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Melanie Parke and Richard Kooyman were awarded a residency this September at the Heliker-Lahotan Residency Program on Great Cranberry Island, Maine. Great Cranberry Island is the largest of a group of five islands and sits off the southern shore of Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Parke.

In the 1950s, artists John Heliker, called Jack, and Robert LaHotan purchased a 19th-century ship-captain’s house on Great Cranberry Island, Maine, off Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park.
The 19th-century boatsheds and outbuildings were converted over the years to studios, and both artists spent many of the most productive years of their lives regularly painting in Cranberry in the summers and teaching and painting in New York during the winters. Robert LaHotan spent the last two years of his life realizing his vision of turning the property into a residency program for artists on Cranberry. In 2003, the buildings passed to the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit New York foundation, which administers the property and the estates of the artists.

"This is a great opportunity to do some concentrated work, away from the phone", says Kooyman. " We were very fortunate to both be accepted and already each of us has some special projects we have been wanting to work on that will do out on the island".

To learn more about the foundations residency program or Cranberry Island visit …www.heliker-lahotan.org