Chicken Coop Artist in Residence
Chicken Coop Artist in Residence at Villekulla Farm
The Chicken Coop Artist-in-Residence (AIR) offers time and space for visual artists to focus on their creative process in a rural setting. Residents stay at Villekulla Farm, a beautiful Nebraska acreage. The residency has a regenerative approach, focused on artists of different ages, career stages, abilities, and identities. The goal is to foster a creative experience where visiting artists regenerate a colorful and inclusive environment in rural Nebraska. The project will connect urban artists and the rural community through a public open house event with an AIR exhibition, hands-on creative activities, and collaborative creation of a wooden barn quilt.
About the Artist
Trudie Teijink is a printmaker and mixed media artist who lives on an acreage in Stanton County, Nebraska. She obtained her BFA from the Amsterdam University of the Arts and earned her MFA with an emphasis on printmaking at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
Born and raised in the Netherlands, Teijink’s artwork is deeply rooted in the content of 17th century Dutch Vanitas still-lifes. Formation, decay, and the conflicts between our everyday life and the fleetingness of our existence forms a constant undercurrent in her work. Teijink experiences this ephemerality profoundly in the vast Nebraska landscape that inspires much of her work.
Her work has been exhibited locally, nationally, and internationally, including at the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, NE, the Great Plains Art Museum in Lincoln, NE, the University of Hawaii, Hilo, Chamalières, France, and the University of Alberta, Canada. Her work is in permanent collections such as the Thomas P. Coleman Collection at the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, NE and the Lilli M. Kleven Print Collection at Bemidji State University, MN. In 2012, Teijink received the Lincoln Mayor’s Award: Kimmel Harding Nelson Emerging Visual Artist Award
She currently teaches studio art classes at Metropolitan Community College and Midland University. She is the founder of the chicken Coop Artist In Residency at her acreage Villekulla Farm, hosting visual artists for week-long summer residencies.
Since her childhood, Teijink dreamed of living sustainably on a small farm. Her childhood dreams came true when she purchased an abandoned acreage in 2018. She felt compelled to preserve the over 120-year-old farm. While living on the farm, Teijink learned more about the fascinating foundation of the land itself, the original animal and plant life, and their interdependence. There is complexity in prairie ecology and its beautiful life forms. Appreciation for this ecosystem is entering her recent artwork as well as her work on the acreage: She has started growing native prairie plants on the acreage, returning the land to its original state.
She feels a deep gratitude for the ability to experience these complexities on a piece of land and feels the need to share this with other artists. Therefore, she created the Chicken Coop Artist In Residence. The goal of the CC-AIR is to create a colorful and inclusive environment in rural Nebraska by taking a regenerative approach. Residents experience artistic regeneration through the inspirational landscapes and settings and in turn contribute to the regeneration of rural America through artistic interpretation and local engagement.
