Elsewhere Studios was my first artist residency. My creative upbringing was far from traditional- I studied sociology and linguistics in school, art was purely a personal pursuit until I threw myself into it headfirst in my early 30s-so I was unfamiliar with what an artist residency was until a friend encouraged me to apply to Elsewhere in 2020. Timing and travel complications had me waiting for over a year to arrive in Paonia, but I was finally able to make my way to the tiny Colorado town in November 2021.
My proposed project was writing a screenplay for my film, but I soon discovered that the residency and the town of Paonia had other plans for me. The three other residents and I discovered we had all arrived following high-stress circumstances. Some of us worked in disaster relief, others had been let go from jobs, many of us had experienced months (if not years) of unstable housing, and all of us were intimately familiar with the hustle of patchworking jobs and gigs together to make ends meet as practicing artists. We found ourselves seeking out companionship again and again-the desire to gather, to laugh, to find ways to connect was strong. And we kept on finding our way there through food and drink.
The shared kitchen certainly helped. It became a sort of HQ for the house. Many ingredients and meals were shared there. Late night tea and early morning coffees were poured (and spilled, whoops) together. We gathered on Fridays with friends to celebrate Shabbat. One cohort was a professional chef and shared with us much of the produce, meats, and cheese Paonia’s farms yielded. The local coffee shop-Espresso Paeonia-was yet another opportunity for us to gather and share a meal or a drink. Many morning field trips took us there in pairs or triads to get our coffee and converse with locals with whom we became good friends. However, among all these many many opportunities to sup and sip together, there was no event more rousting nor joyful than the Hot Brown Competition of 2021.
This became my calling, and it revealed itself to me within mere days of arrival. The second day of my residency was spent chatting with my cohorts, and someone generously offered to make me and the group coffee in the morning. “Ah yes,” I replied. “Hot Brown.” Intrigued and rather disgusted, my cohorts asked for a further explanation.
Hot Brown originated from my hometown at my neighbor Gus’s house, back when I was in junior high. I would go over to his parents’ house often for dinner, as it was a community event. They liked keeping their space welcoming and open-invitation, so every night the parents would cook a big meal for whatever locals felt like showing up, and afterwards, Gus’s mother would bring out a giant kettle filled with what became known as “Hot Brown.” It was hot and-you guessed it-brown, but was not coffee, and not tea. It could be taken black (or brown) or with milk and sugar. We never knew what it was (until many years later I was told it was a powdered chicory drink), so we named it Hot Brown. I took the concept with me as I got older to include hot beverages beyond the coffee sphere. Hot chocolate, teas, coffee, herbal blends, hell even bone broth, all could be considered Hot Brown (as long as it fit the criteria, which you know by now).
I explained this to my residency cohorts with just one addition. To keep up the original mystique of Hot Brown, I explained that a true Hot Brown beverage experience meant that whatever goes into the kettle can only be known by the purveyor of the Hot Brown. The drinkers could never fully know, meaning that each batch of Hot Brown was always unique. This delighted my cohorts, and I was asked to make a vat of Hot Brown to serve at our first Shabbat dinner just a few nights away.
What began as a funny joke snowballed into a full on town-wide battle. What I served that night inspired (in part) the owner of the local coffee shop to begin serving what he called “mulled coffee,” but we all knew was his own take on Hot Brown. I created a Hot Brown Ambassador badge to bestow on a future Hot Brown creator, which would be passed down until the end of the November residency. Elsewhere alumni and administrators became involved. We had group tastings each week and cohort dinners often were paired with a Hot Brown beverage made on the fly. I threw myself into creating awards to be given out at the end of the residency, I made fliers and graphics, we even created a Hot Brown tasting event for the town on the eve of our group show. And then the awards ceremony took place.
The morning of the Open Studios event, I made a ballot box for those who had participated to vote for the four categories-Hottest, Brownest, Proudest to Serve It, and Worst. Seven people had officially made Hot Brown. 15 people at most had tasted the various entries. EIGHTY SEVEN ballots were cast. Needless to say, over the course of the night, there was rampant ballot stuffing, so I made an impromptu fifth award-Biggest Fucking Cheat. Awards were given during a fireside ceremony on Elsewhere’s property and the recipients posed with their spoils. A month of shenanigans came to its close.
I joked throughout my residency that my project was Playing Pranks. Yes, I failed to chip away at my film project, but I realized that having fun and staying connected during my month at Elsewhere was far more important to my long-term creative goals than spending a few weeks with my head down in silence.