ESTES PARK
Photographer Danielle Austen of Hillsborough, New Jersey has been an Artist-in-Residence at Great Smoky Mountains, Acadia, and Everglades National Parks.  She was also a resident artist at the Vermont Studio Center.  She has received numerous photography awards including the 2015 International Nature-Landscape Photography Award.  Her images have also been exhibited at museums and photography shows throughout the country.

For her residency project she plans to capture images of water in the park.  Through these images she hopes to show the importance of water as an integral part of the health of wildlife, forests, and meadows.  Her focus will also reveal the more mystical nature of water through the interplay of light, patterns, tones, and abstract imagery.

She will be giving programs at Beaver Meadows Visitor Center on Wednesday, August 24, 2016 and on Wednesday, August 31, 2016 at 7:30 PM.

Six artists were selected for the summer 2016 Artist-in-Residence Program at Rocky Mountain National Park, including three youth artists.  Artists are provided with a creative, contemplative environment in which to generate artistic works and share their works with the public.  During their stay at the park, artists share their vision in public presentations.

Since the late 1800s, national parks and art have had a special connection. Early-day artists accompanied many of the expeditions that explored the American West. These artists documented their discoveries in paintings, photographs and prose, and played a key role in influencing the decision to protect many of our earliest national parks. In 1984, in honor of the significant role that artists had played in the creation of national parks, Rocky Mountain National Park established the first Artist-in-Residence Program in the National Park Service system. Today over fifty national park areas have Artist-in-Residence Programs.

Artistic diversity, new ideas and creative uses of media were encouraged in the application process.  Artists are given two-week residencies at the William Allen White cabin from June through September.

These programs are free and open to the public.  For more information about Rocky Mountain National Park, visit www.nps.gov/romo or contact the park’s Information Office at 970-586-1206.