First Artist in Residence Completes Public Art Project - Walk with Me

HMB Artist Residency's first artist, Paige Tighe, completed her residency project today: Walk with Me at Poplar Beach. She had 25 people come down to the beach, set an intention for 2014, and join hands with a stranger to walk and talk.

People came back to my house to make a small drawing/writing about their experience, and share some lemonade and cookies. We were blessed with amazing weather - there was even a woman wearing a bikini on the beach. What a great turnout. For the full run-down on the walk, visit Paige's blog here. 

Here are some photos I took of the day's festivities. And here is an article the Half Moon Bay Review wrote about Paige's project.

Public Walk for Walk with Me Takes Place at Poplar Beach in Half Moon Bay on January 4, 2014

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Paige Tighe's residency is moving along nicely. Right now I'm envious because she actually left here to do a 10-day silent meditation retreat in Northern California. Oh to escape all the silliness of the holidays right now to be totally silent! It is a beautiful way. However, I might have some trouble with not being able to journal or draw. Maybe I could give up the writing, but not drawing might kill me. Perhaps that is the point of the meditation.

Since September 13th when she arrived, Paige has been doing walks with strangers - mostly along the bluffs between Poplar City Beach and the State Beach at Kelly. We've had amazingly nice weather but she's from Minnesota so even our bad weather probably feels balmy to her.

Paige's goal was to walk with 20 strangers during this residency. She's at 11 now. I was #10. She has a couple more weeks right after the holidays and then we all get to walk with strangers as her community project portion of the residency. That event will be on January 4th starting at my home on Poplar and walking wherever each couple wants to go and for whatever length of time.

Paige documents each walk by having the person she walks with do a drawing/writing She also does her own account of the experience with a drawing and writing. She also writes about the walks on her blog and takes photos. I love how most of the photos have some great shots of people wearing their sunglasses because it has been so bright and sunny here.

I forgot to take a photo of my drawing and writing about the walk, but what I remember is that I got to pick Paige's brain about some ideas I have for social practice art projects and I liked the safety of walking in a big rectangle for some reason. Also, it didn't bother me at all to hold hands with Paige on the walk, and I thought it was amusing that of course I ran into someone I knew. They didn't mind that we were holding hands. Holding someone's hand while walking had me feel more grounded too. I couldn't do my usual hand-waving.

I hope if you are reading this, you will consider coming down to the beach on January 4th to walk in the new year. I really hope you might walk with a total stranger  and hold their hand, noticing what it is like to be with someone this way.

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Walk With Me Kicks Off at the Residency

Paige Tighe/Walk With Me and Alen, her collaborator on the book.

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in Half Moon Bay

I'm so excited that the dream of creating an artist residency program in Half Moon Bay has started with artist-in-residence Paige Tighe's arrival last week. (www.paigetighe.com).

We had a good meeting on Monday to discuss her goals and objectives for herself during this residency and how that intertwines with her continuing to evolve her project Walk With Me. She started Walk With Me about a year ago in LA and then took it to the East Coast.

Half Moon Bay presents a unique opportunity for Paige to walk with people along the Coast or on one of your favorite walks. That's where you come in.

Paige's goal is to walk with 20 different people between now and the end of the year. Will you be one of them? All that is involved is contacting Paige to meet you at your desired location, or you can come here to Poplar Beach. It's 30 minutes and if you are willing, it would be great for you to share a few words about the experience.

She wrote a book while in Athens Georgia about all the walks to date. More books are in the making talking about the walks. And in January, we are doing a HUGE walk - January 4th - down and around Poplar Beach.

Part of the goal of the HMB Artist Residency is for the artist-in-residence to do a public art piece. This is Paige's public piece - getting lots of people to walk in couples on January 4th.

I hope you will walk with Paige between now and then, and come back on January 4th for the Big Walk With Me event.

A press release with all the details is available - just shoot me an email at lauramchugh at me.com.

First Artist Arrives Mid September 2013

The first artist for the Half Moon Bay Artist Residency Program is .... drum roll ....

Paige Tighe!

Paige is from Minnetonka Minnesota, via LA and OTIS. She recently completed her Kickstarter Walk With Me program along the East Coast.

Paige will be here from mid-September through year end. We're so excited!

Vision

• The Half Moon Bay Artist Residency supports participating artists in furthering their work and artistic process by providing a live/work space in a beautiful and restorative natural environment.
• The residency also provides the HMB residents an opportunity to interact with the resident artist in the interest of making HMB a more vibrant community.
   

If you are interested in applying, here is the link.

For more information, contact Laura McHugh, Executive Director.