Full Immersive Artistic Experience
Along with environmental and wellness initiatives, A to Z Wineworks supports literacy and the arts. The liberal arts can enrich lives and expand vision through engagement with diverse, thoughtful perspectives that help us grow as human beings. The winery’s art residency program offers an immersion within a dynamic setting far from an artist’s usual surroundings and obligations. The time and space afforded after the initial harvest enables an artist to reflect and expand their work in a fascinating new environment. They might produce an individual project, a body of work in response to the winery, or continue developing their course of study and exploration.
The winery benefits from the presence and participation of the artist in residence who brings new ideas and fresh inspiration as well as artwork for the campus. The community benefits when the artist in residence presents talks, demonstrations, experiential opportunities, and exhibits of their art. In the tasting room, selections are chosen to reward attention mirroring the wine tasting experience. An initial response to the color, clarity, and feel of a work can deepen upon reflection and perhaps even leave a lingering impression after departure.
Meet the Artists
Krystyny Vandenberg
Biography
Krystyny Vandenberg is an artist working with painting and textiles whose work explores the significance and the difficulties involved in forming relationships with family, friends and identity. Themes of community, how we connect with others and history are central to her work. She started her career in after school art classes in 2002 and she went on to receive her BFA in studio arts with an emphasis in drawing and painting from Biola University in 2017. She received her MFA at Otis College of Art and Design in 2022. Her work has been exhibited throughout California and internationally including a solo show at the Helen and Abraham Bolsky Gallery in Los Angeles, California and group shows at the Brea Gallery (Brea, CA) the Clara and Allen Gresham Art Gallery (San Bernardino, CA), the Colonnade (Long Beach, CA) and at the Enoteca (Redondo, Portugal). Her work is currently held in collections at Biola University and the Municipal of Redondo. Her interest in history and art led her to participate in an archeological field school in the Alentejo region of Portugal in 2017. Learning how history influences art and how art affects history became important to her work. She participated in an artist residency in the town of Redondo in 2018. There she was able to physically combine painting and archaeology by using materials found on the digsite and around town to paint the people she was surrounded by. She now has her studio based in Southern California and frequently collaborates with local artists and curators.
Artist Statement
After working harvest and gaining knowledge in a craft I haven’t had experience in before, I’m looking forward to imbuing that newfound insight into my artwork. I’ve talked to so many people here about their love and passion for wine, food and community and I really want that to be the main emphasis in the work. I want to explore the history and tradition of winemaking and show our connection to our past and the winemakers who came before us, while celebrating the lives, stories and skills of our current A to Z workers/winemakers/interns.
Nieko McDaniel
Biography
Growing up in Southern California, Nieko McDaniel was influenced by an urban lifestyle of graffiti, street art, hip-hop, and rap. He is interested in world-building, recognizing that we try to escape the current world through simulation and invention. Using repurposed materials, McDaniel makes work about identity and escapism. He is influenced by the types of entertainment his Millennial generation prefers in literature, music, movies, comics, television, and video games.
McDaniel is an Adjunct Art Professor for North Carolina’s Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and Southern California’s Palo Verde College. In November of 2021, McDaniel became the Artist in Residence for Oregon’s A to Z Wineworks.
Artist Statement
I am interested in how we try to escape reality through our imaginations. This led me to an interest in world-building, that is, creating from entirely new fictional worlds, while recognizing that anything we create inherently references our experiences in reality. Like many artists, my artwork acknowledges my identity through expressed opinions, ideas, and work on topics like race, love, innocence, and identity. These are serious topics and that often show the vulgarity of placing stereotypes and negative characteristics on minority cultures.
Hadley Hatcher
Biography
A pandemic furlough from Hatcher’s career in the music industry allowed her to return from Los Angeles to finally work an A to Z harvest in Oregon. After completing the required harvest internship, this prolific, self-taught painter applied to continue her work as the winery’s second Artist-in-Residence. A lifelong artist, she focused on photography when she was younger but has shifted her creative focus to devote more time to painting in recent years, as captured below in her studio by A to Z’s first Artist-in-Residence, Adrian Chitty.
Artist Statement
Art has always been a part of my life. Both my parents studied Art History and my mom is an artist who lectured on art for six years. Looking at art at home, in museums, books, and studios was natural, and I was always challenged to see more. At one point, I considered professional photography as a path and have been painting in earnest for five years but chose to keep my creative endeavors for my pleasure.
During this tumultuous time, I am thankful for the ability to bring more art to the community. It also afforded me the opportunity to consider a more direct response to the vineyards and winemaking that have been a key part of my life.
While all creativity stems from our connection with nature, I am particularly drawn to working with color and form abstractly in both paint and photography.
Adrian Chitty
Biography
Adrian Chitty is a photographer living in Yamhill County, Oregon. His work celebrates craftspeople and artisans, people who work with their hands and lovingly touch every product they make. He chronicles their skill, craft, and passion in an overwhelmingly industrialized and automated world.
Adrian came to photography after nearly two decades in software engineering. Stepping away from that career to become a stay-at-home father afforded him more time to explore his own creative urges and after stints learning metalwork, woodwork and ceramics he came upon the idea of marrying his long-standing love of photography with his rapidly increasing appreciation for the skill and craftsmanship of the people he met in these fields.
After a series of one-day photoshoots, Adrian realized that he wanted to go deeper. Deeper into an individual craft, and longer in time spent absorbing it. The idea of spending a year with a winery was born.
