This September, the Shenandoah National Park Trust is hosting Art in the Park: Scenes from Shenandoah at the Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2). This 2-day event will feature workshops and demonstrations by local artists from across the region that are free and open to the public. These teaching artists—whose mediums range from watercolor, charcoal, and photography to fiber art, printmaking, and music—will conduct events throughout the weekend designed to engage, educate, and inspire visitors to connect with Shenandoah.
Weekend Programming Schedule
Friday, September 26, 2025
Print the Park | Piper Groves
10:30am | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
Join us for a special demonstration of monoprinting with found botanical objects. Participants will also participate in a stamping project with leaf shaped stamps they can carve and make impressions on cards.
Creating with Nature | Carolina Mayorga
12:00pm | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
Experience Shenandoah’s landscapes through a guided walk, gathering natural materials to create 2D/3D artworks – in a workshop designed to connect with the park’s sights, sounds, and textures.
Acrylic Mindscape Painting | Marcellus C. Winston-Northington a.k.a Archie Marz
1:30pm | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
Acrylic Mindscape Painting guides participants to paint nature scenes from memory or dreams, blending mindfulness, imagination, and manifestation to enhance creative intuition, mental clarity, and self-expression through translating inner visions into vivid acrylic landscapes.
Exploring Cyanotypes| Angus Carter
3:00pm | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
Discover the beauty of cyanotypes through their unique blue color. Create your own prints and learn how this timeless photographic process was used in historic scientific studies of botany, blending creativity with science and history.
Sculpting with Sculpey: Creating Miniature Polymer Sculptures| Ishraq Quasem – 2025 LEAP Artist
4:30pm | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
This hands-on workshop invites participants to explore the expressive potential of polymer clay using Sculpey. Attendees will learn basic sculpting and molding techniques using specialized tools, as well as how to build internal structures using wire and tinfoil to support more complex forms.
QUIETUDE| Jill Haley – 2023 Artist-in-Residence
6:00pm | Big Meadows Amphitheater
Musician, composer, Jill Haley, spent a few weeks in the park as an Artist in Residence. During this time, she created a collection of pieces she wrote about Shenandoah. Jill will share these instrumental pieces written for oboe, English horn, and piano with pianist, Sue McDevitt.
Saturday, September 27, 2025
Watercolor Splotch Monsters | Stephen Loya
9:00am | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
Create mythical creatures inspired by nature and animals, from watercolor paint splotches! Learn how to add various details and make a story about your Splotch Monster, in this workshop where observation sparks imagination.
Block Printing Workshop | Dani Davis – 2025 Artist-in-Residence
10:30am | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
Participants will create their own block print by carving a stamp and pressing it onto paper. Participants under 16 will need to be supervised by an adult.
Kinusaiga Quilt Fusion | Jordan Bennett
12:00pm | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
Fuse Appalachian quilt culture with the Japanese art of Kinusaiga to create artwork to take home inspired by the beauty of Shenandoah.
Nature Journaling Experience | Michele Bowden
1:30pm | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
Discover the beauty of nature through sketching and observation in this relaxing outdoor journaling class. Learn basic drawing techniques while exploring the park’s flora and fauna. All skill levels welcome!
Memory in Mixed-Media | Molly Nolan
3:00pm | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
Connect with your senses on a guided nature walk, as we observe the patterns, textures, and colors of the earth. Create a mixed-media collage, translating your memories and experience at Shenandoah into a visual piece.
Seasonal Floral & Foliage Prints Workshop | Jen Cable
4:30pm | Tent at Big Meadows Wayside (mile 51.2)
Jen Cable of Flourish Root Floral Studio in Sperryville — a next door neighbor to SNP — will be bringing flowers, foliage & organic materials from her studio cutting gardens to create art prints by using paints & inks to apply to the natural materials to design a natural art print to take home.
Thank you to this year’s Art in the Park Sponsors & Partners:
