2020 Alumni
- Sarah Sheppard | January 3 – 17, 2020
- Michael Fischer | January 17 – 21, 2020
- Zora O’Neill | January 29 – February 12, 2020
2019
Sarah Sheppard
In residence: January 3 – 17, 2020
Sarah Sheppard, born and raised in Metro Detroit, spent five years living and working on the East Coast before returning to Michigan. She earned a BA in English Writing and Literature from Saint Mary’s College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University. A former senior rights manager, she works as a writer, editor, and copywriter.
In her day-to-day work, Sarah helps individuals, writers, and businesses bring their stories to light through collaboration, ghostwriting, copywriting, editing, and proofreading. She writes about health, well-being, relationships, female entrepreneurship, and what it means to be successful.
In her free time, Sarah supports anti-human trafficking efforts, practices yoga, and travels. In 2016, she traveled the U.S. for two months by train. Sarah has taught writing classes on the East Coast and in the Midwest. She was a writer-in-residence at the Gullkistan Artist Residency in 2018 and is working on her first novel.
At Good Hart, Sarah will dedicate her time to short story writing. She loves to write about the questioning of and the struggles with social constructs. Her fiction is often inspired by the people she meets and the places she inhabits. Some of her favorite short story writers are Jhumpa Lahiri, Adam Haslett, Elizabeth McCracken, and James Baldwin.
Sarah looks forward to spending uninterrupted time collaborating with the community, engaging with the beautiful landscape, and focusing on her craft.
Michael Fischer
In residence: January 17 – 21, 2020
In collaboration with: CharEm Integrated School District
Michael Fischer is a Moth StorySlam winner, a Luminarts Cultural Foundation Fellow, and a mentor for incarcerated authors through the Pen City Writers program. His work appears in Salon, The Sun, Brevity, Orion, Guernica, The Rumpus, and elsewhere, and his audio essays have been broadcast on CBC Radio’s Love Me and The New York Times‘s Modern Love: The Podcast.
At Good Hart, Michael will continue working on a memoir-in-essays that deals with his time as a state prison inmate. The manuscript studies the quieter, often overlooked moments that constitute prison life; Good Hart is the perfect environment to look deeply into those moments. As someone who embraces social justice work and the liberating power of creative writing, he’s looking forward to engaging with members of the local community and being inspired by their stories as well.
Zora O’Neill
In residence: January 29 – February 12, 2020
In collaboration with: Harbor Springs Festival of the Book
Raised in New Mexico and now based in Queens, New York, Zora O’Neill studied Arabic literature in college and graduate school. After a decade as a travel writer, she returned to the subject in the memoir All Strangers Are Kin: Adventures in Arabic and the Arab World, which received the Society of American Travel Writers Lowell Thomas Award for best travel book of 2016. Her writing on refugees in Greece, for publications as diverse as Parnassus: Poetry in Review and USA Today, has also earned praise and awards. More broadly, she has written about food, travel and even plumbing for the New Yorker, The New York Times and The Art of Eating.
At Good Hart, Zora will be working on a novel informed by the experiences of contemporary Syrian refugees, as well as the family histories of Greeks and Turks affected by the Population Exchange of 1922-23.
Elsabé Dixson
In residence: May 10 – 24, 2019
In collaboration with Women’s Resource Center of Northern Michigan
Elsabé Dixon is a visual artist focusing on eco and living platforms. Elsabé has exhibited and produced work throughout the United States including the Danville Museum of Fine Art, Danville, VA; Artisphere A.I.R. Center for Contemporary Art, Rosslyn, VA; Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, D.C., The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.; The Textile Museum, Washington DC; The Museum of Contemporary Crafts Pittsburg, PA and the, the A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Dixon has participated in exhibitions in Schönebeck, Germany; the Ghetto Biennial, Haiti; Istanbul, Turkey, as well as Sichuan China.
Dixon most recently showed work at VisArts in Rockville where her exhibition Mise en Place (Part of a larger 13 curator exhibition called Deep Dive: Art and Transformation) and incorporated collaborations with the Great Harvest Bread Company, the Beall Dawson Museum, and the Montgomery County Beekeepers Association. Curator Laura Roulet oversaw the exhibition, a pollinator panel discussion and VisArts facilitated 10 hands-on public workshops.
