About the Founders

Heather Powell, Founding Director

Gavin Kenyon, Assistant Director

We met while in graduate school at the School of Visual Arts, New York and almost immediately moved to Pittsburgh afterward.  We spent three years living and working in the neighborhood of Uptown surrounded by a fantastic community of like-minded and supportive friends.  As our work quickly outgrew our 3000 sq. foot live/work space we were driven to build a studio and foundry that would accommodate the kind of sculpture that we desired to make, and to create a place for community.  It was then that we set out to take over 45 acres of undeveloped land in a small, rural town called Marathon.

In late 2009 we set out for Central New York with a standard 40 foot sea container packed full of tools and equipment, artwork, about 60 house plants, and our favorite antique furniture, lighting and kitchenware.  After a very long moving ordeal including a failed hydraulic cable on the wrecker, a flat tire on the roll off truck, and one person in the hospital we learned that all of our worldly possessions came to an astounding 47,000 lbs! If you know anything about trucking and hauling, we were a measly 3000 lbs under the legal interstate trucking limit.  Whew! One more cast iron sculpture would have landed us in $8000 worth of big trouble.

We’re now beginning to develop the land and build our cabin.  We’re also working toward building cabins for resident artists, and with the support of our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, and the Cultural Resources Council we were able to launch a pilot project for outerspace this year.

Please follow us as we work to build by hand our cabins and studio, and a sustainable community-based arts and education program for artists, and the youth and families of Central New York.