Our museum is a celebration of life in the natural world and our interpretations of our experience with them. These artists are translators of the great mystery between the Animal Kingdoms and Humanity.
We treasure their walk into communion with nature because they allow us to be taken on their journey through their art pieces.
Here are a list of the creators featured in our exhibits.
ARTIST OF THE MONTH!
Long Dog Dandy
Julie R Madison is an illustrator, muralist, and painter, with a focus on surrealist animals and environments. Her work features otherworldly creatures that tap into our primal, naturalistic side, eliciting the emotions therein.
She is also a giant dog nerd.
We are so fortunate to have so. much. Long. Dog. Dandy. Artwork. in our museum!
Long Dog Dandys Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/besidesdying/about
Long Dog Dandys Website – https://www.longdogdandy.com/
Pam Sloan
Visual Artist & Educator of 20 years
A native Chicagoan, Pam Sloan’s art currently focuses on list a of 12 priority species identified by the Chicago Wilderness Organization. They are small animals from bats to butterflies, that epitomize our region and its environmental challenges.
Environmental art exists in the tensions between creation and preservation, who we are and who we must become, global problems and local solutions.
Iconography represented in her work can range from rain forest to microorganism shining light on so many of the menagerie of creation.
These small creatures are mascots of entire biomes; rivers, grasslands, marshes, and forests, that are vanishing or weakening due to long-term results of industrialization and lack of stewardship. Their diminutive scale emphasizes the importance of bio diverse systems, rather than a single species.
Pam’s art is highly textural, incorporating environmental artifacts from native grasses to bat guano, emphasizing the role of each animal as a link in a complex chain.
To learn more please visit: www.pamelasloan.com
Domingo Papalotl (they/them) resides on Potawatomi, Odawa, and Ojibwe territory (Chicago) with Purépecha roots (Guanajuato, Mexico). Even though creating has always been an important part of Domingo’s life journey and healing, it wasn’t until the pandemic lockdown that they started to embark on an artist project that tied their love for butterfly conservation, DIY crafting, and the macabre. Their creations honor the delicacy and resilience of life, death, and eternal transition one little trinket at a time.
Domingo started practicing DIY monarch butterfly conservation when they first started transitioning back in 2018. Since then they’ve raised hundreds of monarch caterpillars and have had the privilege of releasing most of them as butterflies. They’ve collected various dead bug specimens while they worked in garden centers and greenhouses (some would fly in and couldn’t find their way out) & from those that they’ve hospiced. There are times when the butterflies in Domingo’s incubators and enclosures are born with and/or around other larva that have easily transmittable viruses or are born with wings that simply don’t allow them to take flight – Domingo takes them in as hospice butterflies until they pass away naturally. They’ve collected hundreds of chrysalis shells and caterpillar skin molts. Their butterfly wing and chrysalis collection has surely dwindled since they started RIP Repurposed but they believe it’s worth having them on display, adorned on freaks, geeks, mystics, queers, and other beautiful outcasts who feel drawn to these tiny reminders of mortality.
All rip repurposed creations are ethically sourced and made with the utmost intricacy and intentionality, all while practicing cantos (prayer songs) for ceremony. Dried flower bits in RIP Repurposed pieces are all flower gifts from past lovers. Many of their jewelry chains are upcycled and repurposed. All wings are either from Domingo’s personal collection of dead bugs or outsourced from ethically driven sources like the Insect Asylum. For more information please visit @rip.repurposed on Instagram.
Angela Bachman of Grey Engel Artwork
Angela Bachman is an artist who creates surreal and whimsical artwork using a mixture of oil and acrylic paints. Alongside her 2D work, she also has experience in horror and beauty makeup and creates her own content for social media platforms. Despite challenges with personal health, Angela is a humbling mix of raw talent combined with soft and gentle genrosity. Coming out the otherside with grace and power, Angela has made art her primary focus in life and career, leading to opportunities in modeling and freelance work. Her art is a reflection of herself and a language of love, therapy, and necessity that she hopes to continue to grow as her brand expands.
Through her journey, Angela has learned about self-love and the importance of following one’s passion. She believes that art is a way of life and a pure offering to the world, representing an extension of herself and her essence.
Oil on canvas 2 ft X 3 ft
While creating has always been a large part of Cecelia’s life, it wasn’t until after she was medically separated from her time as an Army medic that she devoted herself to pursuing her dream of becoming a professional artist. Her artwork celebrates the delicate balance of nature through surreal and intricate illustrations and paintings and merges earthy sophistication with macabre symbolism. She hopes to bring awareness, beauty, and appreciation to uncomfortable and often overlooked aspects of life through her art- like death, mental health, and everyday struggles like burnout and stress. She hopes you find the same peaceful contemplation in her work.
When she’s not painting, she is exploring the world with her family, practicing yoga, gardening, and adding more houseplants to her collection. To find out more and to join her on this journey follow her on Instagram @yellow.bird.art or check out her website at www.ceceliawilken.com
Overflowing talent in so many different areas lets Nicole pour her effort into many forms of expression. This incredible human is an iron worker, nail tech, arborist (she cuts dead trees) taxidermist, artist and so much more.
If raw motivation had a pin-up model, its her. Simultaneously she gives off so much kindness and is one of the gentlest souls we share at the museum.
May Howard is a modern glass mystic. She describes her work as, “custom stained glass for the terminally online,” which perfectly explains her love of vintage memes and beautiful nature imagery she traps in her lines. She shows her skill in her iridescent cicada wings that shine in the light and feel so real. Her rosey maple moth honors vivid colors and beautiful symmetry in their fuzzy little bodies.
Her love of reading led to her generous support of community small libraries by donating her gorgeous glass artwork to adorn the bookcases.
Instagram: @touchglassstudio
Contact her: touchglassstudio@gmail.com
Emily and her husband, Morris Ware, are semi retired residents of Ingomar, Montana. Their business, Coyotes R Us, focuses on sustainable harvesting and preserving pelts and skulls from coyotes that were dispatched legally and ethically to protect the regions wildlife and livestock. Emily made her first crude set of tooth earrings about three years ago and hasn’t stopped since. She has spent many hours designing new, unique pieces using as many natural and recycled materials as possible. Nothing makes Emily happier than to see someone wearing a piece of jewelry she made. She also makes and sells items designed from the pelts she procures.
Hazel was born and raised in Texas. She moved to Chicago to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and fell in love with the natural world through volunteer work at the Field Museum. Hazel has a passion for both portraiture and entomology and enjoys creating scientific illustrations of specimens from her personal collection, mainly from Illinois, Michigan, Texas, and Arizona. She works primarily in oil paints, ink, watercolor, and colored pencils.
Erica Carpenter
Caroline & Clay is a one woman ceramics company in Chicago. The name Caroline, Erica’s middle name, has been used by women in her family for generations. It symbolizes the craft skills that are mastered and passed down through generations. Erica believes that handmade objects enrich our lives by connecting us to the past and each other.
Each item is wheel thrown and fired multiple times. All drawings are drawn by Erica or one of her friends and then fused into the glaze. All work is food, dishwasher, and microwave safe and intended for everyday use.
https://www.instagram.com/carolineandclay/?hl=en
Holly Pink of Holly Pink Pro
This mega mom and beautician has produced an incredible line of vegan, all natural, and certifiable organic skincare products. Body Love was created by Holly Pink® during the 2020 pandemic. The line’s second product, Bomb@$$ Butter was made after nothing else relieved her son’s skin due to eczema, and it is definitely the fan favorite! Her line covers everything from Lotions that prevent and treat ingrown hairs to fixing body acne. Learn more about Holly and her incredible products at: @bodylove.hollypink @hollypinkpro on social media and Hollypinkpro.com
Aim Ren Beland
Aim Ren Beland (he/they) is a trans visual storyteller originally from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He has been invited to speak on the relationship of queerness in comics at: Chicago Zine Fest, C2E2, and Queers & Comics New York. His work has been published in South Side Weekly, and displayed at events such as North of the 45th, Culture of Cult, and LOCUS.
Melissa Schramm
Melissa is a retired social worker who spent most of her career working with children stuck in the foster care system, advocating for survivors of abuse in court and facilitating group therapy in the prison systems. Art has always been her therapy and escape from reality. Melissa’s childhood was spent in Germany where her father took her to churches with jewel encrusted skeletons and so began her fascination with the macabre. She is a published and exhibiting photographer and also tours with the Oddities and Curiosities Expo selling one of a kind jewels and self defense keychains containing cruelty free specimens.
Ryan Blume
Ryan Blume was born on June 9, 1989 in Highland Park, IL and grew up in Lincolnshire, IL. At the age of eighteen he began studying at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. Blume graduated from the University of Iowa in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in studio arts with an emphasis in painting. In 2015, Blume completed and artist in residency at Vernon Hills High School. Creation through all sorts of medium has been a standard in his life since the earliest days. As the second youngest of seven children, his siblings have always played a major role in Blume’s life. From school projects, to personal art endeavors, he sat by and watched all of them create things. Along with family, nature and spirit have been major influences in his ever evolving creative process. Blume now lives and works out of Chicago, IL. His work includes commissioned paintings, art and yoga workshops, live painting at festivals, gallery exhibitions, coordinating art shows, murals, and more. His mission is profound but simple, document and catalyze the enlightenment of humanity.
Mellisa Bryant
Mellisa is our newest hand drawn sticker and print maker. Her work stood out to us as exactly the type of collection that any nature lover from our home in Illinois would adore.
“my name is melissa bryant & i have been creating art for most of my life. i received my BFA at herron school of art in indianapolis in 2002 for painting & drawing. my subject matter, media, and technique have changed a lot over the years and i’m sure it will continue; however, i felt strongly about capturing this snippet of time (and current work) by creating my first website in which to share with the world. i am a mother of 4 biological children & 2 bonus kids and share a loving home with my partner, tyler. our oldest is 17 and youngest is not quite 2— all of my current work is created during naptime!
i am inspired by lines, textiles, color, and plants, in which i’m a keeper (roughly 175.) you may follow my public but personal instagram account at melbry820 for updates on new pieces and a sprinkling of daily life.”
website: www.melbryarts.com
Mikki Jay
Mikki is a painter and illustrator based in Chicago, Illinois. Her work explores nature, psychology, occult and classical symbolism, science fiction and fantasy pulp imagery, American pop culture ephemera and semi-autobiographical accounts of her experiences. She works in bold and vibrant lines, colors and vivid detail. Furthermore, her work explores the use of art as a therapeutic tool for healing and growth. Outside of her art practice, She has a Masters’ Degree in art therapy and counseling and work in the mental health field.
Miranda Knox
Miranda Knox is an independent artist who has been making art since she could walk. She finds that through art she is able to express many things she cannot put into words. Her common mediums are digital, painting, and colored pencils. She is thrilled to be able to share her art with the world and to be working with The Insect Asylum!
