Date: June 22, 2009
Contact: Sheila Edridge, 530-396-2353
The National Park Service at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area will host four artists from New York this summer as part of its Artist-in-Residence Program. Stephanie Schmidt, a landscape photographer from New York City, will visit Whiskeytown in early July. Raymond Ghirardo and Megan Roberts of Ithaca, New York will visit Whiskeytown for almost a month, from mid July to mid August. Olive Ayhens, a 2007 Artist-in-Residence, from Brooklyn, New York, will return to Whiskeytown in late August to do a special project on the summit of Shasta Bally.
Stephanie Schmidt, a landscape photographer has done extensive photographic shoots at National Parks from Acadia to Yosemite. Stephanie has exhibited at the New York Hall of Science, Rockefeller State Park Preserve, and Druids in New York City to name a few. Raymond Ghirardo, a sculptor and media artist, has worked collaboratively with Megan Roberts in sculpture, installation, video, and performance for the last 30 years. They have received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Experimental Television Center. Their work has been widely exhibited and screened nationally and internationally, most recently in Finland, Anchorage, and Seattle. While visiting Whiskeytown in 2007, Olive Ayhens fell in love with majestic Shasta Bally and has made plans to return to work exclusively on the mountain. Ayhens has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally.
Whiskeytown National Recreation Area will begin a partnership with The Shasta County Arts Council in 2010. “The goal of this partnership is to expand Whiskeytown’s Artist-in-Residence Program and create more opportunities for the public to interact with the artists,” stated Whiskeytown Superintendent Jim Milestone. “Whiskeytown provides the artists an outstanding opportunity to explore and interpret the special landscape of the forested slopes of Shasta Bally, the surrounding oak woodlands, the majestic waterfalls, and the clear blue waters of Whiskeytown Lake,” concluded Milestone.
Participating artists are selected by professional jurors who review examples of the artists’ work and make recommendations to the park. Jan Wurm, artist and educator at University of California, Berkeley, served as this year’s juror. Michael Schwager, curator for the di Rosa Preserve of Art & Nature, juried in 2008 and Hearne Pardee, artist and educator at University of California, Davis, juried in 2007.
For more information on the Artist-in-Residence Program at Whiskeytown contact Sheila Edridge, Artist-in-Residence Coordinator, at 246-1225.
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