There is a spirit of rejuvenation, collaboration and experimentation among writers, painters, sculptors, choreographers and composers at Atlantic Center for the Arts, an internationally renowned artist-in-residence facility nestled on a 69-acre ecological preserve in Florida’s New Smyrna Beach. Atlantic Center provides workspace and technical support to artists from all over the world to create, without interruption, in an atmosphere conducive to intellectual exchange and artistic development.

Renowned artists are invited to work with emerging and midcareer artists for three weeks during each of five yearly residencies. More than 300 internationally acclaimed master artists have worked at Atlantic Center, including such luminaries as Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and director Edward Albee, Guggenheim Fellow jazz musician Cecil Taylor, acclaimed independent filmmaker Christine Vachon, American Academy of Arts and Letters member visual artist Brice Marden, National Book Critics Circle awardee poet Sharon Olds, Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, and Guggenheim Fellow photographer William Wegman.

Atlantic Center for the Arts, founded by environmentalist, painter and sculptor Doris Leeper in 1977, is a nonprofit corporation. Leeper founded Atlantic Center in order to give talented artists the opportunity to work with outstanding master artists from different disciplines; in her own words, it would be a place “where people who want to think creatively can.” Selected through an application process and portfolio review by the master artists with whom they wish to study, these associate artists come from around the world and include university professors, post-graduate students, professionals, or full-time artists.

One of the exciting elements of the residency process is the collaboration that occurs between the master and associate artists. It is not unusual for composers to collaborate with poets, or dancers to work with painters, exploring a new creative process.

“I know of no place that combines a very special work atmosphere with people of widely different creative disciplines,” said New Yorkbased composer John Corigliano, who attributes portions of his opera, “The Ghosts of Versailles,” which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera, to the time he spent at Atlantic Center for the Arts. “The results of this kind of union will be important. I believe that the combining of diverse techniques is vital to artistic growth–perhaps point the way to entirely new forms.”

It is with this in mind that Atlantic Center’s National Council, comprised of distinguished art figures, identifies potential artists from throughout the world to serve as master artists-in-residence. “Atlantic Center for the Arts provides an ideal environment in which dedicated master creative artists and enthusiastic and talented associates can work together productively, and in tranquility, yet as a community with other creative people,” said National Council Chair Emeritus Edward Albee. “As long as Atlantic Center maintains a standard of excellence in its choice of master artists and gathers a wide spectrum of potential associates, it will provide a unique and invaluable service to the arts community.”

The term “environment” is often cited as a critical component of the success of Atlantic Center’s residency programs. That term is used to express the intangible, creative interchange of ideas and inspiration, as well as the physical beauty of the setting. The sense of place Atlantic Center for the Arts provides is vital to the residency experience.

“I cannot praise the architecture and game plan for ACA highly enough. For professional creative artists this program is a godsend,” said playwright Eric Bogosian of his master artist in - residence experience at Atlantic Center.

It is exactly this interaction between nature, environment, and creativity that Leeper imagined when she envisioned Atlantic Center for the Arts. During its first ten years, a workshop, fieldhouse, amphitheater, master artist cottages, artist housing (sans telephone and television), and a caretaker’s cottage were constructed on the heavily wooded and secluded shores of Turnbull Bay, which eventually winds its way to the Atlantic Ocean.

Over the following ten years, development and construction of the second phase of building took place. The Leeper Studio Complex, including music, painting, sculpture, dance and writing studios, a black-box theater, digital media lab and a library, is a successful union between awardwinning architecture and nature. The Complex, designed by the firm of Thompson & Rose Architects, has won eight national architectural awards. It increases workspace to 12,000 square feet, elevating Atlantic Center’s level of programming by permitting the artists-in-residence to further develop and refine projects using these discipline-specific work studios. Linked by a boardwalk that keeps dense, indigenous vegetation undisturbed, the Leeper Studio Complex, built of rich wood under lead-coated copper roofs, makes the Center a premier residency facility and provides an expanded venue for performances and exhibitions.

Ten years later, in 2007, a Visitor Center & Gallery conceived to serve ACA’s growing public was completed. The 5,000-square-foot Mark and Margery Pabst Visitor Center & Gallery provides increased opportunities for the community to learn about and experience the artistic process, and allows for expanded partnerships with public schools, universities, volunteers, environmental groups, and tour groups; the stunning facility is also available for corporate retreats and rental opportunities.

Outreaches and performances are a vital part of each residency. The public is invited to enjoy the artists’ creations as they lecture, present work, and field questions. Outreaches held throughout the state at venues including public schools, universities, and museums have given added meaning to the arts for thousands of students, artists, civic leaders, and community members.

“During my residency, in a relatively short span of time, a supportive culture developed among the artists,” said A. Van Jordan, a Whiting Writers’ Award recipient who participated as an associate artist-in-residence with poet Joy Harjo. “The environment at Atlantic Center fostered freedom: freedom to explore your chosen art form, freedom to collaborate with others, and the freedom to dismiss outside distractions.”

The results of the residency touch all corners of the world, as artists take with them honed skills, a keener intellectual approach to their work, and a sense of artistic rejuvenation inspired by their experience at Atlantic Center for the Arts.