Residents Tell Their Stories: Anna Dibble
Anna Dibble- Artist Painter
I’m a landscape painter, currently living in Maine, USA, where my work is represented by four galleries, and one in Holyoke, Massachusetts. I’ve taken two spring residencies at Camont, the latest one this past April 2026.
For a visual artist (and I imagine this applies to writers, composers, designers) there is something extra-ordinary about this enchanting place. This unique ‘thing’ is in the air, the atmosphere, and also visually and aurally with wild bird songs, flowering gardens, the ancient revived building with what Kate calls its Escher sensibility, the canal and its paths and poplars, Kate and Chica, her Spanish Water Dog. These are all interconnected at the place, and somehow act like alchemy in the way they trigger and sustain creative work.
I usually work into a new situation like a turtle, having to acclimatize myself by making sketches and wandering, daydreaming, playing with sparks. But at Camont I woke up the first morning, still a little bleary from the plane ride but totally energized, and immediately began slamming paint on pieces of paper -making fictional black line landscapes. Soon I was outside in the garden, staring at the Acadia trees, playing around with paint, using sticks I found on the ground for tools. This energy continued the whole time I was there, interspersed with trips to the amazing local markets with Kate, eating more strawberries than ever before, cooking local vegetables, drinking delicious but cheap Bordeaux wine, having good conversations.
Added to all this, the glorious Gascony region, the ancient villages, the long views of the orchards, the skies, the bright yellow fields of the flower/seed Canola oil comes from, and the people who seem to still be living in the same ways as they have for centuries. What a contrast and relief from the particularly troubled times we’ve landed in! It’s still a paradise there, a real one.
xoAnna
