Artist-in-Residence Program

Joan Lutz (she/her)

I’ve always been drawn to the intersection of art and biology. My first college degree was in Landscape Architecture, because it combines art and design with science and botany. The art created in my career was of an illustrative nature, and showed, for example, what proposed buildings or landscapes would look like from various perspectives. Outside of work, I had more freedom to explore other media and tenses; acrylic, watercolor, and Photoshop, as well as making art in the present instead of envisioning what was planned for the future. I’ve been a Boulder County Volunteer Naturalist for a year and have had a wonderful time assembling presentations using my photographs of county plants, pollinators, and other life forms, as well as fabricating props to explain the very cool attributes of the parts and the whole of our superb county open spaces. As an artist-in-residence at Caribou Ranch, I am thinking about making hand-drawn posters celebrating three Caribou ecosystems; the lodgepole pine forest at the start of the trail, the open montane meadow, and the riparian environment along North Boulder Creek.

Jane McAtee

Jane McAtee, a retired health care attorney, has been working with textiles since the age of 12. She is a knitter, crocheter, spinner, and weaver. She has produced dozens of gorgeous works for daily use and as art. Jane is on the Board of the Handweaver’s Guild of Boulder and leads the Community Engagement activities of the Guild. She will work with the community to include nature weaving projects at Caribou Ranch.

Sam Macken

Sam Macken (Cherokee Nation) is an active performer, educator, composer, and Indigenous arts advocate. He currently holds the Associate Principal bassoon position with the Helena Symphony Orchestra, and the 2nd bassoon position with the Bozeman Symphony Orchestra. He has played regularly with professional orchestras across Colorado, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Montana. Sam’s compositions reflect his identity as a Cherokee citizen, and often make use of physical space in unexpected ways. He is currently studying for the Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder, where his research focuses on the pedagogical and ethnomusicological analysis of works for bassoon by Native American and Indigenous composers. Sam completed his undergraduate study at the University of Tulsa, and earned the Master of Music from the University of Oklahoma. He has studied bassoon with Douglas Huff, Jim Fellows, Rod Ackmann, and Yoshi Ishikawa. He has been a Cherokee Nation Scholar and Artist since 2016.

Adriana Paola Palacios Luna (she/her/ella)

Adriana is the founder and executive director of Luna Cultura, Art, Science, and Culture for Thriving Communities, LLC. She is passionate about culture, art, and science. For more than 30 years she has dedicated herself to working on projects for socio-environmental and reproductive justice. She enjoys being proactively involved with her community and contributing in a conscious and resilient way with actions for the dignity of life. She has worked side by side with Indigenous and rural women, migrant communities, and BIPOC communities, of which she is a part. Instead of being overwhelmed by global problems, she believes in the power of collective action toward social change. With Luna Cultura, she demonstrates the possibility of making extraordinary out of the ordinary. Through art and maker education, she creates a space for collective learning and generational trauma healing. She is an artist, maker, social justice educator, storyteller, and mother of two amazing sons and a beautiful daughter.

Rosane Volchan O’Conor

A Brazilian-American printmaker and installation artist based in Boulder, Rosane’s work reflects her interest in natural science – from the microbiological to the macrocosmic. Her multilayered monoprints are the foundation for her site-specific installations, composed of ceramic and glass sculptures, neon lights, drawings, video, etc. Her work has been shown at museums and galleries in the US and abroad.

My art is organic. I am influenced by both music and biology. My installations are a three dimensional rendition of my narrative paper monoprints in which I visualize the idea of rhythm and most of all, the idea of polyphony; where each melodic line has an autonomous function but also synthesizes perfectly within the whole. I organize structural lines, symmetric and asymmetric, to produce a sonorous visual layer. Like in a polyphonic texture, these linear structures aid in the perception of themes and motifs, creating a distinctive rhythmic identity. Just as counterpoint techniques give melody depth, so do the multiple linear planes in my work create visual depth. As with the composition of a contra punctual piece, I employ the techniques of selecting a small segment of my work and manipulating it to create retrogrades, augmentations and diminutions, and inversions. Simultaneously, I am inspired by the microscopic; protozoa, cells, nerves, and by the macroscopic; land formations, planets, galaxies. Both my monoprints and site specific installations combine my interested in polyphonic composition and cytology. They present an environment that is both micro and macro, organic and linear, large and detailed, harmonious and chaotic.