We are pleased to announce that the 2024 CWC Artists in Residence have been selected! This program offers opportunities for artists working in any medium to promote a deeper experience with the natural world. The selected artists will spend the summer months with open access to the twenty-seven beautiful nature preserves owned and stewarded by the CWC, and create their work centered around that environment. Finished work will be displayed digitally on social media, on the CWC website, in the printed newsletter, as well as physically at the Fall Fundraiser on October 3rd of this year. To see completed works and hear about the artists’ experiences, go here.

Kate Brown is a Michigan-based artist and illustrator, working with the visual language of memory. She earned her BFA in Painting and Drawing from Idaho State University in 2021. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across the country, including an ongoing solo exhibition at the Idaho Museum of Natural History which has been in place since 2021, and in Ireland during her residency at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare. Her love of the outdoors began in infancy, when she escaped the safety of her backyard to ride her tricycle in the street, pursued by the cops and her frantic mother. She still uses every free moment to escape to the wilderness with her husband and young son.

Natalie Smith is an emerging artist, who trained in graphic design at Mid Michigan College in Mount Pleasant. This residency is the first such opportunity of her professional career. When she isn’t slinging sandwiches at the hometown treasure, Max & Emily’s, she’s restoring a family cabin on Drummond Island, up a tree, or down a river.

Rachel Davis Smith is a post-baccalaureate art student at Central Michigan University specializing in printmaking and sculpture. Her work is inspired by biology, psychology, literature and a bottomless sense of curiosity about the natural world.

Any questions regarding the Artist Residency Program can be directed to autumn@cwc-mi.org