ARTservancy Year in Review 2025
January 3, 2026 | Topics: featured artist
2025 was the seventh year for the remarkable ARTservancy program, which pairs Wisconsin artists with nature preserves in the greater Milwaukee area.
ARTservancy is a partnership between Gallery 224 and several conservation organizations: Restoring Lands, the Milwaukee Area Land Conservancy, Tall Pines Conservancy, and Lake Michigan Bird Observatory. Its mission is to promote the visionary work of both the artists and conservationists.
The artists each visit their selected preserve during the course of a year, making art works based on their observations and experiences with the sites. Their work is then exhibited the following year at Gallery 224 in Port Washington.
The Natural Realm has the honor of featuring the artists in residence. Each featured artist provided their own Artist Narrative and a selection of their artworks, as well as biographical information. This recap is a very brief look at them, including just two images per artist, one portrait in situ at their preserve and a single image representative of their artwork. The titles link back to the original featured stories so that you can see more of their work and read their narratives. They are in alphabetical order by last names.
In addition to featuring the ARTservancy artists, The Natural Realm also occasionally features other artists and a variety of art forms. This happened once in 2025. Havenwoods State Forest hosted an exciting and provocative dance program with two dance companies performing outdoors in different spaces within the park. That story will follow the ARTservancy artists.
The Artists
Rachel Catlett at Pearl Forge Farm Conservancy
Zhiwan Cheung in the Milwaukee River Greenway
Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman at Fellenz Woods Preserve
Paula DeStefanis at Shannon Preserve
Sophie Hughes at Forest Beach Migratory Preserve
Lesley Numbers at Schoofs Preserve
Melissa Wagner-Lawler at Biehl Nature Preserve
Sara Willadsen at Huiras Lake State Natural Area
Sheree Wood Sienkiewicz at Afterglow Farm
The Dance
Havenwoods goes wild with two dance companies in outdoor performances!
This Year in Review devoted especially to our featured artists of 2025 is in addition to our Year in Pictures 2025, which features the best photographs from the past year.
Past ARTservancy Years in Review:
ARTservancy: Year in Review (2024)
ARTservancy: Year in Review (2023)
ARTservancy: Year in Review (2022)
ARTservancy: Year in Review (2021)
ARTservancy: Year in review (2020)
The Natural Realm blog is part of A Wealth of Nature, which is a project of Preserve Our Parks.
About Preserve Our Parks
Preserve Our Parks, Inc. is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of parks and green spaces. Our mission: To advocate for and promote Milwaukee area parks and open spaces and to strive to protect the tenets of Wisconsin’s Public Trust Doctrine.
For more than 25 years, we have been a leader in advocating for the protection of Milwaukee County park lands, halting many proposals to develop, privatize, or sell local parkland and lakefront spaces. More information about POP, including past accomplishments, is available at www.preserveourparks.org.