Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative Announces Four Selected Artists for Inaugural Artist in Residence Program

Written By Bridgette Windell

The Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative (NCFC), in partnership with the Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests, is pleased to announce the four artists selected for its inaugural Artist in Residence Program.

Chosen from a competitive pool of applicants, the artists represent a diverse range of creative disciplines and perspectives. Throughout the summer, each artist will spend a week immersed in the forests of Northern Colorado at the Red Feather Assistant Ranger Cabin, using the residency to create original artwork inspired by the region’s forests, wildfire, restoration, and the people working to steward these landscapes.

The Artist in Residence Program was created to foster new conversations about wildfire resilience through art. While science and land management are essential to restoring forest health, art has the unique ability to inspire curiosity, encourage reflection, and connect people emotionally to landscapes and the importance of proactive forest stewardship.

During their residency, artists will explore the surrounding Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests, meet with forestry professionals, learn about prescribed fire and forest restoration, and experience firsthand the landscapes that define Northern Colorado’s forests. Their work will culminate in original pieces that interpret these experiences through their own artistic practices.

The completed works will be featured in a public exhibition this fall before traveling throughout Northern Colorado, helping bring conversations about healthy forests, wildfire resilience, and proactive forest management to communities across the region.

Meet the 2026 Artist in Residence Cohort

Isabel Heiland

Isabel Heiland is a dreamer born and raised along the Front Range of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. She has always felt drawn to the mountains and the outdoors, even before she recognized that pull. Her journey to become an artist started at Colorado State University, where she received her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with a concentration in drawing and a Minor in Botany in 2021. At the time, she chose the minor more out of a general love for plants, but felt an uncertainty about how to combine that passion with art. By the end of her undergrad, and after experiencing her first major natural disaster in the Cameron Peak Fire of 2020, she felt called to expand her art practice beyond the bounds of botanical illustration.

This led her to pursue a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico. This program, called the Confluence Program, developed her understanding of just how intertwined art, ecology, and regenerative culture can be. Some hands-on forestry work through the Larimer County Conservation Corps helped further this exploration and gave her a deeper appreciation of the healthy and burnt forests that she has grown to love so much.

She is ecstatic to continue her journey of learning from the trees and sharing how amazing and resilient forests are through the NoCo Fireshed Artist in Residency Program, and is beyond grateful for the opportunity to do so!

Jocelyn Catterson

Jocelyn Catterson is a multidisciplinary artist and environmental educator based out of Del Norte, Colorado. Her intricate, place-based works are rooted in the ecological and agricultural landscapes of Colorado. Her art explores the visual rhythms of natural systems through detailed, layered compositions that integrate natural history, science, and storytelling. Her practice is deeply tied to the landscape, using art as a tool to translate environmental data and field observations into research-driven visual narratives.

Influenced by nature journaling, cartography, and scientific illustration, Jocelyn weaves together delicate linework, texture, and organic pattern. By drawing attention to the often unseen forces shaping the land—such as groundwater depletion, climate shifts, and land-use change—her work offers an immersive reflection on the fragile balance between human communities and their environments.

Beyond the studio, Jocelyn engages in community collaborations, public art projects, and interdisciplinary partnerships with scientists, farmers, and conservation organizations. Through her work, she seeks to foster ecological awareness, inspire learning, and offer new ways of seeing the landscapes that sustain us.

Tyler Thenikl

Tyler Thenikl is an artist and educator living in Columbus, OH. He graduated from the University of Olivet with degrees in Studio Art and Graphic Design. The following year, he became an Artist-In-Residence at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. His work has been featured in local, regional, and international exhibitions.Tyler earned his MFA in Printmaking from Ohio University, where he was awarded the prestigious Billman Fine Arts Award. In August 2024, he was an Artist-in-Residence at the Wrangell Mountains Center in McCarthy, Alaska. 

Tyler’s artistic practice is driven by an unwavering fascination with landscape and how it is transformed: through ecology, natural disasters, development, climate, industry, etc. Today, we are experiencing an unprecedented loss of ecosystems and extreme weather events influenced by unprecedented commercial production and resource extraction. Tyler is compelled to study the landscapes that bear the marks of these phenomena, forever altered by the conflicts of humanity and nature. He utilizes printmaking, photography, painting, drawing, and installation to create reflective images of mundane and extraordinary circumstances. Each scene Tyler portrays symbolizes a larger narrative of place, often in consideration of history, land, industry, or ecology.

Over the past few years, research and travel have become integral to Tyler’s artistic practice. Outside of the studio, he can be found scouring old maps, reading journals, and always wandering off the beaten path in search of the overlooked. 

Catie Michel

Catie Michel is a scientific illustrator, muralist, and devoted naturalist based in Denver. Finding great community in shared curiosity, she examines connection, access, advocacy, and the intersection of science and art. Catie has created public murals across Colorado and collaborates with organizations like State Parks, NSF, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to create multimedia visuals. Her background in science communication and field research with NOAA and the Golden Gate Bird Alliance grounds her creative work in observation and experiential collaboration. She is currently a Fireline Fellow with Oregon State University researching fire via artistic and scientific inquiry, and teaches science illustration at the Denver Botanic Gardens, the American Society of Botanical Artists, and Denver Public Schools. Recent and upcoming exhibitions include the Gunnison Arts Center (CO), Roger Tory Peterson Institute (NY), Antler/Talon Gallery (OR), Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (MA), Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design (CO), Creature Conserve (PA), and the Brinton Museum (WY). As her practice evolves, Catie continues to expand into new media and collaborations that advocate for environmental and social justice through the collective liberation of all human and more-than-human communities.

Bridgette Windell https://nocofireshed.org/
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