Elsabé has directed and engaged in multiple cross-disciplinary educational art projects: The Book of Latent Promises Project, a series of collaborative public art projects with George Mason University faculty and the Floating Lab Collective, at the Ghetto Biennial in Port Au Prince, Haiti, and The Living Hive Project, a Multidisciplinary Provost Grant she received in 2016 while working with the GMU Bee Initiatives Program as well as the Smithsonian Mason School of Conservation and the GMU student run MakerSpace (the MIX).
Born in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, Elsabé immigrated to the US in 1985 and currently lives and works in Virginia. Elsabé received her MFA in New Media from The University of George Mason, and BA from University of Averette, VA, where she studied under Maud Gatewood. Elsabé Dixon is the President of the Washington Sculptors Group (a DC based 501 C3 non-profit which serves the local communities in the triad area of MD, DC, and VA.) and Director of the Living Hive Project while teaching studio drawing at George Mason. Dixon also writes for the East City Art Paper.
For more information on Elsabé’s work please see her website: elsabeloubser-dixon.squarespace.com/
Marie Alarcón
In residence: May 29 – June 11, 2019
In collaboration with Harbor Inc. and The Loft Coworking Space
Marie Alarcón is a multimedia artist with a focus on video and sound, based in Philadelphia, PA. She has a B.A. in Non-Fiction Filmmaking and Post Colonial Studies from The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA, and a Masters of Fine Arts with a Certificate in Time Based Media, from the University of Pennsylvania, School of Art and Design. Alarcón has worked in community media as an educator and producer since 2006 and currently works at PhillyCAM, the Public access television station in Philadelphia, PA, as their Production Coach.
Alarcón’s art works focus on environmental spaces and the silent historical relationships embedded in the geography, often through sound collage and movement. As a multi-medium artist, they create music/sound design, video art, and performance. Inspired by liminality, hybridity and the way that cinema functions as collective memory, they use digital manipulation and animation in their work, with an interest in digital/analog hybrids that reclaim a tactile relationship to the hyper-real. Her relationship to environment and place is informed by psychogeography, and notions of place and its production. With a focus on the problematic of communication, she continuously asks “how do we express the invisible in a culture of visible evidence?” and “In what ways can technological innovations begin to bridge the experiential gap between ourselves and others?”
For more information on Marie’s work please see her website: mariealarcon.com
Sizhu Li
In residence: June 14 – 28, 2019
In collaboration with Crooked Tree Arts Center
Sizhu Li is a New York based multi-disciplinary artist, originally from China, Sichuan province. She is always fascinated by constructing immersive installations based on her understandings towards human society, nature and universe. This interest was largely cultivated during her college time at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, where she obtained her BFA in illustration in 2016. After two years, her MFA was obtained in Mt. Royal, a multi-disciplinary program in Maryland Institute College of Art. She also graduated as the Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship awardee, the largest graduation fellowship for academic excellence. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Beijing, Baltimore and New York.
Artist statement
I construct magical worlds in my work. With everyday work-place objects, I swirl together themes of energy, humility, science, environment, and home to create an enchanting experience. A humorous quality blended with blue emotions are embedded in my art: I treat materials as characters; moreover, with binary-coding controls, simple movements are repeating endlessly. My research combines ancient philosophy and modern technologies to craft a form of futurism. My installations and sculptures are kinetic: using basic coding and sensors, the work interacts with its viewers and the space around it.
I believe the order of our world exists in a binary mode, with every corner maintaining the balance of Yin-Yang. This correlates to the binary language involved in the coding of my work. In Chinese philosophy, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of Yin and Yang and formed into objects and lives. Visualizing the balance of forces, energy cycles through my personal emotions, thus prompting me to create immersive 4-D images—ones designed to inspire viewers to rethink their lives.
Andrea Novak
K-12 Art Educator Residency
In residence: July 31 – August 14, 2019
“I have always enjoyed stories about the lives people live – those so fanciful they become movies, myths/legends and those based on the simple behaviors that make us human.”
