Hello from Vashon Island

artist residency notes and hermit crabs.

I’m writing from Vashon Artist Residency, where I’ll be for the next two weeks. This is the shortest artist residency I’ve ever done, so it feels like there is some (self imposed) pressure to be highly intentional and regimented about my time here. It sounds strict when spelled out like that, but it’s more like each grain of sand that represents the seconds that tick by in a day are held with more consciousness and care. I wish I could say that I treat time like this on the regular, but I don’t.

the residency is located on Vashon Island in Washington State

I am excited to be jet-lagged in a way that has me awake and alert at 5am, which almost never happens naturally otherwise. The air smells like clean ocean breeze, cedar wood, and blackberries. It is gloriously quiet.

My last artist residency was in 2022, when I spent 2.5 months in Iceland. Inevitably, when I tell family or friends that I am heading to a residency, I get the same questions: huh? You’re doing what? Is this like a medical residency?

So let me just take a moment to demystify some of those questions now:

What is an artist residency?

Simply put, residency programs allow artists the opportunity to live and work outside their usual environments, providing them with space and time to reflect, research, and produce new work. Artist-in-residence programs offer a shift in perspective, presenting a unique chance to simultaneously explore new places and connect with other artists. Artist residencies are just as varied and diverse as artists themselves, but they all have one thing in common: designated time and space to make art.

What are you doing?

I’ve been waking up early and going for walks along the shoreline at low tide. I spend about an hour poking around at crabs and clams, and today I got a face full of seawater from a geoduck siphon.

Then I eat breakfast, drink tea, and write about my thoughts and observations for another hour or two. Then I go to the studio to paint and draw. Lunch happens at some point, occasionally I will run into another artist in residence and we will have a conversation about anything from mayonnaise to local bat species, as well as what they are working on. Then more walking, writing, researching, painting, sketching, watching, and listening.

Essentially I am here to break from routine, deep focus, and enrich my creative practice. A few words that come to mind: Intention. Observation. Wakefulness. Curiosity. Immersion. Illumination. I am here to be keenly aware of what inspires me, of what makes me go “this is why I am alive.”

crabs remind me of my childhood.

Why Vashon?

Of all the places I have lived and worked in the last decade, Vashon Island happens to be closest to my point of origin. I was born in Seattle but have lived thousands of miles away for the past 10 years, and the last time I visited during summer was roughly 7 years ago. It is hotter and drier than I remember.

You never know what’s going to stick with you forever from your childhood. For me, it’s crabs. Some of my happiest moments were spent clambering rocky coastlines and turning over barnacled stones to terrorize crabs. I loved how each overturned rock held a tiny universe of creatures. So I guess it’s not just crabs; it’s the ocean, sea anemones, starfish, urchins, and pretty much anything that inhabits tide pools.

collecting seawater from Quartermaster Harbor for painting.

During this residency I’m painting with seawater. I did this in Iceland as well. When I was at Vermont Studio Center, I gathered snow and melted it. In Dublin I collected rainwater, in Philmont NY there was a nice waterfall I would hike to. This is entirely superstition, but painting with natural bodies of water makes me feel more connected to a place.

the first thing I painted when I arrived at Vashon.

studio setup.

underpaintings I started in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

I made a list of things that feel important to consider while I’m here:

Vashon Art Notes

• Moon snail 

• Hermit crabs

• Clams, oysters, barnacles

• Creatures with shells 

• Twin flame

• Coral

• Dolphins 

• Ocean

• Tide pools

• Rainbow portal

• Portals - another world is possible

• Relationship between yin / yang / light / dark

• Sunlight on water

• Flowers

• Fruit - been eating a lot of fruit lately.

• Childhood

• Origin stories

• Birds

• Eggs

• Tiny universe

• Shape shifters

• Magical creatures

• Mountains

• Craters

• Moon

• Stars

• Starlight

• Starfish

• Mysterious forces beyond my comprehension

• What does it mean to be home?

This is a small section of the list. Some of the things on this list are new, some are old, most are the result of years of staying awake to what informs my art practice. For example, my fascination with craters started in adolescence but ballooned during Iceland, and it’s something I’m still thinking about during my time here.

barnacled glass I found yesterday morning while taking a walk along the beach, and an underpainting I started in Iceland nearly 2 years ago that I plan to continue working on while here. They look similar, no?

Another thing that has stuck with me for years is this super random, offhanded comment I overheard and kept in my Apple Notes app and still think about on a regular basis:

“My friend had a hermit crab but it didn’t like any of the shells so it died.”

This struck an unreasonably deep chord in me. It changed the way I viewed my own life. Why did I relate to this so strongly?

I have struggled to feel “at home” for as long as I can remember. This might have something to do with being a first-generation¹ Asian American, or it could be that strained relationships with my parents helped to push me far, far away from the nest.

In any case, I have moved around a lot. It gets exhausting moving from place to place. Despite the character-building element of starting over in other states, countries, and communities over and over again and finding that I am a surprisingly resilient creature, sometimes I envy those who settle down where they grew up. I will elaborate on this in another newsletter, but I yearn to have a sense of rootedness.

Instead, I feel like a hermit crab that keeps outgrowing its shell, and needs to find a new shell every 3-4 years. And what happens if none of the shells fits quite right?

look at this giant moon snail.

So these are all things I’m thinking about and what I intend to focus on while I have a reprieve from the chaos of living in New York. Looking forward to sharing the results.

Love,
Melanie

written from here.

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1. There are a few accepted definitions of first-generation: 1) the first generation of a family to be born in a particular country, or a person born in the U.S. to immigrant parents. 2) a naturalized citizen who came to a country as an immigrant. I identify as the former.