A Gift to All: Artists in Residence at Interior

Kansas-based artist, illustrator, and lifelong educator Nancy Lehenbauer Marshall drew upon her 2020 artist-in-residence experience at Nebraska’s Homestead National Historical Park to create this piece.

Her oil on canvas painting is inspired, in part, by an Aldo Leopold quote: “When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” Through a series of interwoven vignettes, Marshall simultaneously tells the Homestead story and illustrates a farming future that is eco-friendly. Taken as a whole, the painted narrative encompasses generations of changing interactions with the land: as ancestral homeland, natural habitat, migration route, and agricultural provider.

Pennsylvania-based fiber artist Nancy Hershberger was inspired by her 2021 residency at Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park to create this intricate art quilt. The piece is made using hand-dyed and commercial cotton fabrics that are machine-quilted to silk batting and a cotton backing. She then hand-painted the additional details with acrylics, oils, and Tsukineko inks. Hershberger specializes in landscapes and still life with her quilted works and has served as an artist in residence at five different National Park Service units across the country to date. 

Sue Steinacher has lived in Alaska since 1980. With a degree in biology and a minor in art, she served many years as a wildlife technician and outreach specialist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Today, as a Nome-based artist, she creates in a variety of media.

This piece was inspired by her 2021 stint as an artist in residence at the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Dalton Highway. The mostly-gravel road extending 414 miles from Prudhoe Bay to just north of Fairbanks, Alaska, was built in the 1970s to support construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. The BLM now maintains visitor services along this rugged and remote corridor of public land. Shown here is a Dall sheep standing sentinel over Atigun Pass at milepost 244, the only part of the Brooks Range traversed by the Dalton Highway. Solely found in Alaska and western Canada, this subspecies of sheep is named for American naturalist William Healey Dall (1845–1927).

Native Hawaiian artist Rick Makanaaloha Kia‘imeaokekanaka San Nicolas is a recognized kumu hulu nui, a master of ancient Hawaiian featherwork. Self-taught, he has been practicing this artistry since 1997 and upholding the legacy of his ancestors in making Hawaiian feather cloaks (‘ahu ‘ula) and helmets (mahiole). Traditionally, this regalia would have been meticulously crafted with feathers harvested from such bird species as the ‘i‘iwi, mamo, ‘ō‘ō, ‘apapane, and ‘akialoa—all of which are now either rare or extinct—and worn by the men of the ali’i, the highest ranking chiefly class of Hawai’i. Today, San Nicolas takes an eco-honorable approach; in this piece, he uses feathers from Lady Amherst and Chinese Golden pheasants instead. The cape is framed in koa, a revered wood integrally tied to the history and heritage of Hawai’i.

San Nicolas is considered the artist emeritus at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, where he has four times been selected by the National Parks Arts Foundation (NPAF) as an artist in residence. The NPAF supports National Park Service arts programs nationwide and is honored to work with culture bearers like San Nicolas.

Francis Vallejo is a Detroit-based illustrator, associate professor, and two-time participant in Voices of the Wilderness, an artist-in-residence program sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The initiative pairs artists with wilderness specialists and has them assist in research, monitoring, and educational projects in various remote Alaskan locations. In July 2022, Vallejo spent seven days as the resident artist among a team of 11 biologists at the Canning River Bird Camp, an avian research station located in the far northwestern corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Vallejo sketched and photographed his experience as a visual journal ultimately published the following year as an 88-page zine with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This original drawing reproduced in that publication depicts a red-necked phalarope (Phalaropus lobatus). Because this small shorebird winters in tropical open waters, it is only readily observable when in its summer breeding grounds in the Arctic. Vallejo’s time at Canning left a powerful impression. Said Vallejo, “Now that I am back home in Detroit, I am working to connect Detroit youth to Alaska and expose them to the Alaska wilderness and refuge systems!”