Our Partnerships
This program maintains partnerships between artists and organizations working within conservation and preservation of our natural resources. In harmony with conservation groups, artists will create work inspired by the unique knowledge and experience of the partner groups.
Kristin Plucar
Sheboygan based artist Kristin Plucar makes layered and detailed drawings inspired by natural forms, personal history, and daily experience. She received her BA from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and her MFA from Idaho State University in Pocatello, Idaho. Kristin has received numerous grants and awards, including two Jerome Foundation Emerging Artist Fellowships, and participated in artist residency programs in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Japan. She is also an avid gardener, beekeeper, and dog lover.
Maywood - Pigeon River Watershed
Since establishing the sanctuary in 1998, Madison Audubon Society has acquired title to or permanent conservation easements on 675 acres of land at Faville Grove (pronounced FAY-vil), most of which is open to the public. In cooperation with neighboring landowners, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison Audubon is permanently protecting and restoring a total of nearly 1200 acres of diverse habitat in the area.
In addition to year-round restoration projects on the land, MAS facilitates a variety of conservation-related efforts at Faville Grove, including:
+Nest box construction and monitoring for wood ducks, American kestrels, bluebirds, and more.
+Endangered and threatened species monitoring and research for a variety of rare plants, including the eastern prairie white-fringed orchid.
+A Robust native seed collecting program that helps to preserve local-genotype seeds from remnant and restored prairies.
Sarah Gail Luther
Sarah Gail Luther is a Milwaukee-based artist who explores and documents the familiar, the average, or the forgotten. The results of these inquiries manifest in drawings, performances, public events, and distribulate objects. Through her work, she strives to build an understanding of the subject, not necessarily to elevate but to appreciate it intricacies, humor, or humanity.
Madison Audubon Society - Faville Grove Sanctuary
Since establishing the sanctuary in 1998, Madison Audubon Society has acquired title to or permanent conservation easements on 675 acres of land at Faville Grove (pronounced FAY-vil), most of which is open to the public. In cooperation with neighboring landowners, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison Audubon is permanently protecting and restoring a total of nearly 1200 acres of diverse habitat in the area.
In addition to year-round restoration projects on the land, MAS facilitates a variety of conservation-related efforts at Faville Grove, including:
+Nest box construction and monitoring for wood ducks, American kestrels, bluebirds, and more.
+Endangered and threatened species monitoring and research for a variety of rare plants, including the eastern prairie white-fringed orchid.
+A Robust native seed collecting program that helps to preserve local-genotype seeds from remnant and restored prairies.
Luke Bassuener
Asumaya is the solo-looping project of Madison WI multi-instrumentalist, Luke Bassuener, whose music is built from layers of interlocking harmonies and rhythmic patterns to form churning compositions that make heads spin and feet move. Drawing inspiration from his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana, and from his other lives as a public elementary school art teacher and a part-time post-punk-dub-jazz drummer, Bassuener's songs sound like a warped world music from a place that might not exist.
Glacial Lakes Conservancy
Glacial Lakes Conservancy, Inc. is a private, non-profit land conservation organization. The original founders saw that during the 1990′s, approximately 8,000 rural acres were subdivided for residential purposes in the unincorporated areas of Sheboygan County alone, prompting a deep concern for the future of our region’s lands and waters.
They founded the Sheboygan Area Land Conservancy in 1996 as a volunteer, membership organization to protect and preserve natural areas and farmland within the Sheboygan Country area in Wisconsin.
In January 2005, Glacial Lakes Conservancy (renamed in 2004) expanded its coverage area northward to Kewaunee County. This was accomplished by merging with The Rural Land Legacy Committee of Kewaunee County, an active local group dedicated to preserving farmland, natural areas, and undeveloped Lake Michigan shoreline.
Today, the land trust offers land conservation options, organizational support, and technical guidance to landowners and organizations in Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Kewaunee, Calumet and Fond du Lac counties. GLC owns four properties: William F. Christel Woods and Wetlands Preserve, Grasshopper Hill Preserve, Charles & Winifred Spring West Twin River Preserve, and Willow Creek Preserve, and also holds 25 conservation easements.
Craig Grabhorn
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin- Stout, he is currently employed as Community Arts Residency Coordinator with The John Michael Kohler Arts Center. He was born and raised in rural Minnesota and has made a career as a practiced designer, printmaker, painter, curator and arts organizer.
His work is inspired by a meditative exploration or observation of place and the opportunities within our natural surroundings. Through intensive listening he translates environment into material works, including prints, paintings and sculptural works. Objects he creates are often tools or vehicles of exploration, used to help capture and interpret the emotions and opportunities he sees.
Since moving to Sheboygan, Craig has been communing with Lake Michigan and the expansive horizon in a photography project titled 50over50atmos. This meditation was inspired after a two year retreat in the hills of the Driftless region to study and create a print series exploring the ancient landscape. The 50over50atmos project documents the ever changing colors, surfaces and atmosphere of Lake Michigan as a daily capture from the same location on the shore.
Sheboygan County Audubon Society
The Wisconsin Audubon Council promotes, fosters and encourages the conservation, preservation and study of all wildlife, plants, soil, water, air and other natural resources for the benefit of nature and society. In furtherance of those goals we work to combine the efforts of our member organizations in any pursuits as may be a part of the stated purpose of the National Audubon Society.
