Announcing the Art of Play and VCFA Cloudpass
VCFA invites students, faculty, alumnx, and staff to investigate play as a part of creative practice
On Friday, January 9, people from across the VCFA community will come together for a day of lectures, workshops, and hands-on making focused on the idea of play as an element of creative practice. Alumnx will also be able to participate virtually through the all-new VCFA CloudPass!
An exciting slate of visiting artists will inform our playful investigations through a series of panels and one-on-one lectures. Faculty and staff will also host hands-on Let’s Play sessions, where participants will work together to make something—worlds and stories, films, presentations, and more.
What We Mean When We Say Play
We understand play to be broad. We play when we deviate from a path. We play when we follow patterns in wood grain, or paint, or look for shapes in clouds. We play when we use a set of rules to restrict our behavior—when we’re making something, or even just in our day-to-day lives. We play when we sit down at a table with a board game. We play when we pick up a video game controller, or manipulate a puppet. We’re playing when we adopt a persona. We’re playing when we break the rules, too.
Experts on the Art of Play
We have invited an exciting, diverse slate of guests to help us learn how to leverage play as part of our creative practice.
Cas Holman
Founder of the independent toy company Heroes Will Rise and former Professor of Industrial Design at RISD, Cas travels the globe speaking about early education, the design process, and the value of play in all phases and aspects of life.
Cas has shared her perspective in workshops, seminars, and consultations with the teams at Google, Nike, LEGO Foundation, and Disney Imagineering, and she has worked with architects, CEOs, and university faculty on projects related and seemingly unrelated to design. She helps individuals and organizations shape their projects, enrich team dynamics, and energize or reimagine their processes.
Taylor Moore
Taylor Moore has been a union organizer, the head of comedy and podcasts at Kickstarter, the host of Sex Your Food on TruTV, and, for one remote Maine winter, a llama herder. He is now a producer, performer, and composer, as well as the founder and creative director of Fortunate Horse, the universally feared and respected media cartel that produces the hit podcasts Rude Tales of Magic, Oh These Those Stars of Space, Fun City, and Worlds Beyond Number.
Callie C. Miller
Callie C. Miller is the author of middle grade fantasy adventure romps The Hunt for the Hollower and The Search for the Shadowsoul. She has written dozens of episodes of animated television (credits include Nickelodeon’s Monster High, LEGO Monkie Kid, and Apple TV+’s Stillwater), comics (DC Comics, Riot Games), and is currently a Video Game Writer on Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars: Jedi team. She received her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
C.L. Clark
C.L. Clark is a Nebula-nominated and Ignyte award-winning author of several books, including The Unbroken (Magic of the Lost trilogy), Fate’s Bane (2025), and Ambessa: Chosen of the Wolf (an Arcane novel) (2025). Their short works of fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various venues, including Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Tor.com, Uncanny, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
They are also a BFA award-winning and Hugo-nominated editor for their work as co-editor of Podcastle, and won the 2022 Locus award for Best Anthology for We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction of 2020.
They graduated from Indiana University’s creative writing MFA and were a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow. When they’re not writing or working, they’re learning languages, reading about war and [post-]colonial history, or trying not to throw their kettlebells through the wall. They live in London and teach in the MFA in Creative Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Possibilities of Play
If you are looking to kickstart your own investigation into play, here are some examples of our guests’ work:
Cas Holman featured in the second season of Netflix’s Abstract: The Art of Design. Their new book Playful: How Play Shifts Our Thinking, Inspires Connection, and Sparks Creativity, with Lydia Denworth, releases on October 21.
Taylor Moore is the producer and composer for the actual play narrative podcast Worlds Beyond Number. In an interview with IndieWire earlier this year, he discussed how the podcast “broke battlefields, hearts and pro tools.” Light spoiler warning for the podcast!
Callie C. Miller has worked as Lead Narrative Designer on a handful of character-focused shorts for the video game League of Legends from Riot Games. You can check them out on her website!
VCFA CloudPass
This residency, we’re launching VCFA CloudPass as a way to invite alumnx back into the heart of the community. All passholders will be able to virtually participate in The Art of Play. They will also have the option of joining the Writing or Writing for Children & Young Adults virtual residencies, including an alumnx-focused workshop led by VCFA faculty members: Rick Jackson for Writing and Anica Mrose Rissi for Writing for Children & Young Adults.
There are a few VCFA CloudPass options:
- The Art of Play: $39
- Residency + The Art of Play Early Bird (before November 14): $475
- Residency + The Art of Play Standard (through December 1): $525
You can sign up for CloudPass right now! If you have questions, reach out to [email protected].