Don Blanche (Ontario, Canada)

A free all week inside and outside art thing(Make things, see things, eat things).

Don Blanche is a unique, grass-roots platform for artists of all mediums to create, collaborate, co-habitate, and celebrate. Situated on Don Miller’s sprawling, 60-acre property near Shelburne, Ontario, (a two-hour drive North of Toronto), Don Blanche is an oasis of experimentation outside the city in a one-of-kind fully-equipped facility that mixes artists of all mediums and ages. The Don Blanche residency offers indoor living quarters and studio facilities for up to 32 residents for a one-week period, culminating in a weekend-long festival on labour day long weekend, where indoor and outdoor projects are presented in a context that mixes artists with non-artists from the local community.

As Don Blanche is situated in rural Ontario, part of our aim is to expand the contemporary art audience outside of urban centres, bringing artists to the country, and contemporary art experiences to rural communities.

Artist Residency Don Blanche

For more information about the center visit: http://donblanchedonblanche.wordpress.com/

The Don Blanche artist residency was created to provide a safe haven of interdisciplinary experimentation, away from the pressures of the city and outside of the gallery network, in a setting where living and working become elemental; where the line between life and art is blurred, and new hybrid socio-pedagogical practices are invented and encouraged. 

The Don Blanche residency is housed within a massive 8,000 square foot Frankenbarn, created by Don Miller and made from generations of felled barns rebuilt into a unique, one-of-a-kind structure, offering both an inspired atmosphere and indoor living quarters/studio facilities for up to 32 residents. Existing off the grid using solar power, wind power, well water and multiple wood stoves, Don Blanche is a camp, an oasis, a retreat, a facility and program unlike anything in Ontario. Artists in residence may use any of the creative facilities, project sites, cooking facilities, media equipment and materials that we have, choosing to work either independently or collaboratively. Equipment and space bookings need only be made if more than one artist wants the same thing at the same time.