Angela's Poetry Fund
Donation protected
My name is Angela Simione. I am an artist and writer living in New York City.
I was accepted to The Home School poetry program, a week long conference slated to take place at Pitzer College in Claremont CA the week of January 9th - 14th. The program allows for focused workshops with some of the most compelling poets and artists working today. The program itself insists that poetry and painting are sisters, an incredibly specific fit for my particular art practice that I have never before come across. "A painting is a poem" has been the guiding principle behind my art practice for the last decade.
I applied to The Home School for several very personal reasons: Firstly, I want to take myself more seriously as a writer by making a deep, professional investment in recieving mentorship from people I admire and giving myself time - the most valuable asset of all - to dig deep and do the work I truly long to do. Which leads me to the second reason I chose to apply to this program: My life-long love affair with writing began in southern California.
I grew up not far from Claremont in a little town called Redlands. Since leaving my hometown in 2005 to go to California College of the Arts in San Francisco, I have very rarely returned. My formative years in southern California were incredibly rough and are full of sad memories. It was a creative writing class that I took during my junior and senior years of High School that gave me, not only a means through which I could express and heal myself but, a new way of seeing the world, a way to move toward a better life. It was in that class at Orangewood High School that I was given a sense of hope.
The week of the program also serendipitously coincides with the 6th anniversary of my mother's death. I applied to this program in the very romantic spirit of wanting to honor her life and the impact her death has had upon creating positive changes within my own. Returning to the area of my fraught childhood and humble beginnings feels incredibly important as I begin to write with increasing ernestness and bravery about what my mother's death signifies for me, and a history I hope to reconcile.
Poetry has been the cornerstone of my entire artistic life. It has been the avenue through which I have been able to unearth the truest things about my self and my experiences. Some of these truths have been very hard to look at and painful to bring out in to the light but I feel, now more than ever, the weight of the importance of truth-telling. Now, more than ever, do I want to tell my story. I feel I am finally strong enough to tell it .
The tuition for the The Home School program is $1175. As an enrolled student, I recieve a discounted rate at The Double Tree Hotel near to the Pitzer College campus at a rate of $125 a night. I have applied for the partial scholarship available for the program ($587.50) and, should I win it, the extra funds that this will establish within my campaign will be used toward paying for a rental car. I have included the approximate cost of round trip airfare in the total amount I am trying to raise. If I am successful in generating greater funds than what I am asking for with this campaign, my husband, Brian, will be able to fly with me to southern California to spend time with me in the area where I grew up and first began to chase the life of an artist.
I am already incredibly thankful for all the encouragement and support I have recieved from friends, family, and art lovers beginning in my early years as a pissed off teenage poet in Redlands, to the young, eagar artist I became in San Francisco, to the devoted artist and writer I am now. I continue to feel so grateful to have a means of self-expression in my life and that so many have taken the time to engage with that expression. I am humbled by the gratitude others have expressed to me for writing about my life and giving voice to the experiences of lonliness, doubt, and loss they too have felt through the telling of my own story.
A teacher of mine at CCA once said, "To be a painter is a priviledge." I sincerely agree. And in the spirit of "A painting is a poem", so, too, then is it a priviledge to be a writer. I am doubly blessed and doubly humbled to have this opportunity to focus on work that matters so much to my heart.
I was accepted to The Home School poetry program, a week long conference slated to take place at Pitzer College in Claremont CA the week of January 9th - 14th. The program allows for focused workshops with some of the most compelling poets and artists working today. The program itself insists that poetry and painting are sisters, an incredibly specific fit for my particular art practice that I have never before come across. "A painting is a poem" has been the guiding principle behind my art practice for the last decade.
I applied to The Home School for several very personal reasons: Firstly, I want to take myself more seriously as a writer by making a deep, professional investment in recieving mentorship from people I admire and giving myself time - the most valuable asset of all - to dig deep and do the work I truly long to do. Which leads me to the second reason I chose to apply to this program: My life-long love affair with writing began in southern California.
I grew up not far from Claremont in a little town called Redlands. Since leaving my hometown in 2005 to go to California College of the Arts in San Francisco, I have very rarely returned. My formative years in southern California were incredibly rough and are full of sad memories. It was a creative writing class that I took during my junior and senior years of High School that gave me, not only a means through which I could express and heal myself but, a new way of seeing the world, a way to move toward a better life. It was in that class at Orangewood High School that I was given a sense of hope.
The week of the program also serendipitously coincides with the 6th anniversary of my mother's death. I applied to this program in the very romantic spirit of wanting to honor her life and the impact her death has had upon creating positive changes within my own. Returning to the area of my fraught childhood and humble beginnings feels incredibly important as I begin to write with increasing ernestness and bravery about what my mother's death signifies for me, and a history I hope to reconcile.
Poetry has been the cornerstone of my entire artistic life. It has been the avenue through which I have been able to unearth the truest things about my self and my experiences. Some of these truths have been very hard to look at and painful to bring out in to the light but I feel, now more than ever, the weight of the importance of truth-telling. Now, more than ever, do I want to tell my story. I feel I am finally strong enough to tell it .
The tuition for the The Home School program is $1175. As an enrolled student, I recieve a discounted rate at The Double Tree Hotel near to the Pitzer College campus at a rate of $125 a night. I have applied for the partial scholarship available for the program ($587.50) and, should I win it, the extra funds that this will establish within my campaign will be used toward paying for a rental car. I have included the approximate cost of round trip airfare in the total amount I am trying to raise. If I am successful in generating greater funds than what I am asking for with this campaign, my husband, Brian, will be able to fly with me to southern California to spend time with me in the area where I grew up and first began to chase the life of an artist.
I am already incredibly thankful for all the encouragement and support I have recieved from friends, family, and art lovers beginning in my early years as a pissed off teenage poet in Redlands, to the young, eagar artist I became in San Francisco, to the devoted artist and writer I am now. I continue to feel so grateful to have a means of self-expression in my life and that so many have taken the time to engage with that expression. I am humbled by the gratitude others have expressed to me for writing about my life and giving voice to the experiences of lonliness, doubt, and loss they too have felt through the telling of my own story.
A teacher of mine at CCA once said, "To be a painter is a priviledge." I sincerely agree. And in the spirit of "A painting is a poem", so, too, then is it a priviledge to be a writer. I am doubly blessed and doubly humbled to have this opportunity to focus on work that matters so much to my heart.
Organizer
Angela Simione
Organizer
New York, NY