Group Exhibition

TAC Main Gallery

May 15 – July 5, 2025

Opening Reception + Panel Discussion: Thursday, May 15, 5:30 – 7 PM

Burn Ball Game (developed by Kelly Yarbrough): Friday, May 16, 11AM in Central Park

About the Exhibition

The Arts Center is thrilled  to exhibit the exceptional work created during the inaugural Wildfire + Water residency at PLAYA in Summer Lake, OR. This timely exhibition explores environmental, spiritual and socio-political issues not only affecting the Chewaucan region, but the entire world.

With the work of 9 artists (listed below) and over a dozen collaborators, Wildfire + Water may leave gallery visitors with more questions than answers, but by engaging with this exhibition, viewers will be confronted with complex, and at times controversial, perspectives that will require thoughtful consideration and empathy to fully understand. 

The Arts Center invites everyone to take a slow deep look not only at the art created, but at the practical wisdom, theology and science that inspired the work.

About the Artists

With a BFA in Fine Art from University of Delaware and having traveled a lot of the country for work, Maddi Bacon is now primarily based out of Oregon. They have received support from numerous residencies, including Olympic National Park’s Terminus Project, The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology,  PLAYA’s Wildfire + Water: Artists and Scientists Collaborating for Change, and the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest‘s Fireline Fellowship.

Michael Boonstra is a visual artist interested in the intersection of perception and place. His creative practice shifts between drawing, photography, installation, and sculpture and is largely informed by experiential modes of land-based research. He has been an artist-in-residence at Playa, Djerassi, Caldera, Pine Meadow Ranch, Signal Fire, and the Kesey Farm. His home and studio practice is based out of Eugene, Oregon. Boonstra currently teaches sculpture, core studio, and creative field work at Oregon State University.

Nancy Floyd uses photography, video, and mixed-media to address the ways in which lens-based media can connect deeply with experience and memory. Since 2021 she’s been working on a wide-ranging exploration of trees in Oregon. Floyd has received many notable awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her work has been exhibited in numerous venues including Hallie Ford Museum of Art (Salem), The High Museum of Art (Atlanta), The Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago); and CUE Art Foundation (New York). Raised in Texas, and after teaching photography at Georgia State University for 20 years, she and her husband moved to Bend where they share their yard with a 140-foot Ponderosa Pine.

San Francisco Bay Area artist Linda Gass is best known for her intricately stitched paintings about climate change, water, and land use. She also works in public art, community-engaged projects, and glass. The recipient of numerous honors including the prestigious Fleishhacker Eureka Fellowship and Silicon Valley Creates Artist Laureate, she recently received a grant from the Belle Foundation. Gass’ work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and can be found in museum, municipal, and corporate collections. When she’s not making art or championing environmental causes, you can find her backpacking, camping, and hiking in the wilderness areas of the West where she finds much of the inspiration for her work.

Kathleen Dean Moore is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and co-founder and Senior Fellow of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word. An environmental philosopher, Moore writes about moral, spiritual, and cultural relationships to the natural world. Her recent award-winning edited volume, Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, addresses the question, Do we have a moral obligation to the future to leave a world as rich in possibilities as the world we inherited? Her current work applies ecological concepts to the challenges of making a powerful moral response to our environmental emergencies: If we truly understood that we live in complete dependence on an Earth that is interconnected, interdependent, finite, and resilient, could we imagine a better set of ideas about our moral responsibilities to one another, to the Earth, and to the future?

Andrew Myers is a visual artist exploring concepts of coexistence, human/wildlife conflict and the conservation and preservation of wild places and creatures in work that is drawing-based with elements of installation, printmaking, sculpture and animation. He received his undergraduate art degree from Eastern Oregon University and an MFA in drawing and painting from Portland State University. Myers is a founding member of Gray Space, a group of Oregon artists based in the Corvallis, Eugene and Roseburg areas who came together in 2016 to claim agency and circumvent institutional structures.
Notably, Myers is a 2024 recipient of the Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship as well as a two-time recipient of the Career Opportunity Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission and the Ford Family Foundation. He is currently a Senior Instructor at Oregon State University.

Dana Reason, Ph.D., is a Canadian composer, recording artist, musicologist, and conceptual + sonic artist. She was a member of The Space Between trio with electronic music pioneer Pauline Oliveros and has contributed to over 20+ commercial recordings. Collaborating with scientists, artists, and technologists, she explores sonification, graphic scores, film scoring, and improvised sound responses, to create iterative sound works.
A certified Deep Listening practitioner, Reason promotes intentional listening to foster sustainable sonic environments. Reason is currently an Assistant Professor of Contemporary Music at Oregon State University. www.danareason.com

Leah Wilson (artwork featured above) is a visual artist, educator, and outdoor enthusiast. She began interweaving her passion for rivers and whitewater kayaking into her creative practice in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills where she created a pivotal project influenced by the environmental decision-making processes of scientists and stakeholders during the Federal Energy Relicensing Commission’s assessment of the Yuba-Bear watershed. This experience, decades of wilderness exploration, and a long-term project at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon that introduced her to ecological field research form the backbone that continues to inform her creative process. Leah lives in Eugene, Oregon and teaches at Oregon State University.

Kelly Yarbrough is an artist based in Manhattan, Kansas. Her practice is rooted in an ecosystem that includes mixed media drawing, arts administration and cultivating opportunities for humans to learn and love their local landscapes. Kelly holds an MFA from Kansas State University. She founded the Tallgrass Artist Residency in 2016, and continues to serve as the program’s administrative lead. Kelly is also a Regional Representative for the Kansas Arts Commission, an  Artist INC peer facilitator, a TEDx Austin College presenter, Konza Prairie docent, a so-so gardener, and a pretty good dog mom.