About Us – The Peanut Factory

The Peanut Factory
Inspiring Creativity, Making Art, Conserving EcoSystems, Building Community across the Albemarle Sound and beyond.

The Peanut Factory, Inc. is an artist residency and community arts program located in a 1932 peanut processing mill. We host residencies in our refurbished mill with performance space, and also own and manage the 110 acre Spruill Conservation Farm, where we invite you to enjoy our waterfront campsites, trails, and magnificent fig orchard.

Mission

Our mission is to support contemporary visual artists, writers, performers, scholars and scientists by providing time and space to experiment and develop ideas.

Our Vision

We envision a factory of ideas that cultivates the creative spirit in all our communities and encourages healthy liminal ecologies.

Our Values

We value the transformative power of creative expression, the richness of diverse regional heritage and our individual abilities to enrich the frameworks of society.

Activities

The Peanut Factory is pleased to offer artist residencies, community art classes, a working farm with a large fig orchard, waterside campsites, as well as live music and performance on stage. Our programs invite audiences from near and far to connect with the creative process and the beauty of the local ecosystem.

We operate out of the 1932 Albemarle Peanut Company processing mill on Badham Road in Edenton, Chowan County on the north side of the Albemarle Sound, and the 110+ acre Spruill Conservation Farm in Washington County on the south shore of the Sound.

Our two campuses allow us to offer artists, scientists, scholars, and community members opportunities to learn in nature as well as in our inclusive flexible-space venue for exhibitions, performances, workshops, readings, and installations.

Both our locations include old buildings. Stabilization and rehabilitation of the physical structures are aligned to the original spirit of the buildings’ design and are an ongoing project.

Spruill Conservation Farm features an orchard of over 50 varieties of fig bushes where we host an annual Fig Festival on the second weekend in August. Waterfront campsites are rented not only for that event, but year-round.

We host residencies throughout the year, inviting applications ongoingly. Most residencies are 1-4 weeks in duration. Lodging, workspace and some meals are provided. Click here for more information and to apply.

Board of Directors

Lincoln Adams, President At age 11 Lincoln and his family modernized an 18th-century farmhouse in rural Maine. He has been saving old buildings or creating new ones ever since. His various careers include Instructor in the US Army and Fire Safety Engineer in the United Arab Emirates. He leads all Peanut Factory restoration, and co-manages the Spruill Conservation Farm. His favorite pastime is observing wildlife at the Farm.

Julia Townsend, Vice-President

Susan Inglis, Treasurer, Secretary Susan Inglis retired in 2022 as Executive Director of the Sustainable Furnishings Council, an organization she helped found in 2006. She led SFC’s work with industry leaders to establish criteria to gauge the sustainability of furniture products and practices; develop programs for educating all sectors of the industry; and attract hundreds of companies to membership. Inglis is also founder and owner of From The Mountain, a company committed to helping artisans around the world to get their skills and products to new markets. She has worked with artisans in 27 countries. Inglis currently leads the Edenton Racial Reconciliation Group, and works as a tutor for English Learners in the Edenton-Chowan public schools. Her other Board service includes Somerset Place Foundation and the American Sustainable Business Council. She lives in Edenton, in a house her ancestor bought in 1786.

Luis Castaneda

Clay Coor

Grace DeMajewski A classicist, Grace DeMajewski taught Greek and Latin for 20 years. She is interested in promoting literary arts. She enjoys attempting to teach Greek and Latin to felines and canines.

Carolyn Nixon Carolyn Nixon spent the first ten years of her life on the Spruill Farm in Roper in the red house that used to stand to the right of the entrance gate. She spent 23 years as a teacher’s assistant in the Washington County School system, usually working with the elementary age children.

She still helps the Schools by driving a school bus on a 30-mile route. She can frequently be found casting a fishing line into the Albemarle Sound on warm summer afternoons at the Farm.

Jeff Schofield is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in sculpture, architecture, and art curation. An American citizen, he was raised in Brussels, Belgium, and later worked as a sustainable architect in Paris and Dubai before transitioning into fine arts. He holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and an M Arch from Columbia University in New York.

Schofield served for eight years as a member of the Board of Directors at the Dubai International Art Center, a community non-profit organization. As the Art Director for Gallery 76 located there, he gained expertise in selecting high-quality artwork, artist relations, project management, and community outreach. As co-curator for World Art Dubai Fair, he selected emerging contemporary artists for promotion to the Middle East arts community.

Schofield has exhibited internationally at art fairs and galleries, including group shows in Brussels, Rome, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. He has exhibited at Cranbrook Art Museum, Muskegon Art Museum, The Dow Museum of Science and Art, the Idaherma Museum of Art, the Alexandria Museum of Art, the Springfield Museum of Art, and The Sculpture Center in Cleveland.

His solo shows include Hatch Art Gallery in Detroit, KINK Contemporary Gallery in Cleveland, Bread and Circus Gallery in Fort Wayne, Artlink Gallery also in Fort Wayne, Roy G Biv Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, and the United States Embassy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.