If you’re seeking a week-long, residency-style experience at MASS MoCA — with the support of a talented instructor and none of the stress of a highly competitive application process — explore our Workshop-in-Residence opportunities. These programs offer all the benefits of a self-directed residency, including 24/7 access to a private studio, a private bedroom, and open access to MASS MoCA’s galleries, with the added structure and guidance of a workshop led by a professional in the field.

We also welcome self-directed artist groups (10 members required) for week-long retreats on a very limited basis. These group retreats offer similar perks — studio access, accommodations, and gallery admission — just without an instructor.

Contact studios@massmoca.org to inquire about workshop or retreat availability.

SUMMER 2026 WORKSHOP

Wood Carving & Puppet Design with David Lane
July 30–August 5, 2026

Workshop description: The wooden puppet lab returns for another edition in residence at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Join us for an amazing week in the Berkshires where we’ll dig deep into traditional European style carving techniques and create beautiful, inspired puppets together.

Formal instruction and demonstrations will begin each day at 9 am and run until dinner. The evenings will include open studio and specialized programming such as a show-and-tell and puppet-film night. Field trips to the Clark Art Museum, forest hikes, and impromptu picnics can be organized as the spirit moves. 

We will take advantage of the collaborative nature of this workshop to share ideas, and create an environment which fosters colloquy, experimentation, and a supportive creative atmosphere.

Topics include character design, technical drawings, carving practice, controls, puppet joints, painting, and basic costume patterning. 

Workshop Cost: $1,250

Included: Materials, shared studio space, shared tools, single room with shared bath, access to kitchen, lunches, and dinner on the first night.

Space is limited, so sign up early! A 50% deposit at the time of registration is required to hold your spot.

Register here: https://forms.gle/cypaDKBNTMaG7fRj9

To see photos from past workshops, please visit: www.newenglandpuppet.org

Instructor bio: David Lane is a painter, performer, puppet & mask maker, and one of the original members of the Old Trout Puppet Workshop in Calgary, Alberta. David is a four-time, Jim Henson Foundation grant recipient for his original play “The Chronicles of Rose” and “ Émile Zola’s The Belly of Paris.” He is the Co-director of the New England Puppet Intensive and teaches puppetry arts far and wide. 

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FALL 2026 WORKSHOPS (3)

(1) Abstraction Master-Class with Judith Kruger
September 30–October 6, 2026

Judith Kruger — who exhibits widely in the United States, Japan and elsewhere, and teaches sought-after workshops throughout the country, now brings her masterful pedagogy for abstraction to the Studios at MASS MoCA. Her multidisciplinary work addresses human-environment connectivity: their shared strength and vulnerabilities. She is recognized internationally for her advocacy of natural painting materials and historic, ecological processes based on decades of research and alchemic experimentation.

Judith has an impressive following of serious, practicing artists, working in all mediums, who cite her intensive, direct teaching approach as an authentic, life-changing catalyst for both technical and conceptual growth. This Master Abstraction workshop is not medium specific, thus focusing on many of the formal concerns that Judith addresses in her own work, including depth of space, destruction, luminosity, ambiguity, perceptual shifting, and material presence. This includes both idea-driven and non- objective work. Concepts will be addressed on an individual basis as a benefit to the entire group. Private and open critiques, discussions, film showings and relevant demos are included.

This is an opportunity for each participant to delve more deeply into their own work and medium in an immersive setting with Judith’s and the group’s input.

(Please note that this master-class is not intended to provide novice-level instruction in abstraction or Nihonga painting. It is for experienced abstract artists. Those seeking to learn the basics of pigment should consider Judith’s introductory workshops.

Cost: $1,700 (includes 7 day workshop and 6 nights of housing & private studio for the week)

Cost: $1,775 (includes 7 day workshop and 6 nights of housing & private studio and printshop usage for the week)

Space is limited. Email studios@massmoca.org if interested in signing-up.

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(2) MASS MoCA Writing Through Art: Poetry Retreat with Jan Freeman
October 8–13, 2026

Workshop description: Join Jan Freeman, acclaimed poet and Paris Press founding Director for The MASS MoCA Writing Through Art Poetry Retreat, a generative writing experience. Explore the many ways that visual art can open your poems and perception in this expansive 5-day writing retreat. Through daily prompts, exercises, discussions, and readings, you will experience the many ways that paintings, prints, installations, and sculpture can open memories, emotion, the imagination, and new forms of written expression. The retreat will include morning workshops in the galleries of MASS MoCA, the Clark Art Institute, and the Williams College Museum of Art. Afternoons can be spent writing in your private studio at MASS MoCA, visiting the many museum galleries, reading, and walking the trails at the Clark. Whatever inspires and restores you.

Poets and writers of all levels of experience are welcome.

Each participant receives a private 60-minute conference to discuss your writing goals and challenges and/or 3 poems of your choice. An in-depth manuscript consultation is available for an additional fee.

