About:
Artist-in-Residence / Shenandoah National Park / 2020 (top row)
In 2020, I was awarded a three-week artist residency through the National Park Service at Shenandoah National Park. During my time in the park, I found traces of human settlements such as old stone foundations and walls, an overgrown orchard, an automobile frame or forgotten cemetery. What came out of that residency were 25 pages of notes and sketches as well as about 60 photographs from my time exploring the park. From these I developed a series of small oval shaped etchings depicting these findings in a what I like to think of is documentation of a transitioning place. In 2003 I thru hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine for about six months and this included a 100 section through Shenandoah NP, so it was a real change to go back to this area and explore it in a slower and more focused way. The 2003 thru-hike had a lasting impact on how I experience wilderness and since then I’ve been fascinated with the changing environments and the history of land, and how people impact it over time.
Artist-in-Residence / Isle Royale National Park / 2024 (bottom row)
In the summer of 2024, I participated in another artist residency through the National Park Service, this one was on an island in Lake Superior known as Isle Royale National Park. The experience was a very solitary one; two and half weeks spent in a rustic cabin miles away from any other people. It was a respite from the modern world of comfort, convenience, and connectivity. The island was used by native peoples for centuries then later inhabited by French and British settlers in the 19th century who maintained a variety of industries such as logging camps, fisheries, copper mines and even an island resort in the early 20th century. As a national park, the island is now uninhabited by humans for six months out of the year but the history of human industry still exists in artifacts and structures that are left to decay or be maintained as historic landmarks. For my residency on Isle Royale, I took all this history in consideration when thinking about how I would approach making work about this place and created a series of color reduction linocuts that represented the intersection of human activity and wilderness areas.
Artist-in-Residence / Shenandoah National Park / 2020 (top row)
In 2020, I was awarded a three-week artist residency through the National Park Service at Shenandoah National Park. During my time in the park, I found traces of human settlements such as old stone foundations and walls, an overgrown orchard, an automobile frame or forgotten cemetery. What came out of that residency were 25 pages of notes and sketches as well as about 60 photographs from my time exploring the park. From these I developed a series of small oval shaped etchings depicting these findings in a what I like to think of is documentation of a transitioning place. In 2003 I thru hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine for about six months and this included a 100 section through Shenandoah NP, so it was a real change to go back to this area and explore it in a slower and more focused way. The 2003 thru-hike had a lasting impact on how I experience wilderness and since then I’ve been fascinated with the changing environments and the history of land, and how people impact it over time.
Artist-in-Residence / Isle Royale National Park / 2024 (bottom row)
In the summer of 2024, I participated in another artist residency through the National Park Service, this one was on an island in Lake Superior known as Isle Royale National Park. The experience was a very solitary one; two and half weeks spent in a rustic cabin miles away from any other people. It was a respite from the modern world of comfort, convenience, and connectivity. The island was used by native peoples for centuries then later inhabited by French and British settlers in the 19th century who maintained a variety of industries such as logging camps, fisheries, copper mines and even an island resort in the early 20th century. As a national park, the island is now uninhabited by humans for six months out of the year but the history of human industry still exists in artifacts and structures that are left to decay or be maintained as historic landmarks. For my residency on Isle Royale, I took all this history in consideration when thinking about how I would approach making work about this place and created a series of color reduction linocuts that represented the intersection of human activity and wilderness areas.
