Artists in Residence

Painting and Photo Courtesy of L. Ivan

 

People have long been making art in National Parks and drawing inspiration from the landscapes around them. This traditon carries on today with Artist-in-Residence programs at Lake Clark and across the country.

 

Artist in Residence, Selene Ross

NPS Photo

Artists in Residence

The National Park Service, along with the USDA Forest Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service are proud sponsors of the Voices of the Wilderness artist residencies. In addition to the experiences artist recive with other residency programs, artists will work directly with park staff on stewarship projects. Through research, monitoring and educating the public about the wilderness area in which the artist is doing their residency, Voices of the Wilderness aims to strengthen the artist's feelings of stewardship towards the land so they may convey that through the art they create.

Artists-in-residence in the Jay S. Hammond Wilderness within Lake Clark National Park & Preserve will accompany one of our backcountry rangers and/or field biotechs for a 10 day – 2-week wilderness stewardship tour of our coastline and/or interior. They will travel in small planes and will be exposed to a large brown bear population.

At the end of each residency, artists donate a piece of work that highlights the values of our public lands, to be shared with the public.

Learn more about Voices of the Wilderness and how to apply HERE

 

Meet the Artists

Selene Ross; Sound Art and Writing (2024)

Selene Ross is an audio storyteller and writer from Berkeley, California, and a big believer in the power of words and sound. Her audio stories have aired on Radiotopia's The Kitchen Sisters, KALW, NPR, KCRW, and independent podcasts, and her writing appears in Literary Hub and Terrain.org. She was senior audio producer at Dipsea, where she directed voice actors, managed sound-design, and led the development of a new genre of sleep audio. Her Oakland-based musical trio Artemisia features harp, violin, and tight vocal harmonies with a strong Appalachian influence. In both sound and story, her work explores questions of identity set against a rapidly shifting landscape. She has an MFA from Oregon State University where she teaches podcast storytelling and writing.

Cinnamon Dockham; Painter and Multimedia Artist (2024)

Cinnamon Dockham grew up roaming the forests and shores of northern Michigan, which instilled an early passion for the raw beauty and continuous patterns in nature. Over the decades since then, her work with several federal agencies that protect public lands has reinforced and honed that passion. She currently lives in Eagle River, AK, and for nearly 20 years she have lived and worked all over this incredibly beautiful state.

Her art education consists of a 2-year Commercial Art certificate from a career tech school- a program she participated in during high school in the 1980s. The rest of her skills are self-taught and developed over time. As an emerging artist, she has been showing her work publicly for about 7 years. Her wildlife paintings have been displayed in distilleries and coffee shops from Fairbanks to Anchorage, as well as online, and in art galleries and stores in Anchorage, the Denali area, and Sitka, AK. Her painting and multimedia techniques are still growing and developing, which makes her incredibly excited to see what the future holds.

"My desire of this residency is a fresh, new inspiration and insight. I want my art to evoke meaning and inspire dialogue about our planet’s future. This stewardship-based residency may help me get beyond painting "pretty pictures of animals" and help me invent a body of work with more substance that I can share with others in a meaningful way. I am searching for ways to confront issues of climate change, ocean pollution and health, and human impact on remote places in my art. This desire to encourage depth of meaning in my art is what I consider my next step in my development as an artist, and I am grateful to Lake Clark for allowing me the opportunity to expand my boundaries."