(Photos | Courtesy of Pine Meadow Ranch Center for the Arts and Agriculture)
Pine Meadow Ranch Center for the Arts and Agriculture, a working ranch in Sisters focused on arts, agricultural and ecological projects, has awarded residencies to 26 artists, scientists, scholars and researchers working on individual or collaborative interdisciplinary projects and other forms of creative work. Chosen from a pool of more than 80 applicants, each participant was selected based on: quality of work; ability to communicate goals of their project; capacity to engage with and build community; and relevance to the 2022 residency theme, “Coexistence and Regeneration.”
Throughout the year, awardees will be hosted at the ranch for two-week residencies. Two recipients will be in residence at a time and each will have studio space for their own artistic practice. They will also participate in community events throughout the year, including lectures, workshops and roundtable talks for the public. This year’s residents range from emerging artists and scientists to those well-known and established in their field and include:
Visual Arts
- Kellie G. Hoyt (Minneapolis, MN): Mosaics (2D & 3D), acrylic paintings, nature-focused mixed-media object collages.
- Brenda Gratton (Madison, WI): Mosaics, soft pastels. Seeks hope and joy in small, everyday moments.
- Line Bergene (Norway): Norwegian mosaic artist who finds inspiration in her materials.
- Ayla Gizlice (Raleigh, NC): Sculpture, installations connecting her Turkish heritage aesthetics with local and global environmental concerns.
- Alyssa Eckert (Washington state): Pen and ink drawings inspired by plants, animals and the ecology.
- Hilary Pfeifer (Portland, OR): Craft-influenced sculptor. Explores the natural world through object, collage, installation and public art.
- Andrew Myers (Corvallis, Oregon): Explores instinct, extinction, isolation and conservation in drawings with elements of installation, printmaking, sculpture and animation.
- Sarah Smiley (Los Angeles): Paintings which employ paper cut-outs. Explores the human relationship to self and the natural world.
- Crystal Schenk (Portland, OR): Sculpture. Explores the impact of intensifying wildfires, metaphors of individual and collective grief.
- Michael Boonstra (Corvallis, OR): Drawing, photography, installation and sculpture. Founding member, Gray Space artist group, Oregon.
- Marie Thibeault (Long Beach, CA): large-scale paintings. Addresses the tension of urban landscape and the natural world, ideas of flux, change and instability in the environment.
Multi-Disciplinary Arts
- Lucy Maude Ellis: Work explores imperialism, white supremacy and gender in the contemporary American West, with a focus on cattle ranching.
- Lee Emma Running (Omaha, NE): Sculpture and drawings using roadkill animal bones, glass, paper, fabric, fur, raw pigments and gold.
- Selena Jones (Portland, OR): Explores material associations and personifications, creating meaningful forms and experiences.
- James Adam Bateman (Utah): Artist, writer and curator. Work relates to cultural, institutional, environmental and aesthetic issues of the Great Basin and the West.
Writing
- Liza Birnbaum (Seattle, WA): Founding editor, Big Big Wednesday, annual print journal of literature and visual art.
- Sandra Honda (Eugene, OR): Japanese-American visual artist and writer. Examines contemporary Asian-American identity, environmental science and policy.
Ecology & the Arts
- Bradley Kik (Bellaire, MI): Co-founder/co-director of Crosshatch Center for Art & Ecology, a nonprofit at the intersection of art, farming, local economy and ecology.
- Austen Camille Weymueller (Alvin, TX): Investigates her body and its role as a builder in relation to ecology.
- Julia Edith Rigby (California): Art informed by climate change and ecological relationships.
- Peter Mackay Bradley (Juneau, AK): Independent research on the historiography of herring in Southeast Alaska and beyond. Maintains/creates conceptual infrastructure for communities of creative practitioners.
- Sneha Ganguly (New York): South Asian diasporic, interdisciplinary artist, working through the intersection of fine art and mycology.
Education & The Arts
- Nancy Caroline Helmsworth (Portland, OR): Artist and arts educator. Considers art a reliable, constant companion.
- Manda Bryn Severin (Grants Pass, OR): Educator, artist, musician. Combines stop-motion animation, music, art, storytelling. Will be creating “Comfort Seeds” enriched curriculum for children with fellow resident Nell Geisslinger.
- Nell Geisslinger (Los Angeles, CA): Former Oregon Shakespeare Festival acting company member; songwriter and performer. Will collaborate with creative partner Manda Severin on new children’s curriculum.
Culinary Arts
- Thor Erickson (Bend, OR): Educator, chef and culinary artist. Explores how the region’s natural resources pair with the region’s traditional cooking techniques.
The vision of the Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts & Agriculture (PMRCAA) residency program is to offer a space for cultural practitioners, ecological scientists and creative thinkers to immerse themselves in their work and/or research through access to studios, open space and beautiful scenery. Residents will be working alongside PMRCAA staff, volunteers and community members to preserve the natural biosphere and historic buildings of the ranch for years to come.
About Pine Meadow Ranch Center for the Arts and Agriculture
Pine Meadow Ranch Center for the Arts and Agriculture is a 260-acre working ranch in Sisters that is committed to cultivating creative thinking and responsible stewardship through sustainable agriculture, conservation arts and studio residencies. Since 2017, PMRCAA has been a project of the Roundhouse Foundation, which has supported the work of the creative community in Central Oregon for the last 20 years. roundhousefoundation.org/pine-meadow-ranch