Residencies

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Artwork 4

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This painting originated in the Epidemiology Department here at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine! I met with a number of researchers in various departments, but Dr. Rebecca Christofferson’s lab offered me a very cool substrate that I wanted to use: mosquito ovipositioning paper! This paper, as its name suggests, is used by researchers to hatch mosquito eggs for research purposes. It’s an interestingly textured paper, and it has aqua lines on it in two configurations; on each 15x10” piece of paper, there are either two vertical lines 1” and 1.25” inside the border, or there is one line 4” inside (or 6”, depending on your perspective).

I asked what purpose the lines serve (they clearly serve some purpose, whether that be for researchers or as an artifact of the production process), and no one at LSU SVM has been able to tell me. I think that’s pretty funny, as it was my first question and the first question out of several of my artist friends’ mouths as well! Dr. Christofferson did just follow up with me to share the mosquito ovipositioning paper is apparently a repurposed seed germination paper, so I will try to follow that thread to see if I can figure out why the aqua lines exist!

As I shared in a previous journal, I took the photos of these mosquitoes myself. This composition includes two female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, both after a bovine blood meal, and three mosquito eggs to scale with the mosquito depictions. I purposefully integrated cool tones and aqua shadows to tie in the aqua margin lines.

This is Hosts, acrylic on mosquito ovipositioning paper, 15x10”, 2022. It will be window-matted with an overlay of mosquito netting from the epidemiology lab on top of the matboard and framed. I’ll be assembling the frame with the help of my host Rob Carpenter, so I’m excited to see how it all comes together!

My Upcoming LSU Vet Med Artist in Residence Exhibition Details!

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The show poster and details have been released for my LSU School of Veterinary Medicine Artist in Residence exhibition, co-sponsored by the LSU School of Art! Here’s the LSU College of Art & Design’s event page for it, and below is a copy of the image and text.

Artist-in-Residence, LSU School of Veterinary Medicine
July 25, 2022 5:30-7:30 p.m.
LSU Vet Med Library
LSU School of Veterinary Medicine presents the art of Shelby Prindaville, and invites you to a lecture and reception featuring our inaugural Artist-in Residence. The lecture, exhibition opening, and artist’s reception will be at LSU Vet Med Library and is co-sponsored by LSU School of Art.

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Artwork 3 Process

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Here are process photos from Lineage! I first used the debudding tool on a plain basswood panel and then painted over it with white acrylic to make the background. Then I drew out the goat contour, and before I even drew the eyes or snout I then went over the area she’d be painted with molding paste several times to fill in the depressions. I added the eyes and snout and a couple more layers of molding paste, and then began painting!

When I paint, the order of what I do can change depending on the textures involved; I always aim to paint further away first and then foreground last, but in this painting’s case I left the eyes and ears for last as I was painting the goat fur with synthetic bristle brushes. They gave the mark-making I was looking for, but their lack of precision meant that I wanted to get the fur mostly down before I addressed those more tightly detailed areas.

After I finished the painting, I varnished it, and then worked on the halter rope before gluing and clamping it onto the basswood panel.

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Journal 4

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Over the weekend, I had dinner with my good friend Dr. John Pojman and his wife and came into the studio and painted. The following week was mostly focused on my studio practice as well, but there were a few interesting events! The first is that some anatomy folks asked to meet with me, and then after I showed them my studio and its current state of affairs, I followed them back to their lab and nosed around. They had a veritable stockpile of bones, as you might imagine, and also lent me some stain powders which I am excited to explore, though a bit less so now that the methylene blue counter stain has revealed itself to be unstable in coloration… but I still want to see what these others can do, and there’s one made out of lichens that sounds pretty promising.

After sleeping on our conversation, I went back and borrowed a giant bucket full of duplicate bones, as with permission from the school I decided I would create a small body of ceramics with bone impressions for texture. I had been so convinced I would not do ceramics down here though that I didn’t bring any tools along. Thank goodness I got the Morningside University Ver Steeg grant, as I might’ve otherwise balked at the cost of buying new ones! I went to the primary pottery supply store in Baton Rouge and picked up tools, a 25lb bag of white stoneware, and three glazes which I hope to combine together in a way that both accentuates the texture while being reminiscent of bone. We’ll see - I don’t really have time to troubleshoot any part of the glazing, so que será, será.

