FREE | Every Friday: May 29 - August 28 | 5 PM - 6 PM
Join us throughout the residency season for our free public series of short and informal artist talks, readings, and presentations. We’ll learn about works-in-progress from our artists and scholars-in-residence with informative and inspiring presentations in all disciplines. This is a wonderful way to kick off your weekend! Bring a friend, all are welcome.
Location: Main Campus. Look for Craigardan Event sign at the end of Main Campus driveway (two “doors” west of the farm store, towards Keene). Google Maps Link
Kimberly Divad
Kimberly Divad is Craigardan’s 2026 Trillium Fellow. Kimberly is a first-generation Haitian-American writer/director and actress from Queens, New York, splitting her time between LA and NY.
Raised on the works of Edgar Allan Poe and R.L. Stine, Kimberly found early solace in worlds that embraced the macabre, the melancholic, and the beautifully strange.
Drawn to horror, very dark comedy (ok, not-so-dark is fine too!) and surrealist storytelling, Kimberly is committed to creating space for Black and underrepresented voices within these genres where BIPOC characters exist beyond stereotype and shine in their complexity.
Her short films have screened at Oscars qualifying VC Fest, Outfest, Women of the Lens, and Newark International, and her scripts Thank Mother and A GAME earned Killer Shorts quarterfinalist and top 10 finalist honors. Her dystopian short W(HOLE), was a finalist for the 2024 Storytelling with Care grant sponsored by Caring across America and her feature Man of Her Dreams was a Top 25 finalist for Almanack Screenwriters 2025 October Colony. She is a 2026 Prelude Fellow, shepherded by Abbi Jacobson + Mieka Tennant, and a 2026 JFMS BIPOC Sci-Lab Fellow developing her horror/sci-fi pilot Every Other Mother. She has directed music videos for “Iluka” and “Moxxy” and serves as a Sundance Collab community leader.
Off-set, she’s a fan of hot chocolate, vegan desserts, and talking to her many imaginary friends. Maybe one day they’ll speak back. She’s excited to be a part of the Craigardan family and anticipates using the time to continue her work on 2 projects: the stage length version of “NOTES! From a Killer” - an absurdist horror musical, and “The Trying Times of Vetal Roth” - a dark action comedy that follows a villain who wakes up self-aware in a world where heroes and villains are arbitrarily assigned as jobs.
Carolyn M. Bardos
Carolyn M. Bardos. Jumping in without a plan defines the creative practice of Carolyn M. Bardos, a human artist based in Troy, New York, whose work over many years has embraced ceramics, writing, painting, acting, and book publishing. Currently, Bardos is preparing a new chapbook of poetry for publication. Many of the poems reflect the daily sights and sounds in the artist’s small urban neighborhood, the joy and humor, as well as the cruelty and despair. While Bardos’s poet self sometimes disappears for months at a time, the painter will always show up for the ecstasy of pushing paint around on a canvas or a slab of wood, guided by intuition and the same ancient impulse that led a human ancestor some 70,000 years ago to start drawing on a cave wall. The resulting paintings are often raw, intense, rich in vibrant color, and occasionally vaguely figurative.
Cat Rigdon
Cat Rigdon is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Dallas, Texas. She grew up on the island of Cyprus during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Rigdon and her siblings sneak into ancient archeological sites such as Tomb of the Kings in Paphos and rummage through abandoned monasteries and hotels, sometimes under their parents’ supervision. These strong memories, along with the island’s strong folk art, naturalism, and archeological relevance is reflected in Rigdon’s work through her depictions of ancient funerary goods. Rigdon graduated from Texas State University in 2014 with a Bachelor's degree in Studio Art-Painting. After graduation, she moved to Dallas as a Decorative Arts Junior Specialist and Cataloger for Heritage Auctions. During her tenure with the auction house, Rigdon honed her understanding of object and material culture. The position allowed Rigdon to handle thousands of objects, pieces of furniture, and a few ancient artifacts.
Rigdon is represented by Ro2 Art in Dallas, Texas, and Goetze Art & Design in Memphis, Tennessee. Rigdon received the inaugural Dorothy Antoinette LeSelle Travel Fellowship, the DeGolyer Award from the Dallas Museum of Art, the Award of Excellence from the Laughlin-Beers Foundation, and was the Fair Director’s Pick for the 2021 edition of The Other Art Fair - Dallas. She has shown work with Erin Cluley Gallery & Galleri Urbane in Dallas, MASS Gallery, and ICOSA in Austin, and has participated in New York Jewelry Week at Jewelry Arts Inc.