Tamer Hassan, Fall

Digital Artist in Residence, Fall 2020

Alumni Artist in Residence, 2020

Tamer Hassan is a filmmaker based in Chicago. His current work focuses on the way people relate to their environment and traditions, and has included films on the history of seed saving in the U.S. Currently, he is researching the migration of purple martins, birds that are dependent on humans for survival. His films have been screened nationally and internationally. To see some of Tamer’s work, visit our Fall 2020 Residencies Exhibit.

Shilpa Joglekar, Fall

Digital Artist in Residence, Fall 2020

Shilpa Joglekar is an artist practicing drawing, installation, painting, and sculpture. Based in Mumbai, India,  she  founded and was the first Dean of Academy of Fine Arts & Crafts in Rachana Sansad, Mumbai. Her work, which explores human relationships with nature, has been exhibited throughout India and abroad. Learn more about her at http://shilpajoglekar.com. 

Sarah Jones, Fall

Digital Artist in Residence, Fall 2020

Sarah Jones is an artist and garden designer who works in fiber arts and installation. Based in Seattle, WA, her current work examines “plant extinction and the grief presented by climate change.” Her art has been exhibited throughout the U.S. Learn more about her at www.sarahjonesstudio.com. To see some of her work, visit our Fall 2020 Residencies Exhibit.

Lauren Winchester, Fall

Digital Artist in Residence, Fall 2020

Lauren Winchester is a poet based in San Carlos, California. Her poems explore humanity’s relationship with the natural world and have appeared in The Journal, Passages North, TYPO, BOAAT, and other publications. Learn more about her at www.laurenwinchester.com. To read Lauren’s poetry, visit our Fall 2020 Residencies Exhibit.

Alexis Elton, Fall

Digital Artist in Residence, Fall 2020

Alexis Elton is an artist practicing sculpture and installation. A farmer and adobe builder who co-operated a farm in rural New Mexico, “her work is situated where art and agrarian systems meet with aims to create ephemeral sensory encounters.” She has shown her work nationally and internationally. She is based in Hudson Valley, NY. Learn more about her at www.alexiselton.com. To see some of her work, visit our Fall 2020 Shelter in Art Exhibit.

Stewart Allen, Summer

 Digital Artist in Residence, Summer 2020
Socially-Distanced Residence, Summer 2020  

Stewart Allen is a writer based in NY, NY. His published nonfiction books include The Devil’s Cup and In the Devil’s Garden, both of which deal with international foodways and religious plants. He is currently working on a novel that explores similar topics.

To read some of Stewart’s work, visit our 2020 Summer Residencies exhibit. 

Kaitlin Bryson, Summer

 Digital Artist in Residence, Summer 2020 

Kaitlin Bryson is an artist and ecologist whose disciplines include drawing, fiber arts, installation, landscape design, and sculpture. She comes from a biodynamic and permaculture farming background that inspires her “restorative, earth-based practices.”  Her current work examines interactions between fungi and heavy metals. She is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Learn more about her at www.kaitlinbryson.com. 

To see more of Kaitlin’s work, visit our 2020 Summer Residencies exhibit. 

James Jack, Summer

 Digital Artist in Residence, Summer 2020  

James Jack is an artist and an assistant professor of Art Practice at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, who is “concerned with rejuvenating stories that exist in the world.” His work has been exhibited and published in  Asia and the U.S. Learn more about him at www.jamesjack.org. 

To see more of James’s work, visit our 2020 Summer Residencies exhibit. 

Calista Lyon, Summer

Digital Artist in Residence, Summer 2020 
Socially-Distanced Residency, Fall 2020

Calista Lyon is an artist who works in film, installation, photography, sculpture, theater arts, writing/prose. A native of Australia based in Columbus, Ohio, she is currently working on a multi- year, multi-disciplinary project centered on an Australian native orchid collection created by an individual from her family’s farming community which examines the consequences of human action on nonhuman lives. A performance piece which she performed during her residency at OSGF, The Unknown and the Unnamed, draws from her research for the project. Learn more about her at www.calistalyon.com.

To see more of Calista’s work, visit our Shelter in Art exhibit and our 2020 Summer Residencies exhibit. 

Benjamin Heller, Summer

 Digital Artist in Residence, Summer 2020  

 Benjamin Heller is a cross-disciplinary artist whose work blends elements of installation, photography, sculpture, and theater arts. His site-specific sculptures and other work has been performed, exhibited and installed throughout the U.S.  He is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more about him here. 

 To see more of Benjamin’s work, visit our 2020 Summer Residencies exhibit. 

Amie Whittemore, Summer

Digital Artist in Residence, Summer 2020 
Socially-Distanced Residency, Fall 2020

Amie is a poet whose work explores issues of place, gender, and sexuality. She is the author of Glass Harvest and is currently based in Murfreesboro, TN, where she is the city’s 2020 Poet Laureate and a lecturer at Middle Tennessee State University. Read more about her at www.amiewhittemore.com.

To see more of Aimee’s work, visit our Shelter in Art exhibit and our 2020 Summer Residencies exhibit. 

Aimee Lee, Summer

 Digital Artist in Residence, Summer 2020
Socially-Distanced Residence, Summer 2020 

Aimee is an artist and writer who practices sculpture, installation, and fiber arts. She is the author of Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking and the founder of the first hanji studio in North America. Aimee is currently based in Cleveland, OH. During her residency at Oak Spring, she used a variety of plant materials growing at the site, including milkweed and okra from the Biocultural Conservation Farm, for papermaking.  Read more about her at www.aimeelee.net. 

To see more of Aimee’s work, visit our Shelter in Art exhibit and our 2020 Summer Residencies exhibit. 

Jeanne Medina, Spring

 Two-week Curated artist in residence, Spring 2019

Jeanne Medina is an interdisciplinary artist based in LA who works between textiles, fashion, and performance.  She has served as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Fibers at Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC) in Portland, OR, and has researched and worked on projects in Belgium, Guatemala, and the US.

 Spending time at Oak Spring gave Jeanne, who said she is accustomed to working in urban environments, the opportunity to explore her relationship with nature and the materials she uses in her art via exploration of the foundation’s archives, Bunny Mellon’s design work, and the landscape.

To see more of Jeanne’s work, click here. 

Jamē McCray, Spring

 Two-Week Curated artist in residence, Spring 2019 

Jamē McCray is a dancer, choreographer, and ecologist. She holds a PhD in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida, and is interested in using dance as a narrative to start conversations about climate change and other issues related to the environment. She spent much of her residency at Oak Spring exploring the library, where she said she was inspired by the different ways scientists in the past thought and communicated about the natural world.

Sarah Horowitz, Spring

 Two-week Curated artist in residence, Spring 2019

Sarah Horowitz, a printmaker, drawer, and bookmaker, lives in Leavenworth, Washington. Previously, she lived in Oregon, where she was a member of Atelier Mars printmaking workshop and taught printmaking at Portland State University. Sarah produces hand printed and bound artist's books under her imprint Wiesedruck along with prints and drawings.  

Sarah’s work is influenced by nature, poetry, and language. Spending time at the Oak Spring Library gave her a different perspective on the history of science, and how people understand and have researched plants and the natural world.

To see more of Sarah’s work, click here. 

Lisa Sewell, Spring

Two-week Curated artist in residence, Spring 2019

Lisa Sewell is a poet and the author of Impossible Object, which won the 2014 Tenth Gate prize from The Word Works, as well as The Way Out, Name Withheld, and Long Corridor, which received the 2009 Keystone Chapbook award from Seven Kitchens Press.  She lives in Philadelphia and teaches at Villanova University. 

Much of her work focuses on place, its ecological history, and the non-human world. At Oak Spring, she spent much of her time in the library researching early natural histories and species catalogues, where she was particularly influenced by the work of naturalist and botanical artist Maria Sibylla Merian.

To learn more about Liza’s work, click here. 

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.