“The greatest gift you can give an artist is the time and space to err, to wander down the wrong path, to sit alone dreaming, to mess up, scrap our work, and start over. Yaddo affords artists the glorious opportunity to fail just enough that we come out the other side into inspiration.”
-Lauren Groff, writer
"I recall once, with my manuscript due in two weeks, going on a long walk around the lakes and having a sudden vision of the novel. It was one of the most miraculous saves in my career . . . This happens to some artist every day at Yaddo. What would we do without it?”
-Andrew Sean Greer, writer
"Those four weeks of uncluttered time were like a sudden rush of air and light . . . this allowance for clarity and unhindered drift. As with walking from a low-ceilinged room into a high-ceilinged room, one thinks more clearly, perhaps more ambitiously."
-Josephine Rowe, writer
"A residency at Yaddo feels like a recognition of the centrality and validity of your work as an artist."
-Eisa Davis, playwright, actor, singer-songwriter
"A space can facilitate a process in a way difficult to quantify: solitude and quiet (yes) but also a window, a gentle curtain, a cup of coffee, a perfectly wrapped sandwich. The care and soft attention reverberate in a way that can make deeper work possible."
-Yanira Castro, interdisciplinary artist
"Being at Yaddo is a much-needed contrast to the demands of today’s achievement society. I never thought watching trees move from my studio could be so productive—but it was."
-Brian McCorkle, composer
“If to pray is to focus on that which is important, which is larger than itself and has meaning, then Yaddo is a place of prayer.”
-Zia Haider Rahman, writer
Yaddo Mansion, 2019. PHOTO: ELIZABETH HAYNES PHOTOGRAPHY
