Announcing Mission & Vision for our new 501(c)(3) organization
After 25 years as an emergent art complex(ity), Mildred’s Lane is becoming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization.
Mildred’s Lane Inc. is an experimental cultural organization and residency program where interdisciplinary visionaries collaborate on new forms of critical social engagement at the intersections of art, ecology, science, and history.
Mildred’s Lane Inc. is becoming a nonprofit charitable organization on Main Street in Narrowsburg, New York, in the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River Corridor. Building upon 25 years of history, we will continue to serve and grow as an impactful interdisciplinary project fostering a diverse program of lectures, exhibits, workshops, symposia, collaborative projects, and events by creative thinkers and makers working across fields of contemporary art and culture.
The engagement of Mildred’s Lane Inc. encompasses art, ecology, and education, seeking innovative ways to connect these topics with interdisciplinary projects, always in a spirit of exchange with the greater community, including the nonhuman environment.
Mildred's Lane Inc. forms a significant center for new forms of creative practice by hosting and supporting local and international cultural producers, and by organizing symposia to activate nexuses of art, science, environmental conservation, history, and critical theory. Core principles are to:
Facilitate research-based, project-based, and context-specific learning that fosters creative communities
Develop sustainable practices for art and life in this challenging century
History
The Mildred's Lane Project was originally formed around an old agrarian landscape renovated by artists J. Morgan Puett and Mark Dion deep in rural northeastern Pennsylvania bordering Narrowsburg, New York, beginning in 1997. Early iterations of the project defy easy categorization; it began as a home, fostering exchange and collaboration across disciplines, consistently reinventing itself in response to a rapidly changing world. Puett, Dion, and collaborators are currently publishing a book outlining twenty-five years of contributions to contemporary art history at Mildred’s Lane.
Mildred’s Lane has co-evolved as an energetic, artist-driven, grassroots project serving hundreds of artists and creative thinkers through programs, residencies, workshops, and events. The project has grown, moving out of the woods and onto Main Street in Narrowsburg, NY, to rigorously rethink the contemporary art complex. Topics which continue to animate the ecosystem of Mildred’s Lane include experimental education, environment, economic strategies for art workers, and expanding creative practitioners’ roles in contemporary society.1
New projects include Mildred’s Lane collaborators developing a long-term forestry and land-use plan for the Upper Delaware River Valley Region. Outreach strives to bring together creative thinkers nationally and internationally, as well as locally, culturally benefiting people in diverse, rural, and underserved communities. Mildred’s Lane Inc.’s organizational impact will be to continue programming to expand our diverse, interdisciplinary community and civic engagement.
2023 Fundraiser
For Mildred’s Sake! will be a blind art sale of works donated by over 100 artists associated with Mildred’s Lane and their allies. Proceeds will directly fund 2024 programming and staffing.
The wrapped packages’ contents will be a mystery to buyers. This concept echoes the original Brown Paper Package Fundraiser 2010 held at Mildred’s Lane, where buyers were asked to keep their packages permanently wrapped, affording perpetual mystique to the works inside. Tickets start at $300 per brown-paper package. Special edition prints and one-on-one excursions with artists will be offered to higher donations.
Save the date: Saturday, December 2 from 6:30-8:30 PM at Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn.
A link with participating artists and more details including ticket purchases will be live soon!
The Mildred Complex(ity) Project Space
MILDRED’S LANE INC Field Station HQ and The Department of Interstitchiaries / 37B Main Street, Narrowsburg, New York
The upcoming installation featuring the Labor Portraits of Mildred’s Lane is a dense slice of Gesamtkunstwerk of the greater project and archives as it slips into the new entity, a 501( c)(3) arts and cultural organization. This workspace is activated by coming and going participants of Mildred’s Lane, with occasional readings, workshops, and events throughout fall and winter. Moreover, the Field Station HQ will house several contents of the new book, WORKSTYLES of Mildred’s Lane, coming out next year.
From the Archives
Hear from artist Shelley Spector on her recent exhibit before the hill. For interest in purchasing work, contact mildredslane@gmail.com.
Our next project will be the installation of the Mildred’s Lane Inc. Field Station / Dept. of Interstitchiaries. Stay tuned!
Support Art & Ecology by Donating to Mildred’s Lane & The Mildred Complex(ity)
The costs are never-for-profit. Mildred’s Lane functions as a generosity project working towards a conservation land trust and site for collective art-making. All proceeds support the projects, maintenance, and repairs needed to become an official 501(c)(3) organization that will allow Mildred’s Lane to thrive for generations to come.
Larger Donations (Fiscal Sponsor)
1 The entity is not engaged in any activity regulated by the New York State Department of Education.