Andrea Simons-Novak is a storyteller who works in oil, acrylic, watercolor and bias-relief assemblage mediums. Her work reflects a dramatic “still” in time used by Baroque artists and the combination of classical and contemporary objects and symbols of the Surrealists. The Michigan native enjoys exploring the correlation between human and animal behaviors and expressions observed in nature by staging animals, primarily birds, as characters in her paintings. These figures communicate as the human figure would but in a much more elegant, intriguing, and less obvious manner.
Novak has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Michigan with a concentration in oil and watercolor painting (1995). She studied a semester abroad in Florence, Italy where she was immersed in plein-air landscape watercolor painting and art history. She also holds a Master of Art degree from Eastern Michigan University with a focus in Painting (2003). She has exhibited as a visiting artist at various galleries in Michigan including the Washington Street Gallery in Ann Arbor, the Lawrence Street Gallery in Ferndale, the Ford Gallery in Ypsilanti, and the Main Branch Gallery in Grayling.
Novak has practiced as a K-12 Visual Art Educator for 22 years, the last 19 of which have been with the Walled Lake Consolidated School District where she has taught art to kindergarten to fifth grade students. In addition to delivering visual art instruction, Novak also has developed visual art curriculums (for both the Walled Lake and South Lyon School Districts), units of study, and assessments. In addition, she holds a district representative position on the Oakland County Fine Arts Advisory Council, has coordinated and taught the Walled Lake Visual Art Camp, been the K-12 Student Art Exhibition Coordinator, and has frequently presented at the Michigan Art Education Association annual conferences. She obtained her teaching certification from Saginaw Valley State University (1998). She received Newsweek’s-WDIV Outstanding Teacher Award (2000) and Mary Helen Guest Elementary Teacher of the Year (2007-2008).
For more information on Andrea’s work please see his website: andreasimons-novak.blogspot.com
Emma Steinkraus
In residence: August 16 – 30, 2019
Emma Steinkraus is a visual artist, Assistant Professor of Fine Art at Hampden-Sydney College, and a founding editor of Company Editions, a journal for contemporary poetry and art. She holds degrees from Williams College and the University of Iowa, where she earned an MFA in Painting in 2016. Raised by scientists in the Arkansas Ozarks, she grew up keeping insects, identifying plants, and cultivating prairie habitat. Those early experiences now manifest in a commitment to exploring the complex ways ecology, society, and personal history weave together. Her work has received numerous awards including an Iowa Arts Fellowship, a Steamboat Scholarship at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the year-long support of a Hubbard Hutchinson Memorial Fellowship. She has previously attended residencies at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Pajama Factory, and Cow House Studios Ireland.
Steinkraus makes paintings and immersive installations that tell personal stories about the environment. One recent exhibition paired portraits set in the Arkansas Ozarks with a grow station for local plants, a handmade solar oven, live mushrooms, and a “foraging jacket” that functioned as a wearable field guide. Another exhibition displayed paintings of animals against a backdrop collaged out of photographs of degraded landscapes. Her current project mines archives to attend to the contributions of nearly a hundred early female artist-naturalists. Across media, her work is research-driven and marked by its vulnerability and attention to detail.
Her work can be found at www.emmasteinkraus.com and you can follow her on
instagram at @emmasteinkraus.
Dani Knoph
Local Artist Spotlight Residency
In residence: August 31 – September 7, 2019
Dani Knoph is an artist, writer, and advocate for fish & wildlife conservation in Michigan. She launched Dani Knoph Wildlife Studio in 2017 and co-founded ReWild Michigan in 2018. Her 2019 art collection features intricate watercolor illustrations of declining aquatic species in Northwest Michigan. Archival prints of her artwork can be found at specialty shops and galleries. In 2017, Dani joined a statewide effort to reintroduce Northern Michigan’s once predominant native salmonid species, known as the Arctic Grayling. She is part of the fund development team for Michigan’s Arctic Grayling Initiative.
