10/13/2026
Reflections from our final MARC artist of the 2026 ~ what a season it has been!
Get to know PJ Gilman in her own words:
When I traveled to the North Sea, everything changed. A two-week residency on Monhegan Island gave me the opportunity to temporarily leave behind my familiar life in a landlocked city. Surrounded by the ocean, a rocky shoreline, and weathered cottages, I experienced a landscape and way of life very different from what I had known.
Like many artists, I searched for light and shadow in the landscape. However, I was especially struck by the absence of streetlights. Without them, the interior lights of the homes glowed at night, and the sides of houses caught the light of lingering sunsets.
The rocky cliffs, which warded off the waves, protected the houses perched above them. On hikes through the forests, only small amounts of light entered. These elements continually presented themselves as challenges as well as possibilities, and I if I had stayed for months, I would continue to find new images to paint.
During the two-week residency, I was able to paint full-time for 11 days and produced 19 images in oil paint and gouache. Half of the work was created en plein air and half in the studio. The work looks like my own but at the same time looks different. It is for these reasons that I am so grateful to MARC for this opportunity.