On Thursday evening, my former graduate faculty member and mentor Kelli Kelley hosted a shindig at her house for me to introduce me to some of her recent MFA alumni and current MFA students. It was really kind of them all to spend this time with me, and I enjoyed seeing Kelli’s studio again - it’s perhaps my platonic ideal of studio. It’s big, has a lot of table space and an extremely high ceiling, and just generally cultivates an air of peaceful, creative energy.

After that gathering I made my way out to dinner with a new friend I made after moseying into Mo’s Art Supply - Emily Seba, a talented illustrator and prop designer who also manages this Mo’s.

The following weekend and beginning of the next week was spent busily crafting a small collection of pinch pots; I have to say that though my new tools are fine, I really miss my Garrity tools. (Buying more would take too long in shipping time though, so I made do with the instantly available ones from Southern Pottery Supply.) I learned that a lot of bones don’t really leave as much in the way of impressions as I’d hoped, but there were a few that served me quite well!

The Advocate Press Coverage

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The Advocate, Louisiana’s largest daily newspaper, publicized my artist residency recently in their article “July 4 band concert and an artist-in-residence at LSU Vet School: the area arts and cultural scene” by staff writer Robin Miller on July 2, 2022! Here’s a link to the piece, and a screenshot of the first paragraph (though there’s more to the article).

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Artwork 3

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The adorable Nigerian Dwarf goat model is named Morticia, and she came into the large animal area in need of a Caesarean section. While she has been waiting for her labor to commence, she posed for me. The ways in which humans and animals coexist in domesticated relationships were inspiration for this piece.

Lineage is a mixed media painting incorporating goat halter rope, debudding tool marks, and acrylic on panel, 13.5x13.5x1.5", 2022.



LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Artwork 2 Process

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As I mentioned in my first post about this painting, the coloration of the background comes from my novel usage of veterinary stains and medicine as art media, and I continued that color palette into the subject as well. However, there was a lot of trial and error in the creation of the background, and a cyan coloration that was produced ended up quickly going almost entirely fugitive (bleached out). I reinforced it with acrylic droplets as a final step, but as the painting continues to age, the background purple coloration is also beginning to fade. I may need to redo the whole background eventually, but right now I am adopting a wait-and-see approach!

This painting has already had a number of failed backgrounds, because two of the chemicals I tried to use for pigmentation clearly did not work from the start. The first I attempted was chlorhexidine, and the second was light green stain from Histology. “Wait a minute!” you might say to yourself. “Those chemicals are still listed in the mixed media!”

You’d be correct - I left them in because I kept sandwiching new chemicals between layers of acrylic medium, and I can’t be sure that some of those initial layers didn’t create the compositional effects that later resulted from the Diff-Quik methylene blue counter stain. That is the chemical that brought both the purple and strong cyan into to the background, but the cyan came from watering down or thinning out the stain and it began going fugitive quickly. The purple stuck around long enough that I thought it was permanent, but now it too is beginning to fade. I’ll continue to update you as to where this painting ends up, in terms of both aesthetics and process!

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Artwork 2

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Here’s my second finished piece from my LSU Vet Med artist residency! I’m still mulling over the title - my current tentative selection is Wild Card, but I’m open to other suggestions.

I’ve met a lot of very cool animals here already, so this is high praise indeed - this is my favorite animal I’ve met thus far. ZooMed has a superstition they observe: you cannot name a wildlife patient, or its health will go downhill. This little fellow therefore doesn’t have a name, but he’s a real character. He has charisma and attitude in spades. When I arrived, he was a nestling and still had these “Einstein” feathers he’s rocking in the below image, but he’s now a fledgling and is getting closer to release every day!

I specifically chose the elongated landscape aspect ratio of this panel as mimicking the dimensions of the pathology slides. The coloration of the background comes from my novel usage of veterinary stains and medicine as art media, and I continued that color palette into the subject as well. However, as you’ll understand more clearly in the process post I’ll make soon, there was a lot of trial and error in the creation of the background, and a cyan coloration that was produced ended up quickly going almost entirely fugitive (bleached out). I reinforced it with acrylic droplets as a final step.

This is a mixed media painting of a wild brown thrasher nestling including Clinical Pathology's Diff-Quik methylene blue counter stain, Histology's light green stain, ZooMed's chlorhexidine antiseptic, and acrylic on basswood panel, 10x20x1.5", 2022.



LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Journal 3

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The following weekend I went to a Baton Rouge Cactus & Succulent Society sale due to a member who passed away and left some of his collection and pottery to the society; in order to make the most of the event they also put some tropicals and leftover bromeliads from the previous weekend’s sale out for purchase as well. I picked up a few nice plants and a large quantity of small ceramic pots as they were selling them for absolutely rock bottom prices - I think I paid a bit less than $1/pot. I also stopped by an estate sale happening nearby and then had some Vietnamese, followed by stopping in at an Vinh Phat Oriental Market and getting lychee! I love fresh lychee (I was a bit sad they didn’t have any mangosteen though). I also visited a friend and neighbor of Sandy’s named Pat who is a big art collector, and it was fun to see her collection and her house in general - it was a beautiful home. She had invited local artist Joy McDonald over too. Her artwork is very playful!

The next work week (June 13-17) I spent more time with the farm animal folks and met a couple more cute goats, visited the wildlife areas (main building and flight cages) quite a few times, and observed some ophthalmology appointments. I also booked a session with epidemiology to photograph mosquitoes, specifically Aedes aegypti. This was a more involved process than I’d have thought, involving first feeding the females a blood meal, popping them into a freezer just to slow them down/stun them, and then tweezing them onto a metal tray partially perched upon ice, which I could move further away from the ice to thaw them out more or push towards the ice if they were getting too mobile. Aedes aegypti are dimorphic; the males only feed on nectar, so their abdomens are quite thin in comparison while their antennae are lusher than those of the female mosquito.

On Friday morning I was interviewed live on KADN News 15! I will post separately if I can find a video clip to share, but it was a short info piece about the fact that I’m the inaugural artist in residence at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, what that’s like, where I’m from, and when my residency exhibition and artist lecture will be occurring.

I also spent a good amount of time in the studio, of course!

Below are photos of my documenting/participating in a red-shouldered hawk’s release, a social media post from the LSU Museum of Art advertising my wares, live mosquitoes on ice (really, even the ones that are upside down), and some anole sightings including a hitchhiker from Florida on a bromeliad, two anoles mating, and the smallest anole I’ve ever seen next to my pointer finger for scale.

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Artwork 1 Process

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I tend to be pretty bad about taking process photos, but I’ve been trying to be more intentional about it for this residency! Here are several images of Fortification in progress, culminating in the finished artwork.

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Artwork 1

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I always aim to capture a sense of place or atmosphere in my residencies, and in this artist residency at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine I have decided to incorporate medicines, pathology and histology stains, as well as veterinary chemicals, tools, and resources into each of my pieces as art media. (I have no idea how archival some will be - particularly how lightfast and stable the pigmentation of the medicines, stains, and chemicals is - but the evolution of how the artworks age will be interesting to witness and document, too!)

As you may already know, I work on multiple pieces of artwork simultaneously, so the first piece I start isn’t always the first to finish. This piece is actually the second one I began! It is of a Mississippi kite which is a beautiful raptor, and there were three here upon my arrival - two wild kites and one that has been habituated as an ambassador or resident raptor. The depicted wild bird is in a defensive stress posture, trying to look as big as possible so as to protect itself from predators.

This artwork incorporates ZooMed's PVP Prep Solution: povidone-iodine 10% topical antiseptic (also known as Betadine) and Integrative Medicine's AcuZone smokeless moxa-rolls for both the background and feet.  There’s also a bit of the Betadine on the eyes over a base of acrylic.

I have titled this piece Fortification, and it is a mixed media painting including the aforementioned veterinary materials as well as acrylic and cornstarch on basswood panel, 20x20x1.5”, 2022.

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Journal 2

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Over that first weekend, I attended the Baton Rouge Bromeliad Society Show & sale, went to a Beatles cover band concert by the Remnants (they did play one CCR song, which is more my jam), listened to the artists’ talks for the Baton Rouge Gallery’s current four-person exhibition, spent some time in my host Rob’s studio (mine still hadn’t been made available to me yet) and took a 4.5 mile walk around University Lake to try out my new camera!

Let me back up. After I agreed to take on this residency, I applied for and was awarded a Morningside University Ver Steeg Faculty Scholarship Grant to help cover associated costs. These include the mundane, like mileage, but also the exciting: a new camera and larger substrates than I have been typically using as well as more paint/mediums.

