One of the most fascinating aspects of having an artist-in-residence on site is witnessing the many ways artists interpret the natural world through their eyes and hands. Bernheim’s 2026 Regional Artist in Residence, Marilee Salvator, arrived in May and is already raising the bar for nature-based artistic experimentation.
A multidