Craig Grabhorn: Artist in Residence at Biehl Nature Preserve
July 24, 2024 | Topics: featured artist
The Natural Realm presents Craig Grabhorn, who is among 12 artists participating in a year-long residency program called ARTservancy, now in its fifth year. ARTservancy is a collaboration between Gallery 224 in Port Washington and the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust, River Revitalization Foundation, Milwaukee Area Land Conservancy, Tall Pines Conservancy, and Lake Michigan Bird Observatory. The mission of ARTservancy is to promote the visionary work of both the artists and conservationists. Each artist has selected a preserve to spend time in and to engage with.
Reflections from the Artist
by Craig Grabhorn
At the root of my work is an appreciation for our natural surroundings, and the ability to nurture, educate, heal, and love. I enjoy exploring the ways space and light speak to us, informing our lives and relationships to the spaces we exist in.
My process involves a slow mindfulness practice observing small changes in my surrounding environment. Searching for opportunity is an idea that often comes to mind while exploring in this way. My final art pieces often emerge as reduced expressions of moments, memories, or spaces I’ve observed in the natural realm. At times my work involves the creation of vehicles or support mechanisms for these explorations. Most of the time I work in more traditional media of prints, paintings and small sculptural works.
A past project that is a great example of my observational work is a photo journaling project titled 50over50atmos. This project was born when I first moved to the lakeshore of Sheboygan from the driftless hills of southwest Wisconsin. While in the Driftless Area I was working on a series of landscape prints that explored the hidden spaces of the horizon. I composed prints with layers of multiple horizon lines, undulating and full of hidden opportunities.
When I moved to Sheboygan, I would look out at the singular horizon line of Lake Michigan and wonder, where is the opportunity in this? I began to capture a daily image and the opportunity of that line and surroundings quickly became visible. From day to day, as the weather changed, both the sky and the waters moved differently. One day stirring sand creates colorful bands along the shoreline, on another a calm allows an emerald green radiation to be cast across the water. I pursued this photo documentation daily for a year and a half, and I still capture a moment from time to time to add to the collection.
When I first began exploring Biehl Preserve and Lake 12, I imagined making prints inspired by the flowers and trees, or perhaps some small painted sculptures of the animals inhabiting the space. I wanted to stay open to other unique events occurring within the prairie, waters, and forest. I really wanted to capture the energy of the space.
As my hikes have become more familiar, relationships and opportunities in the natural space have begun to show themselves. In winter, was inspired by the vibrancy of the many kinds of lichen living on the tree trunks, and branches. In the spring when the snow had receded, the small rocks deposited by glaciers began to pop out of the surface, dotting the landscape as a unique pattern atop the kame formation. As summer has emerged, I have spent more time on the water learning about the species and plant life that inhabit that unique space at Biehl.
Later, as the year has progressed, a more reflective period has begun to blossom into ideas and is taking directions using unusual materials in my studio. Thinking a lot about the energy of the glacial deposits, I imagine the collective stories of the stones removed from their origins that come together to form this unique land formation. These small rounded stones deposited in the kame are one of the natural patterns that have found their way to my studio. I have been experimenting with stained glass to represent stones and Baltic Birch as sediment to create colorful abstract compositions that play with light. When each color pane joins its collaborators I find something elemental and quite refreshing. In recent weeks I have been translating a few of these stone patterns to screen prints which capture the patterns in a more familiar way for my work.
I look forward to what emerges as the seasons find their natural cycle and the community existing at Biehl has had the year to share itself with me.
Gallery
Bio
I am a Wisconsin based designer & artist operating a design & build studio in Sheboygan Wisconsin. The studio creates objects, spaces, brands & experiences for clients. Personal works navigate the mediums of painting, printing, and more sculptural works reflecting moments and memories informed by our natural surroundings. I also facilitate a collaborative project, Of Water, Land, & Sky. This project partners with artists, schools, and communities to explore and learn about our human connection with nature. You can view work from the studio and Of Water, Land, & Sky at www.craigrabhorn.com, and www.ofwaterlandandsky.com.
This residency is sponsored by Ozaukee Washington Land Trust. To learn more about Biehl Nature Preserve go to our Find-a-Park page.
Related stories:
Lisa Leick: Artist in Residence at Biehl Nature Preserve / Lake Twelve
David Niec: Artist in residence at Lake Twelve Preserve
This is the latest in our series of featured artists, which is intended to showcase the work of photographers, artists, writers and other creative individuals in our community whose subjects or themes relate in some broad sense to nature, urban nature, people in nature, etc. To see a list of previously featured artists, click here. The work of the 2022-2023 ARTservancy artists in residence is currently being exhibited monthly at Gallery 224. To meet the other ARTservancy artists in residence, click here.
All images courtesy of the artist, except as noted. The featured image of Craig Grabhorn at Biehld Nature Preserve is by Eddee Daniel. Ozaukee Washington Land Trust is a project partner of A Wealth of Nature.