My old camera is a Sony RX100 II, and I adore it. However, it is eight years old and it’s having ever-more-serious issues; when I wrote the grant application a couple of months ago, I shared that “it is having problems focusing, retracting its lens, and opening and closing its automatic lens cover.” However, it has now also factory-reset itself and then later during a photoshoot the screen showing the previous photo wouldn’t clear and the camera behaved as though I was taking a new photo of the previous photo including trying to adjust focus. It’s not dead yet, but its reliability is heavily faltering.

Eight years is a significantly-above-average lifespan for a digital point-and-shoot camera, and I am a heavy and hard user; this camera has been to the Amazon rainforest, Iceland, and everywhere else I’ve been in the past eight years, and it has put up with internal condensation, ants, and all sorts of environmental conditions. My previous two cameras maybe averaged three years each? So I have a lot of respect for the Sony RX100 series.

My new camera is therefore the Sony RX100 VII. On my test-drive walk around the lake, I took photos in shade, in light, of still objects, of animals, from close range and at distance. Some differences I noted pretty quickly: the zoom appears to be better, and there’s a forced-focus feature. Much like on a cell phone, you can press on the large glass touchscreen view on the back of the camera and force the focus. At first, I was absolutely in love with this feature. I still think I’d elect to have it, but there is a downside; any time you touch the back glass, you’ll set it - even if you don’t mean to touch it at all. Then you have to figure out that it’s been set, and at that point you will need to manually clear it.

When I returned to the vet school on Monday, I was given the keys to the kingdom: my badge which allows me access to my studio as well as all other gated-off areas not for public access, and the door key to the studio itself (a temporarily converted conference room). This week I also met with an epidemiologist specializing in mosquito-borne viruses, wildlife medicine, and integrative medicine. I visited the clinical skills laboratory and the histology labs, spent a bit of time in the farm animal and equine areas, got to watch a red-shouldered hawk release, and began to delve into my studio practice.

In addition, I went out to dinner one evening with my former graduate school professor and mentor Kelli Scott Kelley, and then we took in a jazz concert afterwards!

Also a big thanks to Sandy Sarr, the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine’s Communications Coordinator and my primary point of contact, for documenting my residency so well. I rarely get so many good photos of myself in action!

LSU Vet Med Artist Residency Journal 1

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When I agreed to do this new artist residency at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, my initial assumption was that I’d fly down. However, upon deeper thought, that seemed like it’d be very expensive in that I’d then need to rent a vehicle for two months. I decided I’d instead drive down to Baton Rouge, which is approximately 16.5 hours away from my home in Sioux City.

I broke the drive into three days - on the first day, I finished packing and loaded the car up and then went down to Leavenworth, KS, to visit my very good friend, former colleague, and amazing artist Susan Nelson. The following day, I drove down to Benton, AR, where I had booked an AirBnB ahead of time. Then the final day I made my way to Baton Rouge, LA!

Some observations: It was extremely windy when I left IA (in fact, it was under a tornado watch) and it remained windy until I got south of the KCMO metro. In terms of roadkill, the main species in IA, KS, and most of MO were raccoon followed by possum. Then in southern MO through AR and LA, armadillo was the most common.

I arrived on a Tuesday evening and I met my host: the talented artist Rob Carpenter. He’s a retired art professor from Nicholls State University, and he graciously offered to house me for free in his “auxiliary dwelling unit” or “microtel” as he describes it. It is the smallest space I’ve ever lived in, so it is a novel experience for me. Rob and I then were treated to dinner with Sandy Sarr, the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine’s Communications Coordinator and my initial and primary point of contact.

That following morning, I arrived at LSU Vet Med to get onboarding processes begun and receive some orientation. The next two days were filled with meetings - I met a neuroscientist, an equine surgeon and an equine internal medicine clinician, a DNA researcher, and a clinical pathologist. As a part of these meetings, I explored several laboratories, became relatively familiar with the large animal (equine and farm animal) hospital, and met possibly the world’s cutest two-day-old baby Nubian goat.

In addition, I attended a Baton Rouge Gallery opening for their current exhibition of four members’ work: my host Rob Carpenter, Mary Ann Caffery, Theresa Herrera, and Brian Kelly. It was a hopping reception with a live jazz band, food and drinks, and lively conversation. I had decided to walk there as it was only a 20-minute walk from Rob’s house, and I was reacquainted to the fact that a lot of neighborhoods in Baton Rouge do not have sidewalks.

