jdc Fine Art Gallery Director, Jennifer DeCarlo, honored by the invitation to join the board of the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, accepted the position earlier this year. “It is an exciting time to join the ranks of such an established and budding institution,” says DeCarlo. Sitka’s mission, history, and future are unapologetically utopian. Sitka was established by Frank and Jane Boyden in 1970. The two met at Colorado College where Frank studied painting and printmaking while Jane double-majored in music and math. After graduate school at Yale University and teaching stints in New Mexico, the couple moved to Oregon to establish this beacon for arts and ecology.

Initiated as a summer camp for kids and winter workspace for the burgeoning creatives, evolution took off through collaboration. The University of Oregon’s architectural students were invited by the Boydens to design and build a permanent structure on the site. Partnerships were established with the Oregon Center of Science and Industry, who brought 30 kids to the coast for weeklong summer sessions. The first National Earth Day was celebrated as the Vietnam War raged, and Sitka’s purpose seemed more critical than ever. In 1974, Congress established Cascade Head as the first (and to date, only) national Science Research Area. Sitka sits within a dramatic and diverse landscape where the restored estuary of the Salmon River meets 7 miles of Pacific Ocean coastline. This marine reserve is home to a major coastal prairie headlands, a littoral sand spit, dune and beach pine complex. Cascade Head is now designated UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

Today, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology offers workshops May - September and hosts residencies October - May. Further evolution lays on the horizon offered most directly by a 2017 acquisition an 80-acre property within the Cascade Head Scenic Research Area, Grass Mountain.