If you build them…

There was a time when there was really only one art residency for visual artists in New Zealand: the annually awarded Hodgkins Fellowship. Residencies in those days needed a bit of the old pioneering spirit too. We recall Jeffrey Harris shivering in a leaking converted garage that was the Fellow’s studio at the time.

Nowadays there’s every chance that an artist will get to live and work in a place that makes their own digs feel like a student flat. The obvious example in New Zealand is the McCahonHouse residency in the Titirangi bush.

But wait, there’s more. Look at this studio that Kate Newby has landed as part of her residency with the Fogo Island Arts Corporation in the northeast corner of Newfoundland, Canada. The two-story Tower Studio sits at the end of a narrow boardwalk and was designed by local architect Todd Saunders. He has also been responsible for three other beautiful artist residency buildings on the same land.

No need for a Do Not Disturb sign. Once you have landed in Gander, Newfoundland it's a 60-mile drive to catch a 45-minute ferry to Fogo, the largest of Newfoundland's off-shore islands. Newby will take up the residency later this year.