Through My Eyes: Our Rockies

Hi everyone! My time at Rocky Mountain National Park has officially come to an end. *cue the sad violin and single tear drop* An 11-week internship sounds like a long time in theory, but it went by so so fast! Every week I would do 5 Art in the Park programming. Saturdays were my experimenting days, where I would try out different types of Art programs like coloring pages, watercolor postcards, and clay wildflower painting. In the end, I have created 8 unique new programs for the park. Honestly, that didn’t sound like a lot to me. However, as my supervisor, Jason Wolvington stated “Wow. You did A LOT. That’s more programs than the Rangers create.” So I guess it was a lot? I still have more ideas I wanted to do!!! What do you all think of a community-style mural, the theme is the four ecosystems of the park, where visitors use their hand prints to paint the plants and animals? Or Rocky’s Next Fashion Designer, where visitors are inspired by the nature around them and design outfits? (see below for a sample of my fashion designs) But alas the clock has struck midnight and there is no more time. I want to use this last blog post to show a peak into the art that was created in the park this summer. Enjoy!

Coming from a performance background, what better way to showcase the art that has been created over the summer than through a short documentary? Since art is subjective and is ‘in the eyes of the beholder’, the documentary is entitled Through My Eyes: Our Rockies. The concept was to see how the 4 different ecosystems of the park (Riparian, Montane, Subalpine, and Alpine Tundra) inspire the art being created at that moment.

Through my eyes: our rockies
aN ART IN THE PARK DOCUMENTARY

Art in the Park Completed  Programs:

Breathe, Write, Repeat-
guided hike where visitors had the opportunity to create a unique written work through nature journaling and poetry prompts

Capturing the Rockies-
guided hike where visitors learned to identify the plants and animals they are capturing with their camera, with an option to sketch what they see

Rocky Mountain Stretches-
a nature-themed stretch program that incorporates modified physical movements to educate and facilitate connections regarding park resources

Clay Wildflower Painting-
imprinted air dry clay with local wildflowers stamps, visitors painted the wildflowers as a keepsake

Arts & Crafts Pop-Up (Youth Program)-
pop-up program consisting of coloring pages and images of wildlife in the park, discussed facts about the images and pages being displayed

Becoming a Bird (Youth Program)-
a three-part two-hour program consisting of a matching game where participants guess which birds belong to which nest/egg, designed bird masks and plastic eggs, and created a bird nest out of pipe cleaners to support their bird ‘egg’

Watercolor Postcards-
guided painting program on the alpine tundra, visitors used watercolor paint to personalize a postcard

Starry Night Painting-
to be accompanied with night programs, utilizing watercolor paint and salt to create a starry night/space paint effect

"This is the best program I have ever done in a National Park"

Rocky Mountain Stretches:
a nature-themed stretch program that incorporates modified physical movements to educate and facilitate connections regarding park resources

Check out my previous blog post of this summer season  —> Expanding Accessibility in Art
If you want to learn about my time as an intern at Congaree National Park last summer check out my other blogs —>  2022 Blog Posts

Until next time!
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