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✹ welcome to the newsletter: an occasional bushel of works, news, + more ✹
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Calypso orchid (Calypso bulbosa). HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, OR, during my first visit as a Fireline Fellow this Spring. More on this in future letters. |
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Hello, helloGreetings, all. Welcome to the second newsletter and thank you for being here. I am excited to share some updates from this bustling summer as well as some works of others. ✹ PlatteForum Residency I had the honor of being this summer’s artist-in-residence at PlatteForum, an art and activism organization that serves high school interns from primarily Title 1 schools in the Denver metro area. The interns work with 3-4 residents throughout the year to practice new artistic media and create bodies of work that are rooted in social justice. Interns receive hourly stipends and wrap around resources (access to mental health support, tutoring, and groceries) in addition to artistic skill building and leadership opportunities. Over our eight weeks together, the interns created their own platinum-palladium portraits, and some have shared a small statement about their works. Below is a small selection; click on each name to hear their words.
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I explored a new phase of platinum—instead of using a photograph, I drew the portraits with pen and platinum-printed those drawings. Working with the high school ArtLab interns inspired me to reflect on my own memories, as well as reflect on the many connections that have made my now working in the arts possible. Each individual is someone I am connected to in the arts; one being my art teacher from high school. Mr. Stallings (or, David, as he insists I call him now), and his classes were foundations of support during a time in which I was experiencing some great challenges. David (lower row, middle) and I have reconnected as members at Art Gym Denver, and enjoy monthly coffee meet-ups with our friend and fellow artist, Ilan (below, standing with his portrait). Focusing on generative arts programs and those who create loving and safe spaces through them is the goal of this project. Beginning in response to resources being defunded and devalued both materially and ideologically (this being just one of many grand harmful happenings), I will continue these as there are a great deal of individuals, stories, and efforts to shine the sun upon. Artist Conversation: Friday, August 22 @ 6:30pm - 8:00pm. Join us for a conversation moderated by the interns, myself, and Sarah Gonzalez Coffin, a PhD candidate at CU Boulder (and beloved pal) who researches environmental psychology and reflects on all things climate, identity, mentorship, and academia as an Indigenous scientist. Gallery Hours: Until 8/27: Here. 3575 Ringsby Ct. Denver, CO 80216
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✹ Steamboat Springs, CO Mural This May, collaborator Melanie Damore and I completed a ~1,400 sq ft mural on the new Old Town Hot Springs pumphouse in Steamboat Springs, CO. You can watch this project from start to finish here, or read this blog post from OTHS. More photos here. I had the grand pleasure of creating the elk, sandhill crane flock, paintbrush and fireweed wildflowers, sphinx moth, and the mountain bluebird. Melanie painted the sweeping Yampa River, Howelsen Hill, hot springs, and aspen trees. I will always be so grateful to have gotten to do this!
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✹ Denver Parks and Recreation: Cherry Creek Trail Mural, Denver, CO Denver Parks and Rec commissioned artists to create murals along the Cherry Creek Trail depicting the concept of ‘oneness’. I explored the ecological wonder that is an aspen stand. From the National Forest Foundation: “One aspen tree is actually only a small part of a larger organism. A stand or group of aspen trees is considered a singular organism with the main life force underground in the extensive root system.” Shout out to Scotty for being the most delightful assistant, fantastic artist, and all-around marvelous human (above portraits, top row, middle). A northern flicker and blue jay bookend a CO aspen forest and its community of inhabitants; field guide here. The flicker is a red-shafted x yellow-shafted hybrid, which can be seen along a thin north-south band between their west/east ranges of Canada and the U.S., including parts of CO.
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Looking ahead✹ This weekend, I will teach a Scientific Illustration course at the Denver Botanic Gardens’ School of Botanical Illustration. There are a couple spots left for you to snag! ✹ This fall, The 11th World Conference on Ecological Restoration (SER2025) is coming to Denver, and I will present about the Nature Notes: Ralston Creek, a mural located along a restored riparian corridor in a swiftly developing area in Arvada, CO. Very excited to celebrate ecological storytelling and community-driven public art. This is following a similar presentation I gave last month at the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators’ Visual SciComm Conference in Bridgewater, MA. It has been incredibly meaningful to share this project beyond its creek-side location. ✹ Stay tuned for an upcoming announcement regarding newly available prints, available original artworks, and opening commission slots. ✹ THANK YOU to all who voted for my design for the Sand Creek Mural Regional Greenway mural; because of you, I am honored to announce that I was selected! I cannot wait to begin this project. It has been a long-time dream to incorporate field notes into a large-scale mural: five spreads will span the ~3,500 sq foot wall depicting ecological focuses of the area. This project also integrates public engagement: species were selected from open comment, and we are hosting a painting festival on 9/13, registration here. Below is a draft with some placeholders as I work on new illustrations.
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✹ reading, listening, looking ✹
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HABITAT, Acrylic on birch, 2024. Two Palestinian sunbirds perch atop a Palestinian viper amongst sprigs of edible mallow/Khobiza. Prints out soon; funds will support mutual aid orgs The Sameer Project and Funds for Gaza |
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Zoe Sorrell - I think sometimes we need to resist the temptation to try to resolve cognitive dissonance. Let it hurt and make no sense that genocide is happening and you’re in the dairy aisle of the grocery store. Let it be fucking confusing that they’re declaring martial law and you’re writing a poem. I don’t think we need to justify art and survival and tedium. Let it make no sense. It’s not all resistance and it’s not supposed to be wrapped in a rhetorical bow and we’re not supposed to live this way. ✹ The rage you are feeling
comes from the same place
inside your heart as the love.
This is why you refuse to accept a world where cruelty reigns and the fire consumes all.
You have known hope
and joy and kindness
like you have known water.
And justice is a river
that demands
you do not give up on it - Nikita Gill ✹ Paul Robeson That time we all heard it, cool and clear, cutting across the hot grit of the day. The major Voice. The adult Voice forgoing Rolling River, forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge and other symptoms of an old despond. Warning, in music-words devout and large, that we are each other’s harvest: we are each other’s business: we are each other’s magnitude and bond. - Gwendolyn Brooks
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Yukimi performing her new album For You at Wax Trax in Denver. 35mm film, April 2025. We are now in the beginning of everything
This everything cannot be defined
This everything is not everything
This everything is not all there is
When you write from a place that feels deeply personal
It all becomes very human
And that's why I'm calling this album "For You"
Because, even though it's about me, it's equally about you
And here we are
Spinning on a planet together
All I really, really wish for is that we remember to be connected Track #1, Prelude for You |
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thanks for reading ✹ until next time ✹ reach out anytime
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CATIE MICHEL @catiecreating website | bluesky | instagram| linkedin cathrynbmichel@gmail.com archive ✹ Letter #1 | 4.18.25
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© Catie Michel 2025. All rights reserved.
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