Artist in Residence Program

Photographers behind their cameras in City of Rocks

CIRO

Apply for the Artist in Residence Program!

About the program:The Artist in Residence program (AiR) allows creatives to bring their unique talents as well as share their interpretations of the park’s resources and meanings in ways that engage the public through a variety of artistic mediums such as painting, textiles, sculpting, music, composing, writing, poetry, dance, or photography.

If you are selected as an Artist in Residence, you would serve as a volunteer and spend 4-6 weeks in the parks throughout the calendar year you applied for creating art and engaging with the public through programs and shows.

At the end of each AiR year, the selected artist(s) present(s) or display(s) their artwork as well as donates one piece of artwork to the park. The AiR also consents to being photographed and featured in various types of media for the parks.

The parks will provide resources for the residency program such as volunteer funds for materials and supplies, orientation to the parks as well as safety protocols, and rent-free use of the employee campground and facilities.

How to apply: If you or someone you know is interested in applying for the residency, send your resume, cover letter, and a sample of artistic works to the Visitor Services Ranger, see contact below.

Applications are due the 2nd Saturday in January of the year applying for. Applicants will be contacted to schedule a short virtual interview the week following the 2nd Saturday of January. Applicants will be notified of the residency shortly after interviews.

To send your application or for questions regarding the AiR program, contact:
Visitor Services Ranger
City of Rocks National Reserve/Castle Rocks State Park
e-mail us
Visitor Center Contact Info:
208-824-5901
PO Box 169
Almo, ID 83312

 

2024 Artist in Residence Jessie Swimeley

Swimeley is a contemporary cyanotype artist and printmaker based in Caldwell, Idaho. Her lifelong passion for analog photography has evolved into exceptional photo and print-based mixed media art.

“Cyanotype is a wonderful way to create art,” says Swimeley. “It is a simple process that is very accessible to all ages and skill levels. I enjoy sharing it because people walk away knowing that they can make lovely pieces of art. It also gives people a chance to slow down and really look at nature.”

As the Artist in Residence Swimeley has been focusing on works about the native plants of the City of Rocks. She believes it is very important to care for and treasure the wild spaces we have access to enjoy. “When people connect to the landscape and the plants and animals that live there, they start to really care about our special wild places, like City of Rocks.”

 

2022 Artist - Sarah Bird (Co-AiR with Nick Neely)

Sarah Bird grew up in Concord, Massachusetts. She attended Brown University before spending four years at the Grand Central Atelier in New York City to study contemporary realism. Though she set out to become a landscape painter, while in New York she departed from the school’s figure-centric curriculum to devote herself to the more intimate, self-determined landscapes of still life, the poetic genre that remains her fascination. Her current work often takes two forms: traditional, altaresque arrangements of natural objects on cloth; and “foliage paintings,” wilder compositions of plants, leaves, and branches on a dark background, which she sees as cross-genre between landscape and still life. She now lives with her husband, the writer Nick Neely, in the La Grande, Oregon. The recipient of a 2017 Idaho Arts Grant, her paintings have been shown in New York, Los Angeles and Block Island, Rhode Island.

 

2022 Artist - Nick Neely (Co-AiR with Sarah Bird)

Nick Neely's first book, Coast Range, a collection of essays, was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal for natural history writing. His second book, Alta California, an LA Times bestseller, details his twelve-week trek from San Diego to San Francisco to retrace the first overland Spanish expedition through California. A former resident of Hailey, Idaho, he now lives with his wife, the painter Sarah Bird, in La Grande, Oregon, where he is an Assistant Professor of English/Writing at Eastern Oregon University and teaches in EOU’s low-residency MFA program with a concentration in Wilderness, Ecology, and Community. He is currently working on a book about the Cassia crossbill endemic to the Albion Mountains and South Hills and is excited to poke around the rocks and make some forays upslope into the Albions. Learn more about him at www.nickneely.com

 

2021 Artist - Jess Scheider

Jess Scheider is a visual artist living and working in Boise, Idaho. Provoked by the mysterious, the unseen and the ineffable, her artworks grapple with both a changing world, and our fraught relationship with nature. The earthly textures that inhabit the surfaces of Jess’s paintings seek to evoke a presence from the viewer, drawing them close to the surface to seek out connections which may have been previously hidden.

Jess’s work is guided by a deep desire honor the land and its many teachings, foraging a connection to those who came before, and those who are yet to arrive. Within these explorations, issues of existence, perception, adaptation, reclamation and the infinite rise to the surface.

 

2018 Artist - Poo Wright-Pulliam

"Painting at the City of Rocks was an experience like no other. The uniqueness of its granite spires are awe inspiring, whittled down by millions of years of abrasion by the salt fog from the Great Salt Lake. The emigrants along the California Trail in the 1840s and 1850s nicknamed it the 'Silent City of Rocks'. At every turn there was something amazing to paint whether it be scenic or alive! My residency ran for two years; it could go longer. So much to paint...so little time!"