I also met with the LSU Museum of Art store manager, who looked over the originals and prints I brought down with me, and selected 49 reproductions they’ll put up for sale. While we were doing so, it began do downpour (I forgot how frequently it rains in BR!) so I popped upstairs and checked out the museum itself. By the time I was done, the rain had temporarily ceased and I was able to load back up without getting everything wet in the process.

I'm the Inaugural Invitational Artist in Residence at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine!

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I have extremely exciting news - I have been invited to be the inaugural artist in residence at the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine this summer 2022! This brand new program is the first artist residency at a veterinary school in the United States, and it’s a huge honor to be asked to set the tone. I’ll be completing a two-month residency in June and July, with an exhibition at the end of July as well as a public lecture sponsored by the LSU School of Art.

Below is a screenshot of the email announcement sent out to LSU, and you can check out their webpage about it here.

Whiterock Conservancy New Artwork: Surface

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I just finished my second relief from my Whiterock Conservancy residency earlier this summer! This piece depicts an American bullfrog, Rana catesbeiana syn. Lithobates catesbeianus, floating on the surface of one of Whiterock’s turtle ponds.

Here are a couple of process pictures of the underlying QuickCure Clay relief. I began by sculpting the above-water portions of the bullfrog, and then added patches of algae as well.

After I finished the relief elements, I began to paint! I’m pretty pleased with the end result. I finished this piece with two coats of gloss varnish to contribute to a wet appearance.

This is Surface, 12x16x2”, QuickCure Clay relief and acrylic on basswood panel, 2021.

Whiterock Conservancy New Artwork: Attuned

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This is the first figurative piece I worked on at Whiterock Conservancy - a relief portrait of a small species of frog I found in abundance at the river shoreline. The Blanchard’s cricket frog, Acris blanchardi, is an endangered or threatened species in three states so far and is listed as a "Species of Greatest Conservation Need." It is considered a type of chorus frog, and is one of the smallest species of frogs in Iowa. Surprisingly (to me, at any rate) it is also considered a type of tree frog despite being semiaquatic and therefore not having the toe pads of their arboreal brethren.

As always, I began with a contour line drawing. My goal with this piece was a stylized, squashed relief reminiscent of antique bronze relief doors, so after finishing the drawing I began laying in the QuickCure Clay relief. Here are two process photos showing the beginning of that QCC work.

At this point, I got too involved in the actual creation to pause, so we’ll skip ahead to the finished work! This is Attuned, 14x11x1.35", QuickCure Clay relief and acrylic on basswood panel, 2021.

Attuned by Shelby Prindaville, Whiterock Conservancy 2021 artist in residence.

New Artwork: Whiterock Conservancy 8x8" Chromatograms

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I and my friends gathered many natural materials while on my Whiterock Conservancy artist residency - plant, flower, fungus, bark, lichen, soil, water, rock, and mineral samples - which I then processed into a pigment solution and “printed” on filter paper through chromatography.

I’ve done a version of this before on my BROTA residency with the Buenos Aires Botanical Garden; that time, I used fairly standard scientific 4” rounds and only used one plant species per round for individual portraits that also captured differing seasons within the botanical garden. This time, I sized up to 8x8” squares, and additionally made a handful of larger 23x18” pieces; with these my chromatography features entire ecosystems. This post will display my new 8x8” pieces! The first photo is just a process pic, followed by 19 different chromatograms. (I donated three others to the conservancy, Liz Garst, and the groundskeeper Amanda who shared the tree frog with me.)

I’m really excited by this series and am interested to see how these pieces age in terms of pigmentation going fugitive; I have sealed them and hope they retain their coloration for many years to come, but their likely degradation over time certainly fits with themes in my broader bodies of work about ecological conservation and loss. My Buenos Aires pieces do appear to have lost a little saturation over the past two years, but they still display a good range of color. In that case, each round made use of only one plant species; in this case, since there are mineral and soil components as well, I have hopes that those sections will endure even longer than the plant pigmentation.

