Maria Alice Rezende, 2022

‘Monstera deliciosa’ by Maria Alice Rezende

Botanical Artist in Residence, 2022

 Maria Alice Rezende is currently based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she works as an art teacher as well as an illustrator on projects with researchers at the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden. Her main creative practice is her  personal work of illustration of native species of Brazilian flora. Her awards include receiving the  "Margaret Mee Foundation Award" at the Royal Botanic Gardens in 2004.  She is currently working on an illustration project on the biodiversity of the South Atlantic Islands.

Keiko Nibu Tarver, 2022

‘Somei Yoshino Cherry’ by  Keiko Nibu Tarver

Botanical Artist in Residence, 2020

Keiko Nibu Tarver was born in Japan and is currently based in Philadelphia, PA. Her artistic interests includes plants native to the United States and Japan, especially plants of the Aesculus genus.  She is a member and board director of both the American Society of Botanical Artists and the Philadelphia Society of Botanical Illustrators. Her awards include receiving Best Student Painting at the Friends Hospital Grounds: A Living Legacy exhibition in 2012. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US. 

John Ryan

Interdisciplinary Residency, Five-Week, Session I

John Ryan is a writer based in Western Australia. His poetry and prose focuses on the plant life of Australia, particularly Southwest Australia and the New England region of New South Wales. He has authored and co-authored multiple books centered around plants and the environment, and is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of New England in Australia. To read John’s writing, visit our Fall 2020 Residencies Exhibit.

Ariana Benson, 2022

Eliza Moore Fellowship for Artistic Excellence, 2022

Ariana Benson is a poet with an interest in this connection through the lens of black history. She is the recipient of the 2022 Cave Canem Poetry Prize for her manuscript Black Pastoral. Scroll down to read our Q&A with Ariana, and visit her website to learn more about her projects and publications: https://arianabenson.wordpress.com/about/ 

Saretta Morgan

Interdisciplinary Resident, Session V, 2021

Saretta is a writer and poet, currently based in Mohave Valley, AZ. In her poetry, she “challenges the images produced and normalized through anti-Black economic, biological, and mythological narratives.” Her work is heavily influenced by place, and she is greatly inspired by the Mohave and Sonoran deserts.

Jacob Olmedo, Session III

Interdisciplinary Resident, 2021

Jacob is an environmentalist and multidisciplinary artist currently based in Brooklyn, NY. They work with textiles, fashion, and living plants. 

Willow Curry

Interdisciplinary Resident, Session V, 2021

Willow is a journalist, essayist, and narrative strategist who was raised and currently works in Houston, TX. Her writing addresses the “misrepresentation and suppression of Black lives,” especially in relation to environmental racism. To learn more about her work visit https://www.willowncurry.com/

Brien Beidler

Interdisciplinary Resident, Session IV, 2021

Brien is a bookbinder and toolmaker.  He draws inspiration from European books from the 17th and 18th centuries, and often his work features designs inspired by plants.  To learn more about Brien’s work, visit https://www.beidlermade.com/

Katie Beidler

Interdisciplinary Resident, Session IV, 2021

Katie is an ecologist and PhD candidate at the University of Indiana at Bloomington.  She researches “ how plant-microbe interactions influence ecosystem processes, specifically decomposition and nutrient cycling.”

Yi Hsuan Sung

Interdisciplinary Resident, Session IV, 2021

Yi Hsuan is a textile artist, raised in Taiwan and currently working in Forest Hills, New York.  Her work “integrates materials innovation, handcraft and technology to create sustainable textiles systems. My goal is to bridge art, nature, science and technology in the design and making of textiles.” To learn more visit https://yihsuansung.com

Angela Drakeford

Interdisciplinary Resident, Session III, 2021

Angela creates garden installations and she describes her practice in this way, “My practice is about offering hospitality, guidance, care, and gestures of love.”  Her work is a response to social and societal injustices that disproportionately impact marginalized and at-risk communities.  Her installations respond by creating spaces of “respite, calm, relaxation, beauty and knowledge sharing.”  To learn more about her work, visit www.angeladrakeford.com.

L. Renée

Interdisciplinary Resident, Session III, 2021

L. is a poet, currently based in Columbus, OH.  Her poetry “[engages] with Black identity, lineage, the body, Appalachian landscape and nourishment.”  She draws from oral histories, archives, and genealogical research, and “Black joy” is a central theme in her work.

Connie Zheng

Interdisciplinary Resident, Session III, 2021

Connie is an interdisciplinary visual artist and PhD Candidate in Visual Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her work examines “diverse manifestations of propaganda, possibilities for expanding the language of climate apocalypse, and the racialization of contamination narratives, as told through visual and text-based forms.” To learn more about Connie, visit http://www.conniezheng.com

Janisse Ray

Interdisciplinary Resident, Session III, 2021

Janisse is a writer “whose subject most often falls into the borderland of nature and culture.” She lives on an organic farm near Savannah, GA, and has written five non-fiction books as well as a book of eco-poetry. Currently, she is working on a book about pine-meadow bogs that occur within Southern coastal plains and their diverse plant life, particularly carnivorous plants. To learn more about her, visit https://www.janisseray.com.

Torrey Crim

Interdisciplinary Resident, Session III, 2021

Torrey is a fiction writer, based in Brooklyn, NY.  She describes her writing in this way, “A sense of movement haunts my fiction; my stories are often written through the lens of a visitor, and they address the question of how personal history connects and diverges from cultural history, how we appropriate (rightly or wrongly) identity from the places we inhabit.” Learn more about her work at www.torreycrim.com.

Jordan Coscia

Researcher in Residence, Session III, 2021

Jordan is an ecologist and PhD Candidate at Virginia Tech University.  Her dissertation focuses on grassland ecology, and aims to “improve our understanding of grassland restoration ecology and management in Virginia using long-term ecological data from plant, arthropod, and soil communities collected across three field sites.”

Samuel Lemley, 2020

Researcher in Residence, 2020

Samuel is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He plans to spend his time at OSGF working on several projects: two article-length bibliographical essays on Geoffroy Linocier’s Histoire des Plantes (1619) and Paul Contant’s Les Oeuvres (1628), and revisions for his doctoral dissertation, which studies antiquarianism in seventeenth century England.

Sarah Burke Cahalan, 2020

Researcher in Residence, 2020 

 Sarah is the director of the Marian Library at the University of Dayton in Dayton, OH, the world’s largest collection of printed materials on the Virgin Mary.   Along with Jason W. Dean, she is working on an exhibit and book project focused on the life and work of illustrator and naturalist S. Fred Prince, Jr. (1857-1949), whom they both have been researching for several years.  Learn more about Sarah at https://sarahburkecahalan.com. 

Kate Klingbeil

Socially Distanced Residency, Summer 2021

Kate is a painter currently based in Brooklyn, New York.  Her work explores the ways in which human beings and the natural world are connected, with her recent paintings reflecting how the human body mirrors systems in nature.  Kate plans to use her residency to work on a stop-motion animation for her solo exhibition at the Hesse Flatow Gallery in New York City.  To learn more about her work, visit www.kateklingbeil.com

Cecil Howell

Socially Distanced Residency, Summer 2021

Cecil is an artist and landscape architect currently based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work is “an exploration of place: how it evolves, how we connect with it, and how we can design it.” During her residency, she plans to explore the relationship between gardens and gardeners and the hope that can emerge from these reciprocal relationships.  To learn more about Cecil, visit www.cecilhowell.com