In this episode, I talk with artists and co-directors Tamalin Baumgarten and Meredith Leich about the Cuttyhunk Island Artist Residency and the creative partnership that sustains it. Tamalin shares her early relationship to Cuttyhunk through her family and how returning to the island as an adult shaped both her painting practice and her desire to create a residency rooted in community. Meredith reflects on joining the project through a trial residency, her background in arts organizations, and her long-standing interest in the conditions that allow art to happen. Together they explore how friendship became partnership, how trust shapes their decision-making, and how care, logistics, and attention form the invisible structure of a successful residency. They talk candidly about the behind-the-scenes labor of running an island program, from ferry schedules and groceries to emotional attunement and staff wellbeing. This is a conversation about creative life as a collective practice. About holding space for others while staying connected to one’s own work. And about why, for Meredith and Tamalin, the residency is not an end point, but the beginning of long creative relationships. About Tamalin and Meredith Tamalin Baumgarten (b. 1986, Spokane, WA) is a painter known for dreamlike coastal scenes that capture the essence of a place through a blend of observation and imagination. Often inspired by Cuttyhunk Island, where she has family roots and spends time each year, her work evokes a world that feels both familiar and just beyond reach. With a muted, lyrical palette and minimalist compositions, her paintings capture fleeting moments shaped by the quiet poetry of wind, light, and sky. Baumgarten received her MFA from the New York Academy of Art (2015) and her BFA from Cornish College of the Arts (2010). She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including two Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grants, the Portrait Scholarship Award and Shanghai University Residency Award from the New York Academy of Art, the Dahesh Museum of Art Award, and a Vermont Studio Center grant. Her work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally at the Shanghai University Gallery. She is the founder and co-director of the Cuttyhunk Island Artists’ Residency in Massachusetts, established in 2017 at her grandfather’s historic island home. The residency has since become a hub for creative exchange and community among contemporary artists. Meredith Leich (b. 1986) a painter, animator, and video artist. Her work explores our relationship with our changing environment, through research, collaboration, and intuitive visual exploration. Leich's films have screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Athens International Film + Video Festival, and Chicagoland Shorts, among others, and she has shown her work at venues nationally and abroad. Her collaboration with glaciologist Dr. Andrew Malone was awarded an Arts, Science & Culture Initiative Grant from the University of Chicago, second place in Deutsche Bank’s “Macht Kunst” Contest, and an Individual Artist Grant from Chicago’s DCASE. She has completed residencies at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Tide Institute and Museum of Art, Studios of Key West, Ragdale Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and Wrangell Mountain Center, among others. Leich received her BA from Swarthmore College and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she also lectured in Film, Video, New Media, and Animation for five years. She currently lectures at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and serves as the Co-Director of the Cuttyhunk Island Artists’ Residency.
