Date: March 15, 2017
Contact: Teri Paul, 970-529-4642
Contact: Cristy Brown, 970-529-4608
The 2017 Mesa Verde National Park Artists in Residence (AIR) have been selected. Each artist will offer a free public program in the park during their residency. Watch the park's 2017 Artists in Residence web page for details on date, time and place of public programs closer to the time of the residency noted below.
Larry Hughes of Memphis, Tennessee works primarily in watercolor, drawing media, and oil. With roots in Arizona and California, his primary artistic interests are western wilderness areas, particularly national parks, where he hikes trails and works plein air. He has been Artist in Residence in several national parks including Zion National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, and Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Larry will be in residence at Mesa Verde from May 1-13.
Brad Bachmeier is an award winning ceramicist from Fargo, North Dakota. He is the recipient of over 40 regional, national, and international awards, and he has served on the National Governor’s Association Commission for the Arts along with First Lady Michelle Obama. Brad Bachmeier has spent the past 24 years researching and creating work that centers around the idea of honoring mankind’s ancient and universal partnership with clay. You may view more of his work at Bachmeierpottery.com. Brad will be in residence May 15-27.
Photographer Christopher Eaton hails from Grand Junction, Colorado. As a fine art photographer, his primary goal is to capture the essence of the natural and cultural history of the landscape. At Mesa Verde, his focus will be on documenting the night skies through still and time-lapse photography. Mesa Verde National Park is well situated in the Four Corners region to offer dark night skies. The Ancestral Puebloan people inhabited the mesa for hundreds of years. Though impossible to document the exact night sky they experienced, the dark sky conditions found on the Colorado Plateau offers an opportunity to come close. See more of his work at www.PinyonRidgePhoto.com. Christopher will be in residence September 4-16.
Painter Carol Chamberland of Albuquerque, New Mexico draws inspiration from the landscape of the Southwest. The history of human occupation in these demanding lands is another factor in her compositions. Mesa Verde National Park brings both sources of inspiration together. No stranger to southwest Colorado, she was Artist-in-Residence at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in 2012. The Albuquerque Art Business Association named her a Local Treasure for 2012. In 2013, she was Artist in Residence at Petrified Forest National Park. In 2015, the New Mexico State Historic Preservation Office honored her with an Individual Achievement award for her work in preserving ancient rock art. Carol is currently president of the Albuquerque Archaeological Society. Carol will be in residence September 18-30.
Photographer Kit Frost of Durango, Colorado will join us for the final residency, October 2-14. She works with film and digital cameras, digital video, 35mm, and medium and large format cameras. Kit believes that the photograph is not made by the camera, but by the vision of the photographer. Through visually translating Mesa Verde, she hopes to gain and share a deeper understanding of the park and its ancient residents. She plans to capture the texture and light, inspired by ancient architecture and natural landscape of the park, and to meet the challenge of recording the same expansive views experienced by the Ancestral Pueblo Culture over 800 years ago.
Mesa Verde National Park’s Artist in Residence (AIR) program provides professional artists the opportunity to become part of a long established tradition of artists creating art in our national parks. The AIR program is managed by the park’s nonprofit cooperating association, the Mesa Verde Museum Association. This year’s artists were selected from over 45 applicants by a jury of five people, consisting of the Chief of Interpretation, MVMA staff and three professional artists. Learn more at www.nps.gov/meve/getinvolved/artists_in_residence.htm and at www.mesaverde.org.
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