Katherine “Kit” Rutter, our fourth Artist in Residence for 2026, arrived in steamy hot August and is with us until September 17. While the weather might be sizzling with heat, Kit’s art shimmers with magic.
Kit hails from Arkansas where she’s concurrently in a yearlong residence with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and Arkansas Children’s Northwest Hospital in Springdale. Kit hosted an open studio during Bernheim CONNECT on August 15, where audiences received a firsthand glimpse into her wildly creative mind through her whimsical prints, narrative drawings and handmade paper creations. She also presented her work to an Advanced Printmaking class at the University of Louisville’s Hite Institute, taught by 2018 Bernheim Regional Artist in Residence, Rachel Singel.
With the curious mind of a philosopher, the keen intuition of a historian, and the wisdom of a seer, Kit collected fossils, plant materials, and community stories that have shaped the history of our forest. From ancient bedrock to precolonial old growth forest, to the iron/salt industry clearcutting of the trees, to farmland, and back to forest–all the gathered collections inform her art.
She reflects, “I’ve been thinking a lot about how stories shape our perspectives and our lives, particularly those stories that live in the grey areas between reality and fiction, whether that’s regional lore, personal experience, folk magic, religion, or solid scientific facts that are still magical and strange in their own right. I very much believe that reality is more mysterious than the categories we create.”
The transformation of a landscape and human experience within that landscape through great cycles of time led Kit to delve unexpectedly into the life of Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, and his contemplative work in the region and at the Abbey of Gethsemani. She finds similarities to the contemplative life that she’s practicing in her residency at Bernheim: intentional walking, listening, observing, and practicing mindfulness.
Some wonderful ethical questions begin to shape her art practice such as “What kind of care becomes possible when we understand ourselves to be participants in a forest’s life rather than observers?”
That central question opens the door to others as Kit imagines moving beyond her own experience and body to consider life from another perspective. For example:
“What does a forest look like from the perspective of a walnut tree?
What does a fungal network know about this landscape?
What does a cleared field remember?
What does an invasive plant think belonging means?
What does a pigment remember about the organism it came from?”
Collecting plant materials, like green persimmons, and transforming them alchemically into paper, inks, and ultimately into completed art works echo a spiritual transformation she feels happening within herself. This time-consuming, laborious art practice feels contemplative to her in its slowness and deliberation. The intense physicality also echoes the rich routines of daily chores from her upbringing on a farm–meditative acts of care that give her a sense of calm and stability. She finds solace and hope in the second life the plants undergo as they transition into works of art.
We look forward to seeing the fruits of her deep labor and will be sorry to see her go!
