Finding Space to Grow: My Art Cake Residency

Walking Into Something Bigger

I just wrapped up my residency with Yellow Chair Salon at Art Cake in Brooklyn, and honestly? I’m still processing it all. There’s so much to unpack from this experience – it really shifted how I see my work and what’s possible as an artist.

The first day I walked into the Gallery B exhibition/workspace, I was struck by the scale of the room. The floor plan showed a long, narrow gallery—18’ x 33’—but it couldn’t communicate the effect of 18′ ceilings. I didn’t grasp the scale until I experienced it in person.

For the first time, I saw so much of my work together in an open, expansive environment. Displaying the work in different arrangements allowed the pieces to converse with each other. I recognized how limiting I’d been with the work, not only in size but in concept – there was so much more possible than I’d imagined.

The Fabric Breakthrough

One intention going into the residency was to introduce color and different kinds of fabrics into the work I was already doing with burlap.

I wasn’t sure how I’d pull this off, but I did bring new materials to experiment with. At one point, while struggling to create work large enough for the room, I grabbed a few panels of the new fabric. I started playing with it – pure trial and error, really – and eventually successfully incorporated it into the piece.

This led me to a whole new approach: using color and other fabrics as backdrops that I could layer on top of. I discovered a new-to-me construction process and found a way to add color while also working at a larger scale. It felt like painting with fabric, approaching the work more abstractly and letting the material’s natural characteristics – the drape, the texture – speak for themselves rather than trying to control every aspect.

Thinking Like a Conductor

This shift got me thinking about my role differently. Maybe I could be more like a conductor with an orchestra – guiding individual materials to form a balanced, unified whole without having to control or “play” every element myself. Each material could have its own voice while contributing to something larger.

I also started combining what I thought were already finished works, layering completed pieces on top of one another. This modular approach made the work feel larger and deeper, and it got me thinking beyond traditional presentation methods.

Here are a few images of the process.

Beyond the Walls

Something else clicked for me during the residency – I hadn’t been thinking of gallery spaces in their entirety. I’d been so focused on walls as the default that I’d missed all these other possibilities. What about incorporating the floors, the ceiling, the corners? What if the wall an artwork sits on becomes part of the artwork itself? Maybe I could present work in pieces, add drawings or paintings directly on the wall, incorporate three-dimensional objects alongside hanging fabric.

This felt radical to me, honestly.

The Confidence Game

But probably the biggest takeaway – and the most important one – was the confidence I gained. When I committed to this residency, I remember feeling nervous. It was personally challenging to put myself out there like this, to work in an unfamiliar space with new pressures, people and possibilities.

By showing up every day, working hard, and pushing through the discomfort of the unknown, I really changed how I see what’s possible for me as an artist. That shift in confidence? That might be the most valuable thing I’m taking away from this whole experience. I was incredibly fortunate to have the guidance of Michael David and the Yellow Chair Salon throughout this process.

Michael David’s brilliance is well known, and his contributions were pivotal in pushing me to think in completely new directions. His confidence in me became a foundation for building my own confidence – sometimes that’s exactly what you need as an artist, someone who sees possibilities in your work that you haven’t recognized yet.

I’m still digesting everything that happened during those weeks at Art Cake, but I know something fundamental shifted in my practice. Sometimes you need that big space – literal and metaphorical – to see what’s really possible.