This year Fruitlands Museum has something unique—its artist-in-residence program. According to Director Maud Ayson, the “residency” grew out of lively discussions with advisory participants who encouraged Fruitlands to continue to add the voices of contemporary artists. Linda Hoffman, Harvard board member and artist, introduced Ayson to Susan Edwards Richmond, a poet who lives in Acton. Richmond made her debut as Fruitlands artist in residence Saturday, April 14, in the Fruitlands tea room, when she read her own poetry and selected works from poets of the past. “Steeped in Poetry” was the first of a series of programs across the coming season in which Richmond will be featured.

Fruitlands created the program as a way of evoking vital connections between the museum collections and the landscape. Ayson knows that working artists can bring fresh eyes to the museum’s diverse offerings and inspire visitors to see the site in new ways. In addition, Fruitlands itself is a perfect setting for a writer; the buildings, artifacts, and vistas are rich sources for artistic inspiration and creation.

Richmond sees the program as moving in two directions. The first is to bring poetry to the collections at Fruitlands, to get people looking with a poetic eye when they view the exhibits. This will be done in a number of ways. Richmond herself will have poems adjoining the particular painting or artifact which inspired the writing. Secondly, poems and excerpts from writers of the past who were particularly in tune with the Fruitlands experience will become part of the exhibits. Writers such as Emerson, Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Clara Endicott Sears, and Whitman were of the historical period, and yet their voices speak to all times. The most exciting way in which viewers will connect poetry to the paintings and artifacts is to write some poetry themselves. Following a posted prompt, visitors will be invited to capture their own experience of a building, an object, or a painting by writing poetry about their feeling of connectedness. These writings will be collected into a book of poems by museum visitors, which will be shared later through a reading.

The second direction of the residency is Richmond’s own artistic development. She will write a series of pieces and poems inspired by her time at Fruitlands, probably for publication in some form. Richmond sees both the museum collections and the landscape as rich in inspiration. The “spirit of Fruitlands” is a spirit of place, a historical place whose ideas still resonate today. There is a Utopian feeling, a desire to perfect a way of living that is simple and real and connected to the land. Richmond senses that this spirit is still palpable in Harvard today. The Fruitlands landscape is “quintessentially New England” with its broad valley, seasonal colors, and wildlife. Richmond’s voice can barely contain her excitement when she talks about the “history in the woods”—the stone walls and remains of farmsteads. In those woods is both the historical and the present-day rural landscape.

When asked how long she has been interested in writing, Richmond replied, “I have always been writing. I cannot remember a time when I was not observing and then writing about the world, in order to understand it.” There have been times when she could not devote undivided time to her writing, but it has always been a baseline for her. She is particularly enthralled by the imagery in nature. Most of her poetry is set out of doors, in the natural landscape. Richmond has published collections of her work in chapbooks, small volumes of poetry artistically rendered. She is active in the Concord Poetry Center where she has introduced a community reading series. The series features published poets, “emerging” poets, and writers who are experimenting with poetry for the first time. Richmond has taught writing at the university level and currently she and Linda Hoffman are teaching a poetry writing class at MCI—Shirley. She is tremendously excited that at the end of the month she will read poems written by members of that class for the reading series.

Susan Edwards Richmond seems a perfect choice for the first participant in the Fruitlands artist-in-residence program. She has deep appreciation and passion for the landscape and the “collection of jewels” at Fruitlands. We can all look forward to the results of her year of writing poetry in Harvard and to her reaching out to involve museum visitors in the poetic process. Who knows, she may make poets of us all.