Welcome to our Fall 2026 Creative Residents!
North Cascades Institute is excited to be relaunching its Creative Residency program! This fall, a series of three artists and writers will come stay at the Environmental Learning Center in order to work on creative projects while living in community with the participants and staff. Please join us in welcoming this year’s creative residents: Melinda Hurst Frye, Julie Kim, and Claire Thompson.
Melinda Hurst Frye photographs the ecology of the forest floor, witnessing the cyclical life found within the lush biome of the Pacific Northwest. By embracing the flatbed scanner as a camera, Hurst Frye welcomes the slowness of the process for observation, evidence of the passage of time, and connection to the protagonists and assemblages of the understory.
Hurst Frye’s work has been featured in publications for both art and science, such as WIRED and Orion Magazine, and varied exhibitions that include the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and Museum of Northwest Art, as well as in collections including the University of Oregon, the Summit/Seattle Convention Center, King County, and the Port of Seattle at SEA. 
Melinda holds an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design, teaches regularly in the Seattle area, and is represented by J. Rinehart Gallery.
Julie Kim 김미정 is a Seattle based, Korean-American artist. She creates multi-layered watercolor paintings that explore themes of wholeness, transformation, and healing. Her paintings reflect both inner and outer landscapes, guided by an internal practice of slowness and presence.
Her process includes foraging natural rocks and minerals to create handmade earth pigments and paints. More than a material practice, this becomes a collaboration and dialogue with the land — infusing each painting with a sense of place, time, and the natural elements. Painting becomes a way of bridging the natural and human-made, the wild and urban, fluidity and structure.
Practices of movement and healing arts deeply inform her. As a student of yoga, dance, music, and the mind-body relationship, she approaches painting as a somatic and intuitive process, allowing sensation, rhythm, and stillness to guide her compositions.
Claire Thompson is a former longtime seasonal trail worker on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. She holds an MFA in Nature Writing from Western Colorado University and an MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana, and has taught writing at the University of Montana and Wenatchee Valley College.
Her work is forthcoming in River Teeth and the anthology Cascadia Works, and has appeared in, among others, High Country News, Out There Outdoors, and Terrain, where she was a featured contributor to the 2022 “Lookout: Writing + Art About Wildfire” series and a finalist in the 2021 nonfiction contest. Claire grew up in Seattle and lives in Leavenworth, where she currently works at a bookstore and a brewery. She is at work on a researched memoir about the past, present, and future of public-lands stewardship.
Keep an eye out for updates from Melinda, Julie, and Claire as they work on their respective projects in the heart of the North Cascades. We’ll be sharing their work and experiences here.
Now Accepting Spring 2027 Proposals
Interested in joining the North Cascades Institute community to work on your own creative project? We are now soliciting proposals for Spring 2027 residencies. The priority deadline for proposals is October 30, 2026. If you have questions, please contact Nathan Drapela, Learning Center Programs Manager at nathan_drapela@ncascades.org.