Monson, Maine, USA

A multi-disciplinary project based around the history and landscape of Monson, a small town in Piscataquis County, Maine, United States.

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Project Dates

• Photos from the March 12-18 residency at the John Sims Studio in Sarasota, Florida

• Photos from the July 7, 8, 9 performance at the Conference on Poetry and Learning in Monson, Maine

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Participating Artists

Gretchen Berg is a performance artist/educator and poet. She has created hundreds of collaborative performances with students and teachers in public schools throughout Maine and was awarded the Maine Alliance for Arts Education Award for her contribution to the arts in Maine schools. Gretchen has taught performance courses at Bowdoin College, Bates College, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. After twenty years of performing original material with Portland’s modern dance company Berg, Jones & Sarvis, Gretchen continues to focus on creating new physical theater performances and writing poetry.

 

Teresa Carson, founder and CEO, is the author of seven collections of poetry. Her latest collection, Re [Moved] [Used] [Covered, was published by Deerbrook Editions in June 2025. She is the associate director of the Conference on Poetry and Learning at Monson Arts. She was the co-founder and poetry curator of Art in Common Places (2020–24), which put art in public places such as laundromats and libraries so that everyone in the Sarasota County community could experience it in their daily lives. She holds an MFA in Poetry and an MFA in Theatre, both from Sarah Lawrence College.

 

Gwyneth Jones teaches modern dance technique, repertory, and choreography at Bowdoin College. She danced professionally with Dan Wagoner and Dancers, Berg, Jones & Sarvis, Douglas Dunn & Dancers, Ram Island Dance Company, and was awarded a Maine Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship. She worked as a guest artist & company teacher at London Contemporary Dance Theatre. Gwyneth was the choreographic consultant with playwright/director Richard Nelson at the Public Theater and Hunter College in NYC for The Michaels (NY Times Critic’s Pick, 2019) and What Happened? The Michaels Abroad (NY Times Best Theater of 2021).

 

Dawn Potter is the author or editor of ten books of prose and poetry—most recently the poetry collection Calendar. A finalist for the National Poetry Series, she has also won a Maine Literary Award for nonfiction and has received grants and fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Writer’s Center, and the Maine Arts Commission. Her poems and essays have appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Sewanee Review, the Threepenny Review, and many other journals. After teaching at the Frost Place for more than a decade, she now leads poetry programs at Monson Arts. She lives in Portland, Maine.

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Supporters