In 2017, Dani was asked to write a feature story about Arctic Grayling restoration for Traverse Magazine. Research led her down a rabbit hole through Michigan’s pre-conservation past. Historical records and photography of the late 1800s revealed a grim period of forests cleared of all trees, barren river banks, displaced Native Americans, and declining native wildlife. Learning about this era of mass habitat destruction inspired her to learn about the current state of Northern Michigan’s native species. That’s when a friend introduced her to Michigan’s Wildlife Action Plan, a statewide framework to coordinate conservation for wildlife and habitats by working together toward shared goals—a plan that outlines more than 300 species of great conservation need. She felt called to learn more about this wildlife crisis, meet the people involved and help raise awareness.
Dani received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Michigan and studied painting at the Glasgow School of Art. She and her husband Gerard call Elk Rapids home. They are avid cross-country skiers, gardeners, and hikers. Exploring Northern Michigan rivers by canoe is a favorite, as well as traveling to art shows along the Great Lakes coast. They are inspired by many organizations and people who are dedicated to restoring native wildlife and taking care of the land and water in Northern Michigan. These activities and passions have introduced them to a world of purpose and a wonderful sense of community.
PROCESS
Dani’s work begins with a wildlife species of interest and a blank sheet of Arches watercolor paper. She researches, talks with biologists who work with the species, and then begins to draw. She works with old fashioned nib pens and Speedball ink to map out the overall structure and texture observed in photographic references. She then works with fine round brushes to layer transparent watercolor washes in an effort to capture the spirit of natural beauty and wonder. Each illustration is a tribute to its species and the never-ending pursuit of protecting the wild.
For more information on Dani’s work please see his website: www.daniknoph.com
Meagan Lucas
In residence: September 20 – October 4, 2019
In collaboration with Harbor Springs Festival of the Book
Meagan Lucas is originally from St. Joseph Island, Ontario, but now lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina with her husband and two children. She is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University (BA History), Ferris State University (M.Ed. Curriculum and Instruction), and Southern New Hampshire University (MA English and Creative Writing). She teaches English Composition at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, and is the Fiction Editor at Barren Magazine. For fun: she haunts bookstores, walks beaches, murders houseplants slowly, and reads.
Meagan’s recent short fiction appears in: The Santa Fe Writer’s Project, The Same, The New Southern Fugitives, and Still: The Journal. She won the 2017 Scythe Prize for fiction and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her debut novel, Song Birds and Stray Dogs is forthcoming Summer 2019.
You can read more at: meaganlucas.com
Facebook: @meaganlucasauthor
Twitter: @mgnlcs
Meagan plans to use her time in Good Hart to complete a novel in progress: Mercy explores the way that legacies haunt families, and addresses the role of the poverty and the church in small town Appalachia. Meagan looks forward to reconnecting with old friends, meeting new ones, and partnering with and participating in Harbor Springs Festival of the Book.
Timothy E. Bradley
In residence: October 5 – 26, 2019
In collaboration with Little Traverse Conservancy
Timothy E. Bradley received a BA in Literature from Yale University and an MFA in Fiction from Hunter College. At Hunter he was a 2016 Hertog Fellow and received the Wendell Stacy Johnson Award for Outstanding Scholarship in 19th or 20th Century English Literature. In addition to writing fiction, he has over a decade of experience researching and publishing for advocates and activists on social justice issues, economic inequality, and climate change. He was raised in St. Louis, Missouri and lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts.
Timothy’s literary work explores a variety of topics including failure, displacement, queerness, and our evolving relationships to nature and technology. He is currently working on a short story collection and a novel, which tells the story of an aging gay couple and the mysteries they encounter late in life. During his time at Good Hart, Timothy will develop and revise new material for these projects and collaborate with the Little Traverse Conservancy.
Susan Moss
In residence: May 11 – 25, 2018
In Partnership with Women’s Resource Center of Northern Michigan
Susan Moss has an MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Nebraska. She has been drawing since a child. Much of her work has focused on large-scale drawings that explore domesticity, memory, and the ordinary as recurring themes. Several years ago she took up the study of historic and contemporary textiles and began using stitch, especially hand embroidery, as a way of drawing. Her work has been exhibited regionally and nationally in over eighty venues. Moss teaches contemporary textile art and all levels of drawing in the Department of Art & Design at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO.
