we look forward to seeing you again at a Lab gathering in the months ahead.

In art and camaraderie,

Janine
Janine St.Germain
Co-Director, James Stevenson Lost and Found Lab

February 2025 News

Jessica Lagunas, Mantón de plumas, Feathered Shawl, New York, 2022-24, feathers on silk organza, hand-embroidered French knots and fringe (embroidery floss), 56.75” x 56.75”

We are digging in and out of February here at Lost and Found Lab, still immersed in reflection after last month's extraordinary visit to the newly reopened Peabody Museum/Yale with our most recent artist-in-residence, Jessica Lagunas.

We've been eager to visit this newly renovated natural history museum, and what better way to experience it than with a wish list in hand from a visual artist seeking inspiration? Jessica's deep fascination with ornithology, her study of featherwork adornment in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and her personal exploration of how feathers have inspired artists from antiquity to the present, led us to an exceptional cast of characters during our trip to the museum.

Jessica Lagunas  (left) meets wih Agnete Lassen

Agnete Lassen and Rebekah DeAngelo treated Jessica to a luxurious viewing of a stunning piece of featherwork (undated) from Peru - still vibrant with such dazzling color.  Jessica shared digital images of her work with both Agnete and Rebekah - which set the tone and rhythm of our day.  It was such a treat to revisit Jessica’s own works-in-progress alongside these magnificent objects from centuries past….

Our visit then led us deep into what felt like an endless maze of expanding flat files, containing the Peabody’s most spectacular ornithological treasures. Collection manager Kristof Zyskowski guided Jessica through an astonishing selection of specimens that perfectly aligned with her research requests. We were left mystified by his insights into each object shared – all housed in a meticulously maintained, brilliant white vault, with lighting that heightened the vibrancy of each feather preserved from all around the world … 

The day was topped off by a lively conversation in the muted light of the museum’s indoor courtyard with Dr. Allison Caplan, scholar of the Art of Late Postclassic and Early Colonial Mesoamerica - which again provided us with a provocative context for Jessica’s current trajectory of art making. We were thrilled to have Dr. Caplan join us back at the Lab a few days later, for a small gathering at the close of Jessica’s residency.  We’ll be thinking back on this visit and Jessica’s introduction to the Peabody collections for a long time to come.  Huge thanks to everyone at the Peabody who took time to arrange busy calendars to meet with us - and our Lab friends who joined us back in Cos Cob for a discussion with Jessica and Allison on a cold winter’s evening.

Jessica Lagunas and Kristof Zyskowski

At the Lab, we continue to discover the immense value of being together with friends, creatives and curious knowledge seekers to reflect on this world around us. Also special thanks to our November AIR Dano Madden, who concluded his residency not long ago with a collaborative creative writing workshop. Dano seamlessly integrated the Lab’s passion for exploring the intersection of text and image—so beautifully illustrated in James Stevenson’s work—by encouraging open studio attendees to explore the interplay between sketching and dialogue writing.  His workshop kept us all engaged, challenged, and reflective long after the sun had set that November evening.  We look forward to collaborating with you again sometime soon, Dano.

Dano Madden conducts a writing workshop at Lost and Found Lab

It's deeply satisfying to discover and create ways to gather together and celebrate creativity as a group. Here’s to more of that in the year ahead.

And lastly, a short shout out to Lab alum Dorit Chrysler - who performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Date Night (it’s a thing!) back in October, in the Musical Instruments Gallery.  Between the purple uplighting, the backdrop of gold-leaf baroque cherubs, and Dorit’s mesmerizing musicality - we left the museum floating a few inches higher.  Paths crossed with Dorit recently back at the Rosen House at nearby Caramoor – sounds like Dorit has something brewing with her on-going research on thereminist Lucie Rosen. Stay tuned, as they say…

Dorit Chrysler performs at the Met

We’ll sign off here with images from the James Prosek book, Art, Artifact, Artifice, chosen for the Lab Library by AIR Jessica Lagunas.  Nature serves to inspire us on so many levels!

2024 Spring Arrivals at the Lab

Spring has settled back in here at the Lab … the greenery is bursting back in the landscape and the peepers in the nearby marsh are creating  another dreamy minimalist soundscape just for us.  We are particularly tuned into all things acoustic since artist-in-residence, Dorit Chrysler, stayed with us in March. 

Dorit, master thereminist, and head of the NY Theremin Society flew in from Berlin to spend a month at Lost and Found Lab while deep diving into the archives of Lucie Rosen, founder of the music program at nearby Caramoor Performing Arts Center.  What an honor it was to have Dorit perform in the gallery space at the close of her residency. She shared with us her findings and inspiration from that archive at the Rosen House, and began work on a musical composition for the theremin inspired by the architecture of Lost and Found Lab.
We highly recommend joining her at Caramoor for their free Soundscapes event on June 9th. Dorit will be on hand that day to share her insights on working with the Lucie Rosen archives as part of the Soundscape program and will perform a bit as well.

These past few months at the Lab have been filled with ease and inspiration… Our 2024 lineup of artists thus far started with illustrator and zine creator, Kati Lacker, who, during her stay, rendered the Lab’s landscape, architecture and all its silent corners with such beauty and extraordinary precision.

Both Dorit and Kati found ways to document the shadows and paths of light of Lost and Found Lab’s physical structure, using the space as a potent visual resource for the work they created during their residencies.  Thank you Kati and Dorit, for adding even more layers to the creative patina of this place.

And now, with daylight lingering longer, we are turning our attention to preparing the Lab for the upcoming artists David Opdyke, Armando Veve and Laura Glazer, whose residencies will take us into the autumn season of 2024.  Keep an eye on the Lab Instagram feed to see what unfolds with these AIRs during our summer/fall season.

And last but never ever least, a joyful shout out to Lab alums Victoria Martinez, Blanka Amezkua, and Vick Quezada.   Drawing on experimentation we experienced during their residencies at the Lab, we are seeing sparks from their time in the spotlight out there in the world at large…

We are loving Victoria’s fabulous color palette vibrating throughout her installation at the Chicago Cultural Center:

As well as Blanka’s eye-popping video feature story posted this month in the New York Times.  

And soon we will turn our attention to Socrates Sculpture Garden this summer, while Vick sets up shop down on the Queens waterfront for a summer-long fellowship. 

Props to all the Lab alums who are out there thriving and making great work.

DAVID OPDYKE | ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE | MAY 2024

Born in post-industrial Schenectady, New York in 1969, artist David Opdyke makes artwork that explores globalization, consumerism, and civilization’s abusive relationship with the environment. His work is held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, and The Washington Convention Center in DC. In October 2020, Monacelli Press/Phaidon published a book based on his large-scale postcard project This Land, including essays by Lawrence Weschler and Maya Wiley. He lives and works in Ridgewood, Queens.

David Opdyke, Someday, all this, 400 hand-modified postcards, 2021

January News 2024

Hello Friends of Lost and Found Lab…. and Happy, Happy New Year!

The Lab’s book library is a very special spot for reading, daydreaming, silently soaking in the morning sun, and lately, spotting a bald eagle soaring past the tree tops out back. What better spot to sit and ponder all that this new year has to offer. 

Sitting front and center on the Lab’s library table is Jim Stevenson’s manual typewriter, which holds a long scroll of typed texts shared by the artists who have been in residence since the launch of the Lab. It is a refreshing and provocative analog version to the digital scroll most of us slip into on a daily basis. Sharing insights and eureka moments is a treasured piece of day-to-day life at Lost and Found Lab.

The true highlights from the past year are always the individuals themselves who bring spirit to the place - the artists-in-residence and their enduring commitment to their practice.  May we all have the courage to pursue our true calling.

Images: Fireside on the grounds at Lost and Found Lab, Blanka Amezkua & Timothy Young at the Beinecke Library, Closing Party for Mamie Tinkler, Victoria Martinez in the studio, film screening of Annie Weatherwax’s Monster in a Dress, Martha Lewis & Marion Belanger in Lab Gallery, Martha Lewis working outside in Lab’s rain garden, summer film screening on Sky Patio

In addition to our ongoing series of open studio events which closed out each residency in 2023, the Lab also hosted a mix of informal events scheduled in between residencies. These gatherings included:

• A lecture with ceramicist Kate Missett, who spoke about Katherine Choy, the founder of neighboring Clay Art Center in Port Chester.  Choy’s work was the focus of a recent exhibition held at the Greenwich Historical Society.

• A screening of Lab alum Annie Weatherwax’s illustrated film Monster in a Dress, based on work Annie had going while in residence at the Lab.

• A Lab Alum field trip to Yale’s Medical Historical Library, for a viewing of selected and stunning rare manuscripts followed by a tour of the Harvey Cushing Brain Inventory.

Lost and Found Lab wishes good fortune to all of our artists, friends, family and neighbors -- particularly those who are approaching the new year with an eye on new projects, percolating deadlines and inspired collaborations.  Taking a note from the Lab’s copy of Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like an Artist, remember to be easy on yourself when forging ahead this year…

Who is up next ?

Artists taking residence at the the Lab in 2024 include illustrators, a playwright, a theremin player, a sculptor, an installation artist, a curator and an educator (see below). Keep an eye out as we share more from the artists spending time at Lost and Found Lab in the year ahead.

Here’s to 2024 and making the most out of the blank canvas that lies ahead.

With admiration,

Janine St.Germain
Co-Director, James Stevenson Lost and Found Lab

KATI LACKER | JANUARY ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

Kati Lacker is a screen printer, freelance illustrator, and designer, living in Ridgewood, Queens. Her work often explores the everyday; spending time with subjects that would otherwise go unnoticed. Much of what she creates is influenced by the city surroundings and a love of color, line, and pattern.

Past clients include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Hollywood Reporter, Bloomberg Businessweek, and The Atlantic.

When she’s not drawing, she leads a screen printing event she co-founded called Drink + Print that travels the city, and is the primary flatstock printer at Bushwick Print Lab.

2024 Upcoming Artists-in-Residence

Dorit Chrysler

Dano Madden

David Opdyke

Laura Glazer

Armando Veve

September News 2023

Greetings Friends of Lost and Found Lab,

We hope everyone found time to relax and be creative this summer.  It’s hard not to feel a bit awestruck by creativity when experiencing the rhythms of artists in residence at the Lab. Suitcases roll in, the studio gets set up, concepts in development are discussed and then … artists simply get to work. And, that may include the inner work of simply sitting in an oversized comfy chair in the morning sunlight while studying the tree tops and passing bird life.  

We believe Lost and Found Lab is a home for the creative spirit.

Mamie Tinkler, The Spelunker; (Below) Studio Visit with Mamie Tinkler at the Lab. 

Behind the scenes at the Lab, we have just turned the calendar page leading us to an autumn chapter and, with that, we have begun to prepare for the artists joining us in 2024.  The studio now has a few hints of paint thanks to Mamie Tinkler (7/2023) to whom we wish continued success as she prepares for residencies in the coming year.

And, thanks to Vick Quezada (6/2023), our first sculptor at the Lab, the studio exterior has now been put to the test as a functioning work space. We appreciate learning about the aesthetics of Rasquache art thanks to Vick and look forward to hearing their stories on upcoming exhibitions and teaching adventures at Hampshire College.

And while these last bits of summer light fill the Lab, we welcome our next AIR, Martha Lewis, who will be with us in September/October (details below).  We look forward to learning more about her work and process for generating new ideas… Keep an eye on the Lab’s Instagram feed for more on Martha’s work in the weeks ahead.

Martha Willette Lewis - September Artist-in-Residence

Martha Lewis, Thinking Brane​

Martha Willette Lewis is a visual artist, curator, and radio presenter. Her work intersects science, technology, history, and human knowledge to produce handmade works which respond to site and place. Recent projects tackle such topics as quantum physics, the climate crisis, Covid and its impacts, gun violence, misogyny and the concept of memory.

Using words and images, her work manifests itself as works on paper, drawing, sculptural objects, printmaking, assemblage, light projection, sound works, and site-specific Installation, and she has several on-going collaborative projects which take her even further afield.

Martha is currently working with artist Marion Belanger (a Lost and Found Lab AIR Alum) on a new mixed media project about the climate crisis and human impact on our landscape. This nuanced project includes altered photographs, sculptural works, and lots of experimentation. 

Martha’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including at The New Haven Museum, Modern Art Oxford, the Tricycle Gallery, London, the Decordova Museum, The Tides Institute & Museum of Art, Central Booking Gallery, Planthouse gallery, and the Pierogi Flatfiles to name a few. She was the inaugural artist-in-residence at The Yale Quantum Institute. She is host of two radio programs on WPKN: Live culture – a discussion about art-and the flux capacitor, a freewheeling music show.  More of her artwork can be seen online at marthalewis.com and on instagram @quarantinecinegram and @marthawillettelewis

Upcoming Artist-in-Residence

NOVEMBER 2023
Victoria Martinez is an interdisciplinary artist who honors her Mexican-American ancestry through textile-based projects including installation, painting, and printmaking. Her work is inspired by public art, ancient sites, architecture, and the urban environment. 
Victoria-Martinez.com

June News 2023

With the arrival of spring, our grounds have transformed once again — teeming with life. The song of warblers, chattering orioles, and the flight of unmistakable woodpeckers is our cue that the spring season is surging ahead. 

It is always an inspiration preparing for the next lineup of Artists-in-Residence (AIRs) with the shift of the season.  In addition to new residents moving in, a variety of programs are now in the works for the remaining months of 2023. Stay tuned for details on upcoming field trips curated in collaboration with our cultural partners, which have been designed specifically to the interests our Lab alums. Performance dates are also now etched into the calendar, and open studio gatherings are being penciled in for the months that lie ahead.

In June we welcome interdisciplinary artist Vick Quezada - and in autumn, we will host visual artists Mamie Tinkler and Martha Lewis, as well as theremin performer Dorit Chrysler, all joining us for the balance of 2023.  The common thread that continues to unite our artists-in-residence is the invaluable opportunity to immerse oneself fully in their craft, unburdened by the demands of daily life. This respite from the ordinary offers the artists the time and space to embark on uncharted journeys of discovery. 

Part of the experience in being at the Lab is access to a growing selection of books in the Lab Library — AIRs are invited to select publications for inclusion in the Library, a collection that now fully embodies the interests of all the artists who have taken retreat here.   As the collection expands, we have created a virtual bookshelf, documenting the contents held on these shelves.  Take a look!

Thanks to all of you who join us here on site celebrating the works in progress coming from all the Lab’s artists-in-residence.  

Vick Quezada | June Artist-in-Residence

We welcome interdisciplinary artist, Vick Quezada, to the Lab!  

Vick Quezada (they/them) is a mixed media artist exploring hybrid forms in Indigenous-Latinx history and the function of these histories in contested lands, primarily in the U.S.-Mexico Border. They work with a variety of mediums: video, performance, sculpture, and ceramics. They incorporate found objects (man-made) and natural elements, like dirt, soil, flora, corn and combine them with found objects like bricks, reclaimed trash, chains, cans, and barbed wire.
Quezada’s work explores liberation through an approach that is rooted in queer and Indigenous knowledge, histories, and aesthetics. They draw on an Aztec-Nahuan religious doctrine that affirms a “two-spirit” tradition in order to make the Latinx and Indigenous transgender body visible through history, trauma, and pleasure. 

Quezada received an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship co-sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Their work has been featured in Hyperallergic, BOMB Magazine, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Art News, Trans Studies Quarterly, and Remezcla. From 2020-21 they served as a Leslie Lohman Museum Fellow. In 2020 Quezada was featured in El Museo del Barrio's groundbreaking, La Trienal.
Quezada holds a BA from the University of Texas at El Paso and an MFA from UMASS Amherst. 

To learn more about Vick Quezada, please visit: vickquezada.com

Table Remains​, mixed dimensions, ceramics, cafeteria table, mixed media, 2018. 

Upcoming…

Artists-in-Residence 2023

JULY / AUGUST
Mamie Tinkler
A painter of intimately scaled, meticulously observed watercolor still lifes that incorporate objects with past lives. 

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SEPTEMBER
Martha Lewis
A visual artist, curator, educator and radio presenter, Martha's artistic practice focuses on drawing, site-specific installation, books, knowledge, and the history of science.

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NOVEMBER
Dorit Chrysler  
A regular at Caramoor,  Dorit Chrysler, is one of the world's most visible Theremenists and cofounder of the NY Theremin Society.  Her most recent album, "Calder Plays Theremin," was released in 2023.

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A Special Shout Out to Alum Cary Gitter

Last March, the Lab hosted a lively reading of a play written by AIR alum Cary Gitter, inspired by the relationship between Gilda Radner and Gene Wilder.  We invite all of you to head over to Stony Point, NY to see the production of Gene and Gilda, which will be mounted in the cozy barn at Penguin Rep Theatre, August 4 - August 27.  Break a leg, Cary - and hope to see you all there….

Celebrating an Inaugural Year

Early days of construction at the Lab, 2021.

Lost and Found Lab is celebrating its first year of operation this month. It's a milestone filled with the lingering spirit of seven extraordinary artists in residence who have taken time to be at Lost and Found Lab — to refine their personal vision, to rest, recuperate, and to ponder what is possible. The Lab continues to serve as an incubator of creative thought and reflection.

An unexpected theme this past year was the Year of the Pivot for all our resident artists. Lost and Found Lab 2021/2022 provided space for artists to contemplate the possibility of a new chapter in life and/or work -- some in professional life, some involved with the execution of specific works of art with tangible deadlines. There were closures of academic pursuits, and certainly trials of new ideas/concepts tested, pondered, prodded and discussed.

Naomi LIechty's work reaches around the Lab.

And now Lost and Found Lab will follow the lead of its AIR alums to pivot itself into its own new chapter. Year Two will focus on further refining the mission, developing new forms of programming, experimenting with sound art, and continuing to celebrate and support a new collection of artists -- all recommended and chosen by the residents who came before them.

Clockwise from top left: Trina M. Robinson, Marion Belanger, Yukie Ohta, Naomi Liechty, Anthony Elms, Katarina Jerinic (right) with Bruce Museum staffers Dr. Daniel Ksepka (center) and Sean Murtha (left), Annie Weatherwax (with Josie Merck).

The Lab's 2021/22 artists delved in deep, engaging with material ranging from the palettes held in the archives of color theorist Faber Birren, manuscripts of Harlem Renaissance icons including Zora Neale Hurston and Carl Van Vechten, to cartography, stereo cards, and 19th-century field journals from the Wheeler Survey of the U.S. West. Words and text from decades and centuries past continue to percolate in the work of the artists-in-residence at the Lab.

Thank you Annie Weatherwax, Anthony Elms, Marion Belanger, Yukie Ohta, Trina Michelle Robinson, Naomi Liechty and Katarina Jerinic — for laying down a patina of creative thoughts and visions that all our future artists will build upon when they set up their temporary studio here in years to come.

Gatherings at the Lab

We also wish to thank the following cultural institutions for providing inspiration and fostering inquiry while generously welcoming our artists to use their vast and compelling collections: The Beinecke Library and Haas Family Arts Library at Yale University, the Greenwich Historical Society, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, the Bruce Museum, and New York Public Library’s Picture Collection.

Photo by Michael Biondo

And last but in no way least, we send heartfelt kudos to the architectural team of Joeb Moore and Partners for receiving the 2022 Connecticut AIA Design Award for Lost and Found Lab. A day does not go by when the light, space and tranquility of the Lab’s design is not recognized, savored and appreciated with every turn.

The Lab receives Award of Excellence from AIA Connecticut

Photo by Michael Biondo

We are pleased to announce that the Lost and Found Lab has received a Design Award of Excellence from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Connecticut. The Lab is recognized as successfully housing a space for reflection and production, reinforcing the human experience and engagement with art, architecture and nature.

Our congratulations extend to Joeb Moore and Partners for working with us and turning this vision into a reality with all the elements one could hope for in a combined creative/living/working space. The team at Joeb Moore worked tirelessly to design and construct this space with sustainable features as an imperative; it sits atop the existing footprint of a former 1947 structure which was carefully deconstructed and elements returned to the market in order to minimize use of landfill. The original wood framing was repurposed as millwork elements throughout the new building. Similarly, triple glazed windows conserve energy and reduce the heating and cooling loads of the building, which are served by an all-electric system. Furthermore, radiant heat is embedded into the polished poured in-place concrete floors.

Jury comments: Beautiful and thoughtful project. Appreciate the sensitivity to site placement and repurposing of existing footprint and millwork elements in design.

Read more about the 2022 AIA CT Design Awardees here.

Photo by Michael Biondo

James Stevenson and Playing on Air

For a way to listen to James Stevenson work, we we are thrilled to share by way of Playing on Air: Evening at Anaheim, a darkly hilarious reimagining of iconic animated characters - now over the hill and waiting out their golden years at a seedy retirement community in Los Angeles.  

Directed by Tony nominee Dana Ivey (The Last Night of Ballyhoo), EVENING AT ANAHEIM features Richard Kind (The Producers, "Spin City"), Karen Ziemba (Tony winner for Contact), Emily Bergl ("Gilmore Girls," Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Brandon Uranowitz (Falsettos), Carson Elrod (Peter and the Starcatcher), Peter Maloney (Requiem for a Dream), and Tom Alan Robbins (The Lion King). Stay tuned after the play for a high spirited conversation with the cast, director, and Playing on Air founder and consulting director Claudia Catania.

EVENING AT ANAHEIM was co-presented with Playwrights Horizons and recorded live in New York City.

Download the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, search ‘Playing on Air’ in your favorite podcasting platform—or stream it on Playing on Air by clicking on the link below!

September News 2022

Hello there, Friends of Lost and Found Lab!

Hosting one-month residencies at Lost and Found Lab often feels like entering into a perpetual wrinkle in time.  No sooner are we unpacking and digging in, when it seems moments later, we are wrapping up and offering well wishes and hopes for a return visit.
Such was the case with our June resident Marion Belanger.  The Lab sends her our best wishes, and is very much looking forward to seeing where her subtle, silent and powerful images of the landscape will take us next.  While at the Lab, Marion worked with the papers of Rachel Carson at the Beinecke Library, as well as selections from New York Public Library’s Picture Collection. We highly recommend her book Rift/Fault (Radius Books), with a forward by Lucy Lippard.  Marion’s work is just stunning.

In July, SoHo Memory Project’s Yukie Ohta came to the Lab with an enticing array of art supplies and a focused intention of letting things unfold with ease. While at the Lab, Yukie worked with the Faber Birren Collection on color at Yale’s Haas Family Arts Library. Yukie wrote to us from Japan just days ago and shared: I think about my time at Lost and Found often and marvel at the fact that, since my stay there, I have felt lighter and less impatient for the next thing to come along. The Lab most certainly is imbued with light-filled stillness, and an open-ended sense of easeful possibility. Each resident has added to that palpable sense of possibility with their own moment in time here. We are all 'Works in Progress'.

Yukie Ohta in the studio

Yukie readies materials.

Yukie presents How To Draw A Bunny.

The summer season at the Lab came to a close with the dazzlingly bright light of visual artist, filmmaker, storyteller, and archivist-at-heart, Trina Robinson. Trina used her time at the Lab preparing for her upcoming show as a featured Emerging Artist at the Smithsonian’s Museum of African Diaspora scheduled to open this fall. Her visits to the Beinecke Library included multiple deep dives into the papers of Harlem Renaissance greats, Carl Van Vechten, Zora Neale Hurston and Roy Decavara. We look forward to seeing how these collections surface in Trina’s work in the future, and wish her well on her journey as she continues to create works of art inspired by the often hidden stories found within archival collections.

A visit to the Met rooftop with Trina Robinson.

Trina presents her film works in progress.

Trina takes a deep dive at Yale University's Beinecke Library.

There is so much more to come — as we prepare for the arrival of the Lost and Found Lab artists scheduled for the year ahead.

Until soon and with enthusiasm,
Janine St.Germain

Spring News 2022

The real hero this spring at Lost and Found Lab is the surrounding landscape. We are watching plantings roar to life that were put into the ground last fall. They are already imbuing a palpable spirit of this place which we will savor for years to come. Thanks to the creative vision of local landscape designer Vasilka Bukov and her team, things are truly rising to the surface.

This Spring, the Lab welcomed our inaugural AIR Annie Weatherwax back to host a day-long writing/drawing workshop entitled Creative Cartography. Participants were led through a range of collaborative writing and drawing exercises exploring the connection between language and art. The studio, gallery space and surrounding landscape served as an inspired nexus of light, silence and nature--a comforting spot to unplug, ponder and create.

Our next resident artist arrives this month. Photographer Marion Belanger's  work focuses on the cultural landscape, where geology and the built environment intersect; where shifting identities of place and boundaries are in flux.  A teacher at both the Hartford Art School and Wesleyan University, she has authored Rift/Fault (Radius Books, 2016), and Everglades: Outside and Within (Center for American Places at Columbia College Chicago, 2009). 

Belanger earned a M.F.A. from the Yale University School of Art and recently collaborated  on a permanent installation with Martha Lewis at the Connecticut Agricultural Experimental Station.  Her work is held in numerous collections including the National Gallery for Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, and both the Yale University Art Gallery and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.  We are very much looking forward to hosting Marion at the Lab and learning more about her work past, present and future.

Our short break between residencies this Spring has provided time for visits with a variety of collaborators here at the Lab. Sally Williams, our team member hailing from New Zealand, joined us this month to present the documentary film Stevenson Lost and Found at the Century Association, along with Josie Merck, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast and film critic Molly Haskell. We love having Sally on this side of the globe for endless creative brainstorming, loud laughs, thoughtful planning, and all around good cheer.

Cartoon by Roz Chast

An illustration from Mud Flat Spring, 1999, by James Stevenson

The James Stevenson Fine Art Collection

The Lost and Found gallery space is home to an extraordinary collection of Jim Stevenson's rarely seen works on paper and canvas. Figurative and abstract work, landscapes and still lifes are included in the full collection of Jim's body of work. The gallery rotates these pieces each season, celebrating his vision and curiosity for all visitors here at the Lab.

Image 3, Image 4: Untitled, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches; Image 5: Untitled, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

Upcoming Artists-in-Residence 2022

The temperatures have dropped, snow now covers the surrounding landscape at the Lab, and friends have gathered around the fire pit at least once to herald in best wishes for 2022.  Winter ambience, with its afternoon long shadows, has settled in and continues to cultivate introspection and a sublime state of winter retreat.

This season has provided time to host a number of open-ended conversations with our collaborators, cohorts, and future AIRs regarding plans for the season ahead. 

