Amy K. Wendland

Amy K. Wendland uses a combination of humor and unusual materials to tell stories about our relationship with the environment. During her residency at Denver Botanic Gardens, she will work with deaccessioned herbarium sheets, transforming them into modern "herbaria viva"—dried plant specimens augmented with drawing or painting to tell the story of the plant and its landscape. Wendland seeks to fuse creative symbolism with scientific knowledge to explore the varied ways we relate to the natural world. 

About the Artist 

Amy K. Wendland lives and works in Durango, Colorado, where she serves as a professor in the Art & Design Department and as Associate Dean of Arts & Sciences at Fort Lewis College. She received her BFA in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design, an MA with a sculpture concentration and an MFA in graphics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has worked commercially as an artist and designer, and her drawings, sculptures and mixed media works have been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Laura Ball

Laura Ball will spend her residency exploring garden design and the way living botanical scenes are staged and composed. Ball is interested in biodiversity within cultivated gardens, as well as the formal design principles gardeners use to create memorable spaces. Ball plans to create a series of botanical landscapes in watercolor rooted in her research at Denver Botanic Gardens.  

About the Artist

Laura Ball works in watercolor to explore subconscious landscapes. Her work has been exhibited widely, including at the Denver Art Museum, CO, and Berkeley Art Museum, CA, as well as other museums and galleries in the United States and abroad.