Whiterock Conservancy Journal 3

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On the ninth day, we visited the farm again (and I took some photos of a few farm animals and the inside of the historic Garst Farmhouse!) because I wanted to wander around the large and relatively clear Garst Home Pond; I brought the underwater camera I purchased for scuba diving with me and hoped to take some cool fish photos! However, I didn’t think this plan through very well, as I wore my normal tick-prevention gear of long pants and sneakers (sprayed thoroughly with Off! Deep Woods repellent), so I didn’t want to wade in if I could help it. Luckily there were a few spots with large enough rocks at the edge where I could get on top of them and then submerge the camera to capture initially flighty but ultimately curious bluegill fish (Lepomis macrochirus)!

We then stopped off for a wardrobe change and I forded the river with the walking stick this time to harvest some more “blue” clay, which made the whole journey much easier! After this, my last two friends departed, and I was on my own for the rest of the residency.

I spent the whole of the tenth day working on the base drawing and then some of the sculptural elements for a mixed media frog relief.

On the eleventh day, I worked on artwork some more as well as investigated the town of Coon Rapids a bit more - I visited the antique store, the bakery/café, and the Mexican restaurant. I also stopped into Adel, IA, to check out Harvey’s Greenhouse as I’d been told they have multiple greenhouses, with one entire one being devoted to cacti and succulents. In the evening, Liz Garst stopped by and we chatted, I showed her my work thus far, and she tried to tell me of a site she thought I might try for red clay… but when my navigational ineptitude was making it clear I’d never be able to check it out based on her verbal instruction, she then took me on a short Gator ride to physically point to the location!

On the twelfth day, I worked on artwork some more.

The thirteenth day brought a thunderstorm! This was welcome in that the area desperately needs rain, but unwelcome in the sense that I had planned to try to go to the potential red clay site but couldn’t given the weather. I also couldn’t bike either! Instead, I continued to work on artwork and during a pause in the rain took a stroll down to the river beach.

On my last full day, I adventured again! In the morning I took the Gator the same route Liz showed me to try out a different site for red clay; the way becomes impassable by UTV at a certain point, so I had to hike the rest of the way without a trail. This meant wading through grass that in some cases was taller than me, and the ground in some areas was still sodden from the rain! I made it though, only to find it was much the same as the other cliff my friends and I had tried. Ah, well; I gave it my best efforts this go-round and perhaps this unfinished business will call for a future residency here again at some point! I worked on artwork in the afternoon, as the daytime temperatures toward the end of this residency were in the mid-90’s, and in the evening, I biked the Steve Garst trail from the Visitor’s Center into Coon Rapids. Along the way, I passed by a pond that had wild river otter in it! I felt blessed, but also a bit frustrated; I was wearing shorts since I was biking and the very tall grasses, nettles, and other plants surrounding the pond made it impossible to photograph through well but were also not pleasant on the skin as I tried to get closer. I also had a height disadvantage! So the best photographic proof I have is pretty Nessie-level in quality, which also means I don’t have good artwork reference imagery, but it was a really cool experience nonetheless.

The following morning, I packed up all of my artwork and belongings, cleaned the place up, finished my entry in the Whiterock River House Journal (a physical guest book), and headed out in the early afternoon! The final photos in this slideshow are of the River House itself.

Whiterock Conservancy Journal 2

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The fourth day of my residency at the Whiterock Conservancy involved taking the Gator UTV out to the Garst Farmhouse Historic District - a long trip! We saw a coyote for just a moment, and several turkey vultures. There was also a ridiculously friendly miniature donkey at the farm who I enjoyed making the acquaintance of. I didn’t take many photos on this day as I had discovered to my dismay the previous night when attempting to swap out and recharge my very low camera battery that I had somehow managed to overlook packing my charger and spare battery (which was charging in it). I’m still not sure how that happened; it’s one of the most important items to bring along and I’m usually so good at packing! I think it’s a combination of not having traveled much the past year along with a more procrastinated packing approach (admittedly in part due to the proximity of the residency).

I was just beginning to resign myself to needing to drive a round-trip five hour journey to retrieve it when my friends all came together for me and managed to send the charger and spare on their way with a friend who was arriving to join our party that evening. After she got here with my fully charged spare and the charger itself, I was so relieved! We celebrated by going on a five-person evening hike of the Shooting Star Trail. It has a lot of beautiful ferns, and I found two absolutely tiny wild strawberries which I harvested for chromatography purposes.