About her work:
Stitched marks and lines meander, coalesce, or nervously bob across the surface, describing a world where domestic objects, vegetation, and birds reside (or die) together. These hand-stitched drawings emerge from a desire to draw with thread, to locate a drawing aesthetic in textile work, capturing the sense of immediacy and improvisation associated with drawing. They also explore connections between domesticity and the natural world, at times collapsing distinctions between inside and out.
My work is quiet and might be considered lacking in skill. However, I think that its simplicity, casualness, seemingly accidental nature are strengths, and that these aspects can engage viewers and makers in an open, unthreatening way. My approach to stitch looks like something that anyone could do. And, it’s true! Most anyone could! What I enjoy most about stitch is working without concern for technical perfection, in more spontaneous ways.
For more information on Susan’s work please see her website: susanmmoss.com
Mami Takahashi
In residence: June 16 – 30, 2018
In Partnership with Crooked Tree Arts Center
Mami Takahashi is a Japanese interdisciplinary artist, who integrates traditional and contemporary approaches in ideas, methods, and media to address perspectives on foreignness and Americanness. As a non-native English user and recent immigrant to the US, she incorporates her awkwardness in new culture, and often her clumsy English usage into visual practices. She shares the struggle non-native English speakers face when communicating with first-language American speakers, and the limits imposed through these interactions. Takahashi uses multiple methods of art making such as painting, craft-making, digital video, performance, language-base works, and audio, frequently creating large scale installations that explore the boundaries in the social norms between cultures.
As a nation historically struggling with its diversity problems, the U.S. offers a unique
perspective on the relationship between native English speakers and an increasing immigrant population. She believes that art re-ritualizes the everyday to reveal something about our lives.
For more information on Mami’s work please see her website: mamitakahashi.virb.com
Steven Walker
In residence: August 3 – 17, 2018
Steven Walker biography
“ I didn’t come from a family of artists, I wasn’t top of my class or win a lot of awards but I’ve always had a strong work ethic and the passion to work on my craft.”
Born in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and raised in Richmond, Virginia he discovered his love for art at a very early age. With little interest in anything else, Steven took the next big step towards his pursuit of a career in art when he earned his bachelor’s degree in fine arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. He would later earn his masters in fine arts from Marywood University, where he also met his wife/ fellow artist Evelyn.
Instant success was not in the cards as Steven continued showing at a string of coffee shops, libraries and other businesses. Eventually, his hard work paid off with a few local awards that soon caught the attention of two gallery owners. Since his venture into gallery life, his landscapes have been well received by collectors as his paintings are part of several private collections such as Airstream Inc., Hilton Hotels, the Boy Scouts of America, Dominion Resources, Virginia State Department, the National Parks Service, the Columbus Convention Center and the United States Air Force.
Since going full time as an artist in 2008, Steven has been included in several local and national juried competitions including the Richeson 75 Landscape Competition, Plein Air Salon, the International Salon Competition, the Oil Painters of America Salon and the Art Renewal Center. Steven also had the privilege of being a part of a statewide traveling exhibition with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
He has participated in several artist in residency programs in Michigan, Indiana, Iowa and Colorado. In 2014, he was selected to create the Ohio Governor’s Art Awards by the Ohio Arts Council and in 2015 he received honorable mention in the Southwest Art Magazine’s Artistic Excellence Competition.
Steven currently resides in Hahira, Georgia where he continues to work hard on the advancement of his career, with the assistance of his lovely wife Evelyn and studio assistant/daughter Poppy. Currently, his work is represented in Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Oklahoma and Washington, D.C.
“I should have quit years ago but that would have proven so many people right.” – SW
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Statement
For more information on Steven’s work please see his website: stevenwalkerstudios.com
Bryna Cofrin-Shaw
In residence: September 21 – October 5, 2018
In Partnership with Little Traverse Conservancy
Bryna Peebles Cofrin-Shaw is originally from Northampton, Massachusetts, and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is a graduate of Brown University (BA Environmental Studies) and Hunter College (MFA in Fiction). In addition to writing and teaching, Bryna is an amateur bread-maker, moose lover, and competitive cyclist.
