Creative Confinement

At its essence, though, MacDowell is all about the silence. While artists are free to socialize day or night, colony decorum requires that they make appointments in advance. Studios have no phones or Internet access. It's that isolation, and the absence of external demands (including financial, since artists pay nothing for their stay, thanks to the colony's $22 million endowment), that fuels creative output.

Mark Winges, in his third visit to MacDowell, is working on an 18-minute concerto that will require between 60 to 80 musicians. At home, he says, balancing composing with daily chores and "appointments with the dentist and the vet" is daunting. Here, he can work at his own pace. "I may only write 2 notes today, but I can take 12 whole hours tomorrow and write 3 or 30 or 300 notes. And then there's the day after that and the day after that. . ." Sighing, he leans back in his chair and looks out to the forest surrounding the porch of his studio. "I like to say this piece is writing itself despite my best efforts," he says with a grin.

Residents at MacDowell often note that one day here is equal to four in the outside world. By my third day, I've reverted to a circadian rhythm, turning in by 9 p.m. and waking up by 7 a.m. Cultivated by vast stretches of uninterrupted silence, my idle thoughts about not returning to Manhattan, ever, seem increasingly rational. By the time an administrator casually slides an application across his desk toward me--"You should think about it"--I'm thinking, Yes, I really should. Standing outside the colony's main hall, I exchange a ruminative glance with Josh Marsten, the writer and director of Maria Full of Grace. Jake Slichter, the drummer from the alt-pop band Semisonic, smiles and nods. A bell rings in the distance, calling the artists to dinner. For tonight, anyway, I'm with them.

Lucas Conley (lconley@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company staff writer. Despite his best efforts, this piece wrote itself (on deadline) while he was in residence at MacDowell.