The fifth day of our residency brought another two of my friends and their children! We set off as a group of eight on a hike of the Pond Hopper Trail with its abandoned log cabin, explored the beach again, and checked out the River House Barn.

On the sixth day, the eight of us hiked the Riverside Trail and explored the 805 Cabin area. We then went on the Templeton Rye distillery tour in nearby Templeton, IA! In the late afternoon, we returned to the beach and I harvested some of the “blue” clay that is a part of the cliffside across the river while a couple of my friends played in the river and were nibbled upon by minnows. To get to the clay, I needed to cross the river, squelch through the very-eager-to-eat-shoes opposite bank, and then climb up a relatively steep cliffside before digging it out and trying not to gather too many rocks, roots, dirt, and other materials in the process. I didn’t get a ton of it - maybe six or seven pounds - as after the vein I was digging became exhausted, the others were all even higher and I thought they were too steep to tackle. Plus I was worried about trying to manage too heavy a weight on the return journey!

It was an even more precarious climb back down with the clay in hand, and crossing the river while laden also proved difficult! I resolved to go a second time and make use of the walking stick in the house to get some more from a bit higher up. The rest of the evening I cleaned most of the clay of rocks, pebbles, sandstone grit, and roots. One of my friends departed to start her own adventure hiking the Loess Hills for four days.

We took it pretty easy on the seventh day in the morning. I had been told that there was both “blue” and red clay in the land trust, but while I was told explicitly where the blue clay could be harvested, the red clay was just an aside. In the afternoon, we went on a Gator adventure to try to see if there was red clay harvestable in this other cliffside we’d seen on the way to the Garst Farmhouse. Unfortunately, when we got up close and started poking, it was all sandstone and solid rock; we managed to harvest about a teaspoon of red clay from one tiny little pocket! Later on I asked the groundskeeper who told me about the red clay where it was located, and he tried and failed to find it as well. He said it’s only harvestable in particular seasons/weather events and it’s just not possible right now.

Late that afternoon my two friends with their children also went back home, so it was just me and my two remaining friends who had arrived at night on the second day. We went on an evening Gator trip to see the final stretch of double track trail that we hadn’t yet explored on the other side of the bridge near the Garst Farmhouse, and were rewarded with a swooping show by a flock of swallows (which was nigh unphotographable due to their speed and size).

On the eighth day, we visited Des Moines as none of the three of us had been there before!

Whiterock Conservancy Journal 1

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On my first day here, I unloaded my car which I had packed with art supplies, groceries, my bicycle, and a small suitcase. I’m staying at the River House, which is a very nice three-story house filled with art and books. I then headed over to Liz Garst’s house - she is the founder of the Whiterock Conservancy - and spoke with her and a couple members of her family for a while before heading back to the River House and testing out the Gator UTV.

The second day I met two of the groundskeepers here, and one - Amanda - took me on a small tour of the prairie loop, the abandoned log cabin and turtle pond loops, and discussed with me some ideas on good pigmentation and animal sighting opportunities. I shared with her that I have had a deep desire to see a wild tree frog for the past few months, and she replied that she sees them occasionally and will keep an eye out. I also rode my bicycle on the main trail loop that goes down through the campground and out past the turtle ponds, and met a couple of very nice women camping on the way! I spotted a number of turtles from afar as well as some frogs, geese, and dragonflies. I also harvested some plants and soil samples with the intent of doing some new chromatography artwork. In the evening, two of my friends joined me as my guests for about a week of my two-week residency!

On the third day, my friends and I ate breakfast together and then took the Gator UTV out for a spin, and I taught one of them how to use it. Then I biked the turtle pond section while they Gatored it, and we met at the top of the hill and hiked the Bluebell Trail together. It took us about 4 hours to get back to the UTV, but that was at a very leisurely pace and we collected a lot of chromatography material along the route! On the way back home, I passed Amanda and stopped to say hello; she remarked that she had seen a tree frog as well as a toad about five minutes previously near a tree and pointed it out. I hopped off my bike and went to search the radius, and I miraculously found the tree frog! He even held really still on the branch he was on while I took him out of the brush and permitted a decent amount of photos before he got froggy on me. That evening we were all invited to cocktails at Liz’s house where she shared more about Whiterock’s mission of conservation and sustainable agriculture as well as her family history - including a visit from Soviet Union premier Nikita Khrushchev during the Cold War to learn about hybrid corn from her grandfather!