Bryna plans to use her time at Good Hart working on a novel-in-stories that grapples with intimate politics and queer family-building, as well as the interplay of ecology, climate psychology and sexuality. She plans to spend as much time as she can in the varied, splendid habitats of northern Michigan, and to allow these landscapes to shape and infect her creative work, especially as she considers the relationship between human and environmental traumas. She looks forward to collaborating with the Little Traverse Conservancy, and taking part in the Harbor Springs Festival of the Book during her time as a Good Hart Artist-in-Residence this September.
BILL HOSTERMAN
In residence: May 12 – June 9, 2017
In partnership with: Crooked Tree Arts Center
Bill Hosterman is a tenured Associate Professor in the Foundation Department at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, MI. He received his B.A. in Printmaking from Pennsylvania State University, and his M.F.A. in Printmaking from Indiana University. Hosterman channels his creativity into drawings that he hand-paints with watercolors.
From May 12 – June 9, Hosterman will come north from Coopersville, MI to enjoy and be inspired by Good Hart’s natural environment, and explore relationships between humans, nature, and culture.
“I make artwork about relationships – between land and water, and nature and human progress. Through my personal experiences and research into the habitat, landscape and human history of an area, I create images that explore how nature defines humans and they, in turn, define nature. I will use the specific landscape and flora and fauna of the [Good Hart] area as the subject matter for my drawings.”
Hosterman has participated in solo and group exhibitions across the country and overseas, and he has attended artist residencies in Gatlinburg, TN, Ontonagon, MI, and Sheridan, WY.
“For this project, I will be employing a similar strategy at the Crooked Tree Arts Center’s Artist in Residency Program to one that I used during my three-week artists’ residency at The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There, I worked with scientists and park staff at the Twin Creeks Science and Education Center to discover the ways in which the park has changed over time in relationship to the human impact. The piece I am in the process of completing for this project is an examination of the connection between human-made light and its effects on the life of the park.”
CTAC Workshop: On Monday, June 5 from 10:00 AM – 12:00 noon, Bill will present the hands-on workshop, Working in Layers: Combining Pen, Watercolor and Other Media to Create an Image. Tuition for this workshop will be $10 for CTAC members and $15 for non-members. Advanced registration is preferred.
For more information on Bill’s work please see his website – billhostermanprints.com
AMANDA HAMILTON
In residence: August 4 – 18, 2017
In partnership with: Crooked Tree Arts Center
Amanda Hamilton has been on staff at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN as Associate Professor of Art since 2013. She received her B.S. in Drawing and Painting from Biola
University, and also has her M.F.A. in Painting from Claremont Graduate University. Hamilton’s artistic outlets take the form of drawings and paintings, but she has also spent time creating video works.
From August 4 – 18, Hamilton will take a break from her normal routine in Minneapolis, MN to experience Good Hart, MI and further delve into her current theme of darkness and illumination.
While at the Crooked Tree Arts Center my greatest intent is to be present, still, quiet and, perceptive. I intend to make paintings and drawings as well as exploring the possibility of video in relation to my current painting practice. I would [also] like to make a trip to explore the Headlands International Dark Sky Park. I have been working with darkness for the last two years and time at the Dark Sky Park would provide a unique experience available almost nowhere else in the U.S.
Hamilton works with oil and acrylic paints on both paper and stretched canvas. Her work sometimes takes the appearance of a scenic landscape, and other times, emphasizes loose gesture, rough marks, tension and illusion with a much more abstract result. She has been exhibiting in solo and group shows since 2001, and has been a presenter, guest lecturer, and has been the recipient of Artist Residencies in Boise, ID, Johnson, VT, and Idyllwild, CA.
“I have been fortunate to do some residencies over the last decade and I find the experience of being alone, in an unfamiliar environment, stimulates my ability to be focused and thoughtful in a way that feeds my practice for years after.”
CTAC Artist in Residence Talk: On Monday, August 14 at 10:00 a.m, Amanda Hamilton will present a talk entitled, Darkness and Subject/and or Object addressing the recent evolution of her work. This event is free and open to the public.
