On May 1-3, 2022, our organization embarked on its first study trip of the year to New Haven and New York City. Generously sponsored by the Artha Foundation, the study trip allowed an intimate group of Bakehouse artists, staff members, and benefactors to learn from arts leaders and organizations in both cities while forging meaningful bonds with each other. 

Grant Gittlin of the Artha Foundation said that the study trip was just one way that Bakehouse supports artists at the individual and community level. 

“Seeing these artists ‘charged up’ at the exposure to world class collections, pedagogies, and programs was inspiring. The aperture of their abilities was widening in every moment,” said Gittlin. 

The trip kicked off with a cocktail reception at the SoHo-based studio of artist Michele Oka Doner, who is among the most established cultural producers to emerge from Miami. The artist guided the group through the “laboratory for living” that successfully blends her personal and work lives into one dynamic space.

For the first day in New Haven, the group kicked off their visit with a tour of the Yale School of Architecture including an architectural tour of Paul Rudolph Hall and a visit to the Radical: Italian Design 1965–1985, The Dennis Freedman Collection exhibition. This was followed by a tour of the Yale School of Art that included tours of their state-of-the-art fabrication facilities and the student studios and exhibitions. Afterwards, they visited various highlights throughout the Yale campus including the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Ingalls Rink, Sterling Memorial Library, and several prominent public art projects. 

To cap the final day, the group attended a lively dinner at Heirloom at the Study at Yale with special guest Jonathan Fanton, who formerly served as president of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The New School for Social
Research.

For the second full day, the group started bright and early at the Yale University Art Gallery with a collections tour led by Henry J. Heinz II Director Stephanie Wiles. Afterwards, they visited the Yale Center for British Art with a tour led by Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings Laurel O. Peterson, which included an overview of the permanent collection and the Bridget Riley: Perceptual Abstraction special exhibition. 

To end the final day, the group visited NXTHVN, a New Haven-based nonprofit that empowers artists and curators through education and access to a vibrant ecosystem. The visit began with an institutional mission dialogue facilitated by Jock Reynolds with NXTHN’s founding chairman Titus Kaphar and NXTHVN’s founding president Jason Price. Kalia Brooks, NXTHVN’s curator of exhibitions and programs, oriented the visitors through its special exhibition and gave insight into the curatorial fellows and the high school student apprentices who work in the studios of NXTHVN’s resident artists. 

Bakehouse artist Rhea Leonard, who was one of five artists whose participation on the trip was sponsored by the Artha Foundation, said the trip was “eye opening and engaging” and hopes it will inspire the organization’s work on its plans to create a future live-work campus. 

“After visiting many of the buildings meant for socializing, work, and study that I encountered on this trip,I have begun to dream of a future Bakehouse with more spaces that are open to more light, life, and discourse.” 

Photos by Cornelius Tulloch.