The 2025 Artist Residency cohort created an amalgamation of pieces using various mediums and techniques that speak to the depth of inspiration to be found in nature. The Chippewa Watershed Conservancy is proud to offer this residency to local artists while celebrating the intersection of art and science. We hope these pieces inspire you to interact with nature, whether that is a CWC nature preserve, city or county park, or your own backyard. There is wonder to be found all around us. A heartfelt thanks to the amazing artists. It was a joy to get a glimpse into your process! 

Jay C. Batzner

Chippewalk

To listen: https://bit.ly/Chippewalk

Materials: Field recordings from Weting Preserve, Szok Preserve, Mill Pond Natural Area, Stearns Preserve, Starks Preserve, Sylvan Solace, Bundy Hill, Audubon Preserve, and recordings of kalimba, melodica, and glockenspiel instruments.

 “Chippewalk is an aural reflection on nature sounds found throughout the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy. The amount of mechanical and human-derived background sounds inspired me to explore the concept of “invasive species” which usually refers to plant and animal life. I recorded myself playing a small kalimba (thumb piano), melodica (air-powered keyboard), and glockenspiel as a way of putting my own invasive sonic species into the world.”

Link to WCMU video about the project! https://youtu.be/MpuM3pItXY4?si=UR9lGOAkWpQSpWvG

Marissa Cook

Starks Preserve Reflection I: Ecoprint and botanical inks (dame’s rocket, wild grape, dock, buckthorn berry)

Starks Preserve Reflection II: Ecoprint and botanical inks (dame’s rocket, wild grape)

Starks Preserve Reflection III: Ecoprint and botanical inks (dame’s rocket, wild grape, dock, buckthorn berry)

“My process involves using locally foraged plants to create naturally pigmented inks and prints on paper called ecoprints. I often use the inks to paint into the ethereal images from the ecoprinting process to complete my compositions. I see this as a collaboration between my own intentions and the materials themselves, allowing for chance interactions of water, pigments, modifiers, and paper to dictate the direction of the image.

For these works, the experience of Starks Preserve was a central part of that collaboration, too. I explored its trails, recorded the plant species I saw, and sat absorbing all its sounds and sensations while sketching my surroundings. With the CWC’s permission, I gathered samples of dame’s rocket, an invasive species that was growing on some portions of the preserve, and made the pigments and prints taken from these samples the basis of my images. The yellows and grayish browns in these works come from dame’s rocket. I added other pigments to my palette from plants that were not taken from the preserve, so to disturb as little of the conserved land as possible, but all the pigments used came from species that can also be found at Starks.

While these images aren’t meant to resemble any specific view of the preserve, I was guided by the suggestions of the ecoprints as much as by the layers of flora in Starks’ wet meadow environment. I hope these reflections on the preserve evoke something of its character, and of my experience of the sun filtering through leaves, a path through tall, waving grasses, and the lush intertwining of many beings cycling through the season together.”

Denise Whitebread Fanning

Deep in Their Roots, All Mothers Keep the Light

Denise Whitebread Fanning’s work weaves together her reflections on motherhood, caregiving, and human nature with a deep reverence for the natural world. Her art speaks to the urgency of tending and nurturing, especially in times of environmental and societal upheaval.

Deep in Their Roots, All Mothers Keep the Light was inspired by Denise’s time spent on CWC preserve lands and her fascination with large, mature trees often referred to as “Mother” or “Grandmother Trees.” This piece focuses on a specific oak and its surrounding saplings in Sylvan Solace.

The title is drawn from a quote by Michigan poet Theodore Roethke: “Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light.” The work explores the idea of connection between older trees and younger growth — a concept often attributed to forest ecosystems. Denise acknowledges the ongoing scientific debate around the “mother tree” theory and the idea that trees may share nutrients and information through underground mycorrhizal networks. Even as she learned of the controversy, the image of glowing, electric & interconnected roots beneath the surface of the forests remained powerful to her — a metaphor for resilience, interdependence, and collective community care.

The piece is sewn with handspun silk inherited from her grandmother, a seamstress who passed away in 2006. It is sewn on fabric from reclaimed curtains that once hung in her dining room.

“When you think you are your own separate, independent, self-made tree and not the forest, you care less when other trees are burning.” — Jaiya John

Cheryl Meyer

By Heart

Materials: Watercolor on paper; watercolor on pressed redbud and tulip tree leaves.

“This residency brought me to preserves I had not experienced. I have my favorite preserves and know details of them well. The new to me spaces brought different plants and experiences. In “By Heart”, I used photo inspiration and challenged myself to create tiny details from places I just met but now know in my heart.”

Gordon E. Szczubelek

Audubon Reflections

Materials used: Acrylic paints, Water from the Chippewa River

“Anytime I step into the Chippewa River, it is like visiting old friends. I am greeted by each river rock at my feet and introduced to new faces in the foliage. The river current leads me and all spirits walk with me. By mixing water from the river with my paints, this is not only just a painting of the Chippewa River, but the Chippewa River also becomes the painting.”

True Love
The drifting of my mind,
Takes me to the closest river,
I can find.
Clear blue before me, 
Filled with a cloud, 
Nature so silent,
Yet so loud.
Enveloped,
In a fantasy of high, 
Can’t tell the difference,
Between water and sky.
My soul,
Becomes the paddle,
As it takes the dip, 
Rejuvenates,
From just one slip.
The damselfly, 
Rests for a ride.
Mesmerized,
By the gratuitous glide.
Days like this,
Are the delicate key, 
To open my heart, 
My true love, you see, 
Pure happiness,
Here can be found.
Just let your mind free, 
And be river bound.