UPCOMING ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE

Anthony Elms

Anthony Elms will be joining us next at Lost and Found Lab. Elms, a curator and writer, was the Daniel and Brett Sundheim Chief Curator at Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania (2015-21) .  For ICA, Elms organized the exhibitions Milford Graves: The Mind-Body Deal with Mark Christman (2020), Karyn Olivier:  Everything That's Alive Moves (2020), Cauleen Smith: Give It or Leave It (2018), Endless Shout (2016-7), Rodney McMillian: The Black Show (2016), Christopher Knowles: In a Word with writer Hilton Als (2015), White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart (2013), and coordinated several other exhibitions and projects. He has independently curated many exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial 2014 and his writings have appeared in many catalogs and edited collections, as well as various periodicals.

While at the Lab, Anthony plans to further cultivate his long-standing interest in using archival material as fuel for future creative work. For the time being, he's deep within the papers of musician, composer, producer and artist Arto Lindsay.

Lost and Found Lab will be hosting a range of artists/thinkers/writers hailing from a wide range of disciplines in 2022. To name just a few:

Trina Michelle Robinson

Visual artist, filmmaker exploring the relationship between memory and migration through film, text and archival material. Learn more
Photo: Molly Kate Holsinger

Katarina Jerinic

Visual artist making photographs, maps, and ephemera relating to built landscapes. Learn more
Photo: Alexandre Donato

Yukie Ohta

Visual artist and creator of The SoHo Memory Project. Learn more
Photo: Louise Palmberg / Culture Trip

MEETING WITH NEW FRIENDS OF THE LAB

We have also been enjoying a variety of open ended conversations about shared interests and curiosities with new friends of the Lab including:

• Staff members from Greenwich Historical Society including Maggie Dimock, Christopher Shields, Heather Lodge and Stephanie Bennett, regarding ways in which future AIRs may seek inspiration from holdings within their collections.

• Barnum Museum, in nearby Bridgeport, CT, regarding their current initiatives involving digital assets from the Museum collection.

• Norwalk Art Space, and their impressive program pairing intergenerational artists teaching and learning from each other through the residency program hosted at the Norwalk Art Space facility.

• Noyes House in New Canaan, CT, along with photographer Michael Biondo and Noyes family member Fred Noyes regarding the extraordinary work of industrial designer, Eliot Noyes.

Lost and Found Lab is honored to be holding conversations with this inspiring cohort of creative thinkers. The Lab has recently established membership with the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County and looks forward to continuing collaborative conversations with creatives in our surrounding community.

Lost and Found Lab Inaugural Artist in Residence: Annie Weatherwax

Cos Cob, CT: The James Stevenson Lost and Found Lab announces the selection of its inaugural artist-in-residence, artist and author Annie Weatherwax.

Founded by Josie Merck, the Lost and Found Lab is named after cartoonist James Stevenson’s New York Times series and provides live/work space for visual artists, writers, and scholars exploring the relationship between language and art. The Lost and Found Lab celebrates Stevenson’s work as a renowned children’s book author and New Yorker cartoonist by providing a peaceful and private sanctuary in which to dedicate unrestricted time to one’s craft.

Annie Weatherwax began her career sculpting cartoons and superhero characters from DC Comics, Nickelodeon, and Pixar. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, All We Had — which, according to her, was written “one picture at a time”—was made into a movie directed by and starring Katie Holmes and premiered in 2016 at the Tribeca Film Festival.

“I am thrilled and honored to be the inaugural artist-in-residence at The James Stevenson Lost and Found Lab,” says Weatherwax. “I am a long-time fan of Stevenson’s work and the lab’s mission couldn’t be more in line with my interests.”

Driven by the desire to understand her dyslexia, Weatherwax has written extensively on the relationship between language and visual literacy. She is currently experimenting with hybrid forms of storytelling, working in the capacity of "The Literary Cartoonist,” combining text with kinetic typography, drawing, and animation.

“We are delighted to welcome an inaugural artist such as Annie Weatherwax who, like James Stevenson, mines multiple veins of creativity— seeing and telling stories in pictures and words. We are off on an exciting adventure together,” says Lost and Found Lab Founder Josie Merck.