Delta Waterfowl will not be offering the Weston Artist in Residence fellowship for 2010. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the Weston family for supporting this fine program for the past eight years.
Past Recipients
2008 Jake Wenzel
Jake Wenzel roots in nature go back to his home in British Columbia, where his family has a home in a rural area north of Vancouver. Adept at mathematics, Jake studied Math and Physics at McGill University, and is now working towards a degree in Fine Art at Concordia University in Montreal.
Jake admires the beauty and perfection of the natural world, and seeks to express his feelings toward nature through his paintings and drawings. By studying nature first hand, Jake hopes to hone his observational skills, and build a “mental library of visual information” from which he can extract ideas and inspirations for his art. He works primarily in oil, but also excels at drawing and, occasionally, watercolor.
2008 Mary Alards-Tomalin
Hailing from Gimli, Manitoba, Mary Alards-Tomalin came to Delta to pursue nature her dual talents in photography and painting. Mary’s husband of many years is from the Delta area, and so Mary has learned the area well. Thus, she was very excited to receive one of 2008 Weston Fellowships to come to Delta to advance her work with camera and paintbrushes.
Mary is currently taking classes at the University of Manitoba, and has found an interest in many different forms of art, particularly painting and drawing. Her hope is to create both abstract and realistic imagery that explores the natural world. Her fine eye for composition, honed through her experience in photography, has translated well to the beautiful works she is now creating on paper and canvas.
2007 Henry Buszard
2007 Weston Art Fellowship recipient Henry Buszard creates his unique landscapes from a blending of the techniques of painting and photography. His ethereal works are usually large landscape panoramas, first inspired by three summers of work at the beautiful McGill University Arboretum in Montreal. In the summer of 2005, after graduating from Concordia University in Montreal, Henry and three friends drove across Canada, stopping along the way to explore the landscape. They hiked especially in the Canadian Rockies and on Vancouver Island, and the landscapes he witnessed inspired numerous works, further cementing his love of the natural world.
Henry's artistic vision has been influenced by the painters of the Hudson River School, the Impressionists, and the famous Canadians known as the Group of Seven. His dedication to the landscape fit perfectly with the wide open spaces around the Delta research station, and he has spent the summer and fall creating works around the historic Delta Marsh and Lake Manitoba. Upon returning to Montreal, Henry will continue to interpret the landscape through his art, pursue a Master's Degree, and keep up with his impressive exhibition schedule. More information on Henry can be found at his website www.henrybuszard.com.
2006 Ian Williams
2006 Weston Art Fellowship winner Ian Williams comes to Delta from the University of California-Santa Cruz where he is finishing a graduate degree in Scientific Illustration. Equally enthused by science and art, Ian has assisted on scientific research projects in addition to creating the beautiful art he derives from his passion for nature. Primarily a painter, Ian created several beautiful water media paintings of birds while living at Delta this summer. Ian's work is marked by a close attention to the details of his subjects, and he often makes precise sketches of actual in-hand specimens of the creatures he portrays in his finished work. He also used his time at Delta to explore the medium of woodcut and block printing, making blocks that he will print from on the presses back in Santa Cruz.
Ian has exhibited his work in California, making most of his own frames for his shows. Upon completion of his graduate degree, Ian plans a career in art, hoping to blend his art with science and activism to instill in people "the same sense of wonder I was given every time I was given fantastic images of what is, what was, and what could be." More of Ian's work can be seen on his website : www.ianharlow.net
2005 David Roholt
Currently a graduate student at Colorado State University, David Roholt creates vibrant oil paintings inspired by the farmland, trees, mountains, and even train cars, of western North America. David works extensively outdoors, using nature as a jumping off point for the subjects of his boldly colorful canvases. He explores the shapes and colors of what he sees in the landscape, deftly manipulating colors to find harmonious blends and arrangements.
David hopes to pursue a position in the academic art world, pursuing his painting and instructing art at the university level. His work has been exhibited widely in the western United States, and he has won several awards for his art. Already this summer, he has created several beautiful paintings, and, like the Weston Fellowship winners before him, had a successful show of his work at Delta’s annual Student Seminars.
2004 Brendan Flanagan
For painter Brendan Flanagan, spending the summer in the quiet countryside of the Delta Research Station was a welcomed break from the pace of Toronto. Brendan had spent most of his younger years in “the bush”, growing up in the Yukon and British Columbia, but was living in the city where he had just completed his second year at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Inspired by the famous Canadian artists known as “The Group of Seven”, Brendan’s paintings are derived from the natural world, often using bold color.
In addition to painting in oil during his summer at the Research Station, Brendan created works in “encaustic”, in which layers of colored, heated wax are painted onto boards to create images with a deep transluscence and unique tactile quality. After his summer at Delta, Brendan was awarded another fellowship at the Art Institute of Chicago.
2003 Joella Arsenault
Delta’s second artist-in-residence, Joella Arsenault, came to the Research Station from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, having just completed her third year of study. A photographer, Joella creates beautiful images of elements her keen eye observes in nature. Typically, her photographs are poetic close-ups, capturing the intricate abstract designs and patterns found in a feather floating on the water, the tip of a fern, or perhaps a trail of sandpiper tracks through wet sand. Her work is characterized by a strong sense of composition and design.
Joella works in both black and white, and color, photography, and is pursuing a Major in Photography. She also sculpts, particularly in wire and wood, and finds it complements her photography to work occasionally in three dimensions. In all of her work, Joella hopes to use her talents to lend a voice to nature.
2002 Val Lucas
In 2002, Val Lucas was the first artist to be awarded the Weston Artist in Residence Fellowship at the Delta Waterfowl Research Station. Val came to Delta after having just completed her first year at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Primarily a painter, Val works in a variety of subject matter and media, and learned of Delta’s art program through her success in the Maryland Junior Duck Stamp program.
During her summer at Delta, Lucas regularly brought her oils and canvases into the surrounding marsh and fields to paint the local landscape. She was particularly inspired by the panoramic sky and cloud formations, and completed several beautiful field and studio paintings of these subjects. She also decorated a Delta research trailer with paintings of various species of waterfowl, and was known around town for the whimsical aboriginal designs she painted on her car.