Kate Vogel and John Littleton talk about Bill Brown’s artists’ residency program and how it led to artists buying homes in the area. Oral history interview with Kate Vogel and John Littleton by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, December 12, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:03.

Kate Vogel: Okay. So I think of where I was at, I was talking about that Bill Brown started the residency program somewhere around 1965, early sixties. And that residency program was really core for building an amazing group of artists in our community. They came for approximately three years, and many of those people would buy a home after the residency was finished and build a studio and stay in the area. So that was sort of like a core group of really amazing artists. And then because of Penland School, we have people coming from all over the world here. They come both as teachers and students, and it keeps it a really vibrant, live community. During the summer, we often go up to Penland for the talks of the people who are teaching, so we can see what’s happening in all sorts of different fields, whether you’re talking about glass, ceramics, textiles—

John Littleton: Metal.

KV: —photography, even painters and drawing. So you just get this really—it’s an amazing exposure, and I think it just keeps our community really vibrant.