Archivision: Arrowmont School of Craft’s 2025 – 2026 Artists-in-Residence

“My work is rooted in a life­long rela­tion­ship to the natural world, nurtured by early expe­ri­ences on my grand­par­ents’ wooded prop­erty. These walks with my grand­mother, where we gath­ered seeds, iden­ti­fied trees, and discov­ered the beauty in small details, began my passion for nature’s subtle intri­ca­cies. This sense of discov­ery contin­ues guiding my artistic practice. 

Ulti­mately, my work is an evolv­ing dialogue between myself and the natural world, combin­ing personal memory with mate­r­ial explo­ration. Nature becomes both subject and medium, creat­ing a visible connec­tion between envi­ron­ment and experience.”

“I continue this explo­ration by collect­ing seeds, photograph­ing, and observ­ing natural mate­ri­als, finding inspi­ra­tion in their textures, patterns, and forms. Rather than isolat­ing a single object, I often work in group­ings, creat­ing collec­tions of related forms. These bodies of work func­tion as studies in vari­a­tion, where repe­ti­tion allows subtle differ­ences to emerge, much like the quiet diver­sity of nature itself. 

Within the context of Arrow­mont and the Great Smoky Moun­tains National Park, I focused on the flora that drew my atten­tion. The flowers and leaves I encoun­tered were both specific and abun­dant, prompt­ing me to create pieces that empha­size their distinc­tive­ness while exist­ing in rela­tion to one another. These works become phys­i­cal embod­i­ments of my expe­ri­ences in the land­scape and the people I shared it with.”

“Mate­ri­ally, this work reveals the maker’s hand. Carving gouges, knives, spoke­shaves, and scrap­ers leave behind subtle textures that serve as tactile records of the making process. Color has also been influ­enced by my surround­ings, the land­scape, fellow resi­dents, and Gatlinburg’s bright visual culture. Through these works, I hope to encour­age a similar atten­tive­ness in others, calling viewers to slow down, look closely, and redis­cover the rich­ness of the small, often over­looked details of the natural world.”

Talia Drury was born and raised in Iowa, where she earned her Bachelor’s in Indus­trial Design from Iowa State Univer­sity in 2021. She later moved to Rochester, New York, complet­ing her MFA in Furni­ture Design at the School of Amer­i­can Crafts at Rochester Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy in 2024. Her prac­tice centers on a deep connec­tion to the natural world, drawing inspi­ra­tion from the textures, patterns, and forms found in seeds, leaves, flowers, and other collected natural mate­ri­als. Working primar­ily in wood carving and paint­ing, Talia creates objects that amplify over­looked aspects of flora and invite moments of reflec­tion and discov­ery. Over the past year, she has worked as a resi­dent artist and educa­tor at RIT and is explor­ing and expand­ing on her medium at Arrow­mont this year as an artist in residence.

Learn more about Arrow­mont School of Craft and their resi­dency program

Learn more about Talia:

TFS Profile Page
Talia’s Website
Insta­gram