Andrew Myers, Spring

Inaugural Artist in Residence, Spring 2018

Andrew Myers is a visual artist whose work incorporates the environment, conservation and preservation. A native Oregonian, Myers also works extensively with the idea of place. He currently teaches at Oregon State University. 

Myers’ work is often both very sculptural and very active. He creates his art in pieces and rearranges them while fine-tuning the placement of drawings, producing figures and gesturing at landscape. While working at Oak Spring, Myers noticed his art molding to the space he created in. His studio was once the firehouse of the Oak Spring airstrip, and still contains a maze of pipes, the old firehose, and other rustic features from the early 1960’s. During the program, Myers played with these features and nurtured a symbiosis of architectural detail and careful, artful craft. Inspired by Virginia’s hunt country, Myers incorporated a fox into one of his works. 

See more of Andrew Myers’ work here. To read our blogpost about our inaugural artists in residence program, click here. 

Annie Varnot, Spring

Inaugural Artist in Residence, Spring 2018

Alumni Artist in Residence, Winter 2020

Annie Varnot is a painter and sculptor living in Brooklyn, New York, with experience in a variety of mediums.  Her sculptures often deal with both personal and environmental trauma, and have included just about anything – from chicken eggs to repurposed drinking straws. 

When Varnot came to Oak Spring, she focused  on non-traditional landscape painting. Fresh off of a five-month expedition on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), Varnot sought to create art that was as vibrant, daring, and challenging as her experience. Varnot’s PCT paintings have an innate sense of place on the West Coast, but part of her art also involved Oak Spring. Stencils used in her painting process made their way into another project after use: Varnot arranged her stencils on the windows of the studio––another way in which her creativity worked to interact with the outside. 

In 2020, Annie returned to Oak Spring as an alumni artist in residence, where her work included creating paintings and paper cut-outs influenced by Oak Spring’s landscapes. 

See more of Annie Varnot’s work here. To read our blogpost about our inaugural artists in residence program, click here.

Donna Cooper Hurt, Spring

Inaugural Artist in Residence, Spring 2018

Alumni Artist in Residence, Winter 2020

Donna Cooper Hurt is a photographer living in Charleston, South Carolina, working with performance and movement in nature.  In her artwork, Donna choreographs solo, often nude performances in photos, a process that keeps her active behind and in front of the camera.

 While at Oak Spring, Donna explored the area and its spirit. As an artist focusing on places and their passing histories, her work spoke to the land in a broader sense. She also incorporated elements of Oak Spring in her photography,  playing with scraps of Bunny Mellon’s fabric to make streaks of color in her art. 

Donna came back to Oak Spring in early 2020 for our alumni program, where she spent time working on a book project and on bringing sculptural elements into her photography. 

Learn more about Donna Cooper Hurt’s work here. To read our blogpost about our inaugural artists in residence program, click here. 

Maxim Loskutoff, Spring

Inaugural Artist in Residence, Spring 2018

Maxim Loskutoff is a writer from Montana whose work is steeped in the American West and its beautiful, often tumultuous scenery. 

While at Oak Spring, Loskutoff completed the first draft of his novel Ruthie Fear, a haunting parable of the American West set in remote Montana, which was released in September 2020.

 “As a child in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, Ruthie Fear sees an apparition: a strange, headless creature near a canyon creek. Its presence haunts her throughout her youth. Raised in a trailer by her stubborn, bowhunting father, Ruthie develops a powerful connection with the natural world but struggles to find her place in a society shaped by men. Development, gun violence, and her father’s vendettas threaten her mountain home. As she comes of age, her small community begins to fracture in the face of class tension and encroaching natural disaster, and the creature she saw long ago reappears as a portent of the valley’s final reckoning.”

Read more about Maxim Loskutoff and his work here.