S. Rim's Newest Artist in Residence to Provide Public Workshops

View from Mojave Point on the Hermit Road. NPS Photo by Michael Quinn

News Release Date: January 22, 2009

Contact: Shannan Marcak, 928-638-7958

Grand Canyon, AZ. -- The staff at Grand Canyon National Park is pleased to welcome Artist-in-Residence Patty DiRienzo. Ms. DiRienzo brings 25 years of artistic experience to the Artist-in-Residence program. She has captured award-winning photographic images for USA Today and The New York Times, compiled a book of vivid images called Florida, A Journey Through its Colorful Past, and is currently exhibiting her work at the Museum of Florida History.

The Artist-in-Residence Program provides a new generation of artists with the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of those whose idyllic paintings, rough and tumble novels, sepia prints, and soaring musical scores, in part, helped prompt the establishment of our national parks. The program offers contemporary artists the adventure of living and working in a national park while creating works that generate understanding and dialogue about the need to preserve our national treasures.

Interested professional artists must apply to the program. Artists-in-Residence and alternates are selected by a panel of National Park Service and Grand Canyon Association representatives based primarily on artistic merit and the ideas expressed in each artist's statement of purpose. The National Park Service provides participating artists with housing for three weeks in exchange for one original work and a willingness to share inspiration with others.
 
Ms. DiRienzo will share her expertise and inspiration during three, free photography workshops Friday, January 23 through Sunday, January 25, 2009. During these thirty minute sessions, visitors will learn the art of photographing people in natural landscapes along the rim of the Grand Canyon. Workshops will meet at 2:00 pm in the Verkamp's Visitor Center located on the Rim Trail next to Hopi House on the South Rim of the park. Visitors are encouraged to bring cameras if they have them.

Financial support for the South rim Artist-in-Residence program is provided by the Grand Canyon Association, the park's official fundraising partner. For additional information on the Artist-in-Residence program or on how to become an Artist-in-Residence, please visit the park's web site at www.nps.gov/grca/supportyourpark/air.htm or contact Judy Hellmich-Bryan, Chief of Interpretation, at 928-638-7760. For more information on the free workshops being offered, please call Supervisory Park Ranger David Smith at 928-638-7765.