A Year-End Message from Executive Director Joe Engel In 1851, ten years before the Civil War, 22-year-old Carleton Watkins left Oneonta, New York and headed west to seek his fortune after hearing about the discovery of gold in California. After a long journey across the breadth of...
PRESERVED! Artist Interview Series Eleanor Iorio is this year’s Preserved! Youth Ambassador. She has grown up surrounded by art, and at 17 years old, she has spent much of her life experimenting in different mediums. Her focus is needle-felted fiber landscapes. [caption id="attachment_15953" align="alignright" width="237"] Eleanor Iorio[/caption] Iorio learned...
PRESERVED! Artist Interview Series Sally Jenks has carried an appreciation of nature with her from a young age. She grew up in a rural environment where the solace of nature was never too far out of reach. Now, Jenks resides in the middle of Grand Rapids, and...
PRESERVED! Artist Interview Series There is magic in the landscape. How it is experienced is individual to the beholder, but everyone can find it. Kathy Mohl is driven to translate the magic she sees through her painting. Mohl has participated in all three editions of the Land Conservancy’s...
PRESERVED! Artist Interview Series Teresa O’Brien grew up immersed in art and aesthetic. Her childhood home in St. Louis, Missouri, was filled with paintings done by her grandfather, an architect by profession and a watercolorist by passion. “Creativity was part of what I lived and breathed,” O’Brien said. [caption...
The following post is from Preserved! artist Thomas Hegewald. Learn more about the Preserved! program and purchase tickets to the gallery openings this fall here. By Thomas Hegewald I had a plan this summer. Since becoming acquainted with The Highlands last summer, and thus the Land Conservancy...
PRESERVED! Artist Interview Series Justin Kellner grew up in Menominee, Michigan—a small town on the southern tip of the Upper Peninsula. Up there, wild, natural views are within easy reach. “You can walk two blocks and be next to a river, you can go swimming, you can...
PRESERVED! Artist Interview Series Jane Everhart’s depictions of the landscape marry the worlds of art and language. The story of how Everhart arrived at this technique is not necessarily a straightforward path. “It’s about finding voice, and sometimes that’s just not direct,” Everhart said. In high school and...
For the past eight months, 16 artists with ties to West Michigan have been visiting natural areas protected by the Land Conservancy. Using diverse approaches, these painters, photographers, ceramicists and fiber artists have crafted pieces capturing the vibrant natural surroundings found in the protected lands....
For the past eight months, 16 artists with ties to West Michigan have been visiting natural areas protected by the Land Conservancy. Using diverse approaches, these painters, photographers, ceramicists and fiber artists have crafted pieces capturing the vibrant natural surroundings found in the protected lands....