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I'm trying to plan a 1-2 month road trip to scope out different places I might end up settling in/around rural New England and PA. I'm 33, have a bachelors in biology, and would be happy doing anything that lets me live somewhere rural even if it's totally unrelated to biology. And by rural, I mean living in a place with a bunch of trees, maybe at the edge of a national forest/state park, can't see your neighbors, maybe don't have neighbors, kind of thing. I live cheaply, but only have a few thousand dollars saved up.
I've traveled a lot in the US, mostly living in my car, and always feel freest out in the forest and the canyons. I've also lived in towns/cities and always feel constricted and numbed.
My long term goal is to build or turn a place into a massive series of immersive art exhibits, like Meow Wolf in Santa Fe or Factory Obscura in Tulsa, and somewhat like Mass MOCA in North Adams. Step one would be to rent a space and create one immersive room with materials from the dump/junkyard and charge an entry fee as a proof of concept in order to attract the funding for more rooms.
Another huge goal on top of that would be to create an art colony where young creative people come to collaborate and make things, with the immersive art exhibits serving as an anchor for income and for displaying work.
I think in order to be able to have the audience required to sustain the space, it would be helpful for this place to not be too too far from some kind of tourist track/area, whether that be Route 1 in Maine, or on the way to the White Mountains, or something like that.
I love being in nature as well as creating weird crazy art, and I know this is a totally crazy dream, but, what the hell, I'd rather fail at it in the country than work towards it for a decade in the city and fail anyway.
Very open to any/all suggestions about places where it might make sense for me to try this! Thank you!
I would say in terms of NY, maybe look into rural areas not too far from bigger Upstate cities. For instance, a company related to your education in the Albany that comes to mind is Regeneron. Bristol Myers-Squibb in the Syracuse area and ConMed in the Utica area also come to mind and there are rural areas nearby that would work in terms of what you want to do artistically. Utica is just south of the Adirondacks. Albany is near the Adirondacks, Catskills and Berkshires. Syracuse has quite a few state parks nearby, with the area to the south of the city has plenty of wooded areas, with hills and valleys.
There are other examples, but those are a few that come to mind.
If you're looking for somewhere that's really not established, Millinocket, ME and Berlin, NH immediately came to mind. Both are on the periphery of some of their state's most impressive natural settings. And both are mill towns that have seen a major exodus of retail and business over the years. You would almost certainly be able to find an affordable, visible vacant storefront to setup your proof of concept, and either place would likely have plenty of room to expand if it took off. There are plenty of mill towns across rural New England, but those two jumped out first. Others include Rumford, ME and Barre and Rutland, VT.
Of course, if you're looking for some place that already has a well-established artist community, Brattleboro, Middlebury, or Stowe and others in Vermont would work. Bethel or Kinfield, ME are alternatives in interior Maine. There are tons of artsy towns along the Mid-coast of Maine too.
I would say in terms of NY, maybe look into rural areas not too far from bigger Upstate cities. For instance, a company related to your education in the Albany that comes to mind is Regeneron. Bristol Myers-Squibb in the Syracuse area and ConMed in the Utica area also come to mind and there are rural areas nearby that would work in terms of what you want to do artistically. Utica is just south of the Adirondacks. Albany is near the Adirondacks, Catskills and Berkshires. Syracuse has quite a few state parks nearby, with the area to the south of the city has plenty of wooded areas, with hills and valleys.
There are other examples, but those are a few that come to mind.
Just to add, some smaller communities to consider are: Chatham near Albany and Troy; Clinton bear Utica and Cazenovia near Syracuse. All of them already have some degree of an art scene.
There’s also a place like Hamilton that is in between Syracuse and Utica, which is home to Colgate University and also has a couple of art venues there. It also has this antique festival in the area: https://www.madison-bouckville.com/ It is a couple towns east of Cazenovia.
There are others, but those are some viable options.
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