Contact janfreemanpoetry@gmail.com for additional information.

Cost: $1,650 (limited financial assistance available).
Payable via Venmo, Zelle, or by check.

Included: Private writing studio at the museum, with 24/7 access. Private bedroom (queen-sized bed) with shared bathroom and kitchen in walk-up apartments across the street from MASS MoCA. Learn more about our facilities. Free admission to MASS MoCA, the Clark Art Institute, and WCMA throughout the week. Free parking. Welcome dinner on arrival. Boxed lunches provided every day except for departure day.

Extras: The Berkshires in the spring are a haven for cultural and outdoor activities. The paths on the grounds of the Clark Art Institute and the hiking trails in North Adams and Williamstown offer the beauty of New England in full springtime. In addition, all MASS MoCA performances are available at the members’ discount.

To apply, please send 3 poems and a statement of interest to janfreemanpoetry@gmail.com.

Instructor bio: Jan Freeman is the author of three books of poetry (Hyena, Simon Says, and Blue Structure), a chapbook (Autumn Sequence), a new manuscript of poems (The Odyssey of Yes and No), and she is co-editor of Sisters: An Anthology. Among her awards are MacDowell fellowships, a Spiral Shell Fellowship at Moulin a Nef, numerous VCCA fellowships, and a Pushcart Prize Special Mention. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in many journals and anthologies, including Ploughshares, Poetry, Plume, American Poetry Review, North American Review, the Brooklyn Rail, Tar River Poetry, Salamander, and the Patterson Review.

Jan is the former director of Paris Press (now an imprint of Wesleyan University Press), which she founded to bring back into print The Life of Poetry by Muriel Rukeyser. She was a longtime contributing editor for APR, soliciting poems by essential women poets who the journal had neglected. 

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(3) Creating Time and Space: A Week of Mindful Making with Joanne Dugan
October 22–28, 2026

Workshop description: Join visual artist, photographer, author, and 2024 Guggenheim Fellow Joanne Dugan for an expansive artist retreat held directly on the grounds of MASS MoCA. The full-immersion, residency-style workshop is suitable for visual artists, photographers and writers with an existing practice to restart, reinvent or expand.

The flexible curriculum of structured guided daily group meetings and mindfulness practices combined with plenty of open-ended work time allows artists to further an existing project and/or create spontaneously on site. Utilizing Joanne’s signature prompt-activation style, the group will create intuitive responses to the museum’s expansive collections as new work emerges quickly, in unexpected ways.

Each group member will have 24-hour access to a lockable private studio within the museum complex and will reside together in shared housing nearby. The cohort will also have unlimited free entry to MASS MoCA’s 250,000 square foot complex throughout the week, and instructor creative prompts will be inspired by exhibiting artists including James Turrell, Sol LeWitt, Taryn Simon, and Louise Bourgeois.

The thoughtful balance of scheduled and free time activities encourages purposeful, dedicated time and space for artistic experimentation and mindful focus, away from the distractions of daily life and the need to project expectations on outcomes.

Risk taking and multidisciplinary work is highly encouraged and there will be private scheduled feedback from the instructor, as well as ongoing cohort interactions in a safe, productive environment. An instructor questionnaire and suggested packing list sent prior will help participants create a realistic and clear vision for what they want to accomplish. 

Cost: $1,750

Included in fee: 24 hour access to museum grounds including private, lockable artist studio, printmaking studio and laser printers. Private bedroom (Queen-sized bed) with shared bathroom and kitchen in walk-up apartments across the street from MASS MoCA. Group welcome dinner on arrival day. Boxed lunches daily on museum grounds, except for departure day. MASS MoCA membership benefits (including free gallery access) for the duration of the workshop.

By application/invitation. For more information, email studio@joannedugan.com.

Instructor bio: Joanne Dugan is a widely published and exhibited visual artist, photographer, editor, and author based in New York City. She is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow in Photography. Her work was recently acquired for the permanent collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum and has been exhibited in galleries in the US, UK, Europe and Asia. Publications include The New York Times T Magazine, the Harvard Review, Unseen and Photograph magazines, among others. She was recently awarded residencies at Mass MoCA, the Peaked Hill Trust and the Abbott Watts Residency for Photography and was a finalist for the Meijberg Art Prize at Unseen Amsterdam.

Dugan’s visual work and writing is published in seven best-selling books,
including Summertime (Chronicle), and ABC NYC: A Book About Seeing New York City (Abrams). Her limited-edition monograph, Mostly True, is in the permanent library collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the New York Public Library and the George Eastman House. She is an active mentor for artists and writers around the world and recently founded The Creative Current, a private monthly lecture series about artistic mindfulness. She teaches at the International Center of Photography in New York City, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA and the Los Angeles Center of Photography and has lectured at institutions in the US and abroad.