For more information on Amanda’s work please see her website: amandahamiltonart.com
Joanna Hoge
In residence: May 16 – 30, 2016
In partnership with: Crooked Tree Arts Center
Joanna Hoge currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri and will be spending two weeks in northern Michigan in May. Joanna has studied at Université de Poitiers in Poitiers, France, she has her B.A. in Studio Art and French from Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, and she is currently working toward her M.F.A. with a specialization in Drawing from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Illinois. Joanna finds inspiration in the complexity of the human body – its aesthetic beauty, it’s incredible mechanistic functioning, and its role as a vehicle of the self. Her work is predominately comprised of printmaking and drawings, and she incorporates hand-made paper and thread into her compositions by means of tearing, layering, and embroidering into the fibers. Her techniques allow her to study the intricacies of the body and mind, and how they relate to one another.
As someone interested in the narratives of the physical body, I would like to approach the area surrounding Good Hart through its own body: its flora and fauna, its forests and farms, and its lakeside beaches. My practice involves questioning aspects of embodied experience and examining how shifts in emotional state impact the body. I am curious to continue this line of questioning in Emmet County by looking at how its locational specificity impacts my own experience. It is my intention to translate these observations through a combination of thread and ink on paper.
For more information on Johanna’s work please see her website – joannahoge.com
Linda Harvey-Opiteck
In residence: August 5 – 19, 2016
In partnership with: Crooked Tree Arts Center
Fiber artist Linda Harvey-Opiteck, will be taking a short sabbatical from life in Saratoga Springs, New York to visit Good Hart and be inspired by a completely different landscape. Linda has a B.S. in Art/Art History from Western Michigan University and her M.S. in Historic Preservation Administration from Eastern Michigan University.
This fall I created several felted pieces for a show at a museum in the Adirondack Mountains with the theme “How Do You See the Forest”. I absolutely fell in love with my creations all centered around the beauty of the outdoors in all seasons. From the splendor of sparkling snow, the calmness of summer trees to the vibrancy of the yellow and oranges of the fall. I would spend my residency continuing to work on this outdoor theme using the beauty of northern Michigan as my subject.
Michael Marks
In residence: May 8 – 22, 2015
In partnership with: Crooked Tree Arts Center
Printmaker, Michael Marks has decided to venture from Maine into the northern Midwest in the name of art and “the lake”. Having lived in Cleveland, OH, and with ties to Wisconsin, Marks has spent time around the Great Lakes, which have intrigued him for years, and still do. Having an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Delaware, and having been affiliated with multiple presses across the country, Marks is ready to push pause on his professional life and immerse himself in new surroundings.
“The residency…[will] allow me the time and space to step away from what I comfortably know about myself in the studio, and to find new inspiration to funnel into my artwork from the surrounding landscape and the community around Petoskey.”
With a desire to explore the idea of “the lake”—it’s boundaries and pervasiveness, the effect it has on the land and those living near it, Marks plans to conceptualize “the lake” in his work during his time in the north. He plans to share his residency experience with Good Hart, and the surrounding local communities. Marks also intends to bring back his findings to the creative community in Maine.
Using drawing, collage, and printmaking, my artwork is an attempt to disassemble and reassemble my experiences within landscape, emphasizing the space between narrated memories and observable representations of nature. I strive to search within the margins of the landscape, its contours and layers, interrogating space in both its physical fact and my recollection thereof. This transposition from physical travel to a work on paper acts as a documentation of my interactions with the landscape (hiking, backpacking, fly fishing) and interprets the water, mountains, and weather taken from my observations.The mark making, layering, and color in my artwork creates anchor points of events, passages of time that coalesce into a single image that resonates with both my involvement and my estrangement from the environment. Ultimately, I wish to create an image that exists somewhere between the individual and the landscape.
For more information on Mike’s work please see his website – mikemarksarts.com
Amanda Boyd
In residence: July 31 – August 14, 2015
In partnership with: Crooked Tree Arts Center
Graphic Designer at Doudna Fine Arts Center of Eastern Illinois University, Amanda Boyd embraces the challenge of interacting and connecting with a new community and environment during her CTAC Artist Residency. Working away from home with new people may bring about different perspectives, enhancing her own perceptions of nature—her inspiration.
“Moving to a new community, even for a short amount of time, opens the mind to new possibilities and a lot of knowledge, experience and connections are yet to be gained.”
Having recently graduated with her MFA from Eastern Illinois University, Boyd is eager to show her processes and techniques to the art world. This opportunity in Good Hart is perfect for cutting her teeth on being a resident artist. Being surrounded by the Northern Michigan nature and environment will fuel her new projects because it is nature and the emotions it instils in Boyd that allow her to create.
In my experience, the wilderness leaves me to feel vulnerable, and in conjunction with the darkness of night, this brings a new level of fear. It’s as though I have become only a speck within the immersive and densely populated woods that consume me. This psychological view of nature is what drives my creative process, allowing me to recall these emotions and create a space of my own. Through the use of materials like charcoal, chalk pastels, and soot, I frantically build my image, layering these different mediums, then return to these layers and remove areas by erasing the surface and excavating the image. The seductive use of materials and mark making allow each drawing to read as both celestial and earthbound; an interesting dichotomy of environmental exploration.
My intent is to let the mind lose control and confront the chaos; as the eye wanders, the viewer becomes lured into the depths of the mysterious darkness provoking the individual to become lost within themselves.
For more information on Amanda’s work please see her website – amandaboyd.weebly.com
Kirsten Furlong
In residence: September 25 – October 9, 2015
In partnership with: Crooked Tree Arts Center
Solo and group exhibitionist, Instructor, Professor, Lecturer, Commissioned Artist, Gallery Director of the Visual Arts Center at Boise State University – Kirsten Furlong has quite the list of titles and experiences within the art world. And now she’ll be adding another to her extensive resume. With a varied and detailed journey behind her, Furlong has laid out a plan of experimentation for her time in Good Hart.
“I plan to work with a variety of materials and processes including drawing, painting, photography, stitching/embroidery and printmaking on paper, canvas and felt. Processes and images will be led by exploration of the area and research into the local flora, fauna and landscape.”
Earning her MFA at Boise State University with a concentration in painting and printmaking, Furlong currently works at the university as Gallery Director. Having focused on specific disciplines hasn’t pigeon-holed Furlong or her creativity – thread works, felt pieces, installation and public art, and garments for animals all fall under her pursuits. Furlong’s focus as of late has been on nature and the relationships between humans and animals.
My current artistic practice engages with a series of questions about our culture’s multifaceted relationship to nature and the geography of human/animal interactions in urban and wilderness settings. These inquiries are utilized to contemplate various issues about the natural world and the concept of representation of animals, the landscape, and the environment. I create artworks based on first-hand observations in the natural world and internal responses to objects, illustrations, and texts about various species. In the work, animals serve as emblems of nature and as metaphors for human desires.
I employ a series of visual strategies including linear detail, repetition, and patterns inspired by those seen in various species. Additional ideas and visual sampling comes from the cultural, scientific, and historical models used to describe various environments, animals, and plants.
For more information on Kirsten’s work please see her website – kirstenfurlong.com
Kalina Winska
In residence: May, 2014
In partnership with: Crooked Tree Arts Center
Kalina Winska was in northern Michigan for two weeks in May. She has a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Florida in Gainesville and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Art/Design, Wroclaw, Poland. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Valdosta State University in Georgia. “When creating my art, I draw inspiration from observable natural phenomena, living systems, and their formation on a micro and macro scale.… During my (residency) I plan on developing and exploring the ideas of drawing and materiality in relation to nature as well as the space and place through a combination of both drawings and paintings.”
For more information on Kalina’s work please see her website – kalinawinska.com
Lindsey Dunnagan
In residence: August 2014
In partnership with: Crooked Tree Arts Center
Lindsey Dunnagan, a recent graduate of Texas Women’s University with a Masters Degree in Fine Arts, immersed herself in her art during her residency in Good Hart in August. Lindsey “navigates ideas of interconnection, place, and identity through visual mapmaking. … The technique of layering paint and ink on paper blurs and reveals parts of the composition and allows for an abstract view into the mind.”
For more information on Lindsey’s work please see her website – lindseydunnagan.com
