National Park Service Residency Art | Heather Heckel
East Side of the Belvedere, with White Oaks, Red Clover, and Squirrel, Heather Heckel, Colored pencil and cut paper on paper, 12” x 12”, 2023
West Side, with Maple Trees, Ferns, and Black-capped Chickadees, Heather Heckel, Colored pencil, marker, and cut paper on paper, 12” x 12”, 2023
South Side of the Bungalow, with Porcelain Bunnies, Green Grass, and Lingonberries, Heather Heckel, Colored pencil, marker, and cut paper on paper, 12” x 12”, 2023
Heather Heckel
About the Work
The artwork I created during my artist-in-residency at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, VT is inspired by the three families of conservationists who consecutively lived on the grounds. The mansion, Belvedere, and bungalow provided a foundation for family members to grow in their personal and professional lives, and I was interested in capturing how a specific time and space can mold the trajectories of the people who spent time here. I depicted trees growing through the buildings in the park to illustrate the concept of the family tree blended with the physical trees that they helped to conserve and manage in the local forest, throughout Vermont, and beyond. The presence of the three families impacted my viewpoint, and I started to see triplicates everywhere I looked: the foreground, middle ground, and background in my artwork; the flora, fauna, and manmade structures on site; the warm, cool, and neutral colors in nature and on paper; and the past, present, and future in research, storytelling, and the mission of the National Park Service.
About the Artist
Dr. Heather Heckel, EdD is an artist and art educator who lives in Manhattan and teaches on Long Island. She earned her BFA in Illustration from the Ringling College of Art and Design, her MAT in Art Education from the School of Visual Arts, her MFA in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design, and her EdD in Educational Leadership from the University of the Cumberlands. You can view her portfolio and learn more at HeatherHeckel.com.
South Side, with Beech Trees, Oxeye Daisies, and Hermit Thrush,Heather Heckel, Colored pencil, marker, and cut paper on paper, 12” x 12”, 2023
Dinorá Justice
About the Work
I started the Portrait paintings in late 2016, when I was thinking of the biases regarding traditional associations of nature with the feminine. The linguistic heritage of the expression Mother Nature feminizes the environment and gives our patriarchal system permission to extend its logic of subjugation and exploitation to nature, with the disastrous results that are pushing us to the brink of climate catastrophe. In this project I work with iconic female figures of the Western canon by painters such as Matisse and Ingres, from a period in their careers in which they explored a fascination with the exotic Middle East through paintings of odalisques, who were quasi-slave women kept in seclusion. In my paintings I substitute trees, plants and flowers for drapery and furniture, forcing a visual relocation of the female form from the realm of the intimate to that of the universal.
Since 2014, I have been hand-marbling areas directly on canvas and using their organic swirls and veins to echo designs found in nature. In my paintings, patterns created by marbling concentrate on the figure as well as on parts of the landscape, tying those parts together visually and conceptually.
About the Artist
Dinorá Justice is a School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston graduate from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil who currently resides in Massachusetts. You can view her portfolio and learn more at dinorajustice.com.