ELEMENTS of BMC: Build Your Quiet House

Workshop with Travis Medford
ELEMENTS OF BMC: Build Your Quiet House
an experimental writing workshop with Elaine Bleakney

Saturday, December 12th, 2026 at 12PM – 3PM
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center {120 College Street}
Workshop $18 Per Participant / Registration Limited
 
Join poet and writer Elaine Bleakney for an experimental writing experience. Together we will explore the history of the Quiet House, a structure built on BMC’s Lake Eden campus, intended for contemplation and resistance to destructive forces in the world. Photographs and documents related to the Quiet House are featured in BMCM+AC’s current exhibition, Imaginary Landscapes. Attendees will then participate in writing exercises, breath and syllable/sound work, and creating their own quiet house in language. Expect experiment, mutual encouragement, sentence adoration, and activity meant to offset any version of holiday chaos. Registration is limited to 15 writers.
 
 This workshop is presented in conjunction with Imaginary Landscapes: Black Mountain College Architecture and Design (May 29 – September 5, 2026), an exhibition exploring how creative ideas take root in specific places.
 

Elaine Bleakney is a poet and writer living in Hot Springs, North Carolina. Her book of poems,Take the Exit Then Exit, is published by Understory Booksand was a National Poetry Series finalist. Elaine’s previous books include For Another Writing Back, an avant-memoir in lyric prose (Sidebrow Books, 2014) and the chapbook 20 Paintings by Laura Owens, an ekphrastic conversation (Poor Claudia, 2013). Her writing has appeared in the Kenyon Review, the Believer, the Yale Review, Literary Hub, and other publications. She has been a resident at the Vermont Studio Center and the Little Brown Mushroom Camp for Socially Awkward Visual Storytellers. Elaine has taught writing to artists as a guest at Penland School of Craft, Warren Wilson College, the University of North Carolina in Asheville, and elsewhere.

ELEMENTS of BMC Series

ELEMENTS OF BMC is a workshop series that explores the fundamental parts of creative practice at Black Mountain College, highlighting a range of artistic mediums and techniques. The series investigates the role of these elements in shaping the college’s legacy and lasting influence on contemporary art.