By Deborah Mitchell, AIRIE

Knight Arts Foundation finalist AIRIE (Artists in Residence in Everglades) kicks off the season with the 3^rd stop in its traveling exhibition highlighting artists from its program. Co-curators Sybille Welter and Jill Lavetsky offer an overview of the dynamic works which have resulted from artists in varying disciplines spending one month in this endangered World Heritage Site.  New works from Harumi Abe, Karen Glaser, Dana Levy, Gustavo Matamoros, Adam Nadel, Alice Raymond, Rebecca Reeve and Susan Silas invade the Schmidt Center Gallery and will be on view through November 5^th.*

Dana Levy, Emerging from the Swamp series, 2014

Susan Silas (New York) will debut several photographs of tagged, stuffed birds dating back to the 1960’s taken at the South Florida Management Center entitled “The Specimen Drawer”. She writes that “collectively they are a record of the upheavals and changes in management techniques that have beset the park for over a century.”

Susan Silas, Flight (Proposal for a billboard, Soho, New York), 2013

Although photographers love this distinctive residency, painters like Harumi Abe benefit from total immersion in the wilderness as well. Abe presents two paintings from her series “134 days and 21 hours” which explore the notions of home beyond its physicality and explore the emotional attachment to the idea of home.

Harumi Abe, detail from Pahayokkee 2, 2014

Now beginning its 14^th year, AIRIE has added a diverse group of local professionals to its board of directors to including authors, a curator, biologist, investment analyst and of course, artists. This board driven organization offers unique support to its Fellows through meetings with scientists and access to the Everglades archives. Upcoming events include An Evening with AIRIE at the Miami Bookfair International on November 18^th, and a partnership with Pinecrest Gardens introducing AIRIELAB on November 2^nd.   AIRIELAB is a series of artist talks at the garden which will highlight selections from the AIRIE art collection and an installation in progress from the current fellow. Check http://www.airie.org/ for details and save the date for AIRIE in the Garden, a fundraising afternoon of performances, installations and poetry readings, on February 1^st, 2015.