What We're Reading

Place for the Arts: The MacDowell Colony, 1907-2007

Editor: Carter Wiseman
Publisher: MacDowell Colony/University Press of New England
$39.95 Cloth (239 P.)
ISBN: 9781584656098
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Reviewed by Marcia A. Lusted, Statusing

Those of us who have grown up in the Peterborough, NH area tend not to give much thought to the MacDowell Colony. It's just there: something we appreciate but don't know much about other than the occasional Colonist performance for MacDowell Downtown, or the display table at the Toadstool Bookshop filled with books by resident writers. I have a slightly better acquaintance with it than most people my age, having spent hours sitting in the kitchen there during college with a friend who was a MacDowell cook. This wonderful new book, published by MacDowell in commemoration of its hundredth anniversary, gives the reader a chance to really feel what it's like to be a colonist, and shows what a wonderful place MacDowell is, hidden quietly along a side street in Peterborough.

Interspersed with wonderful color photographs of the Colony grounds and the buildings themselves is the story of MacDowell and how the Colony came to be. More importantly, it also shares, from the perspective of past Colonists, what an amazing experience it is to be given the gift of time and space to work on one's arts in an atmosphere like that of the Colony. Some of the voices in the book are familiar ones, such as writers Michael Chabon and Ruth Reichl, whereas others might not have the same name recognition but are highly accomplished artists, musicians, or poets. They give us a taste of what it's like to live at the Colony, free to do their work while someone else takes care of the mundane parts of everyday life like cooking and cleaning. They also show some of the fellowship that develops between people of different creative genres when they are all brought together, even if only for an evening meal or a game of pool in Colony Hall.

The photographs alone are worth the purchase of the book. The MacDowell grounds are closed to the public and most people will never have the opportunity to see the studios scattered through the woods, let alone the interior spaces where these artists do their work. All in all, this book is a rare opportunity to understand at least some small part of what makes MacDowell so special, and how fortunate the residents of the Monadnock region are to have such an amazing legacy from Marian and Edward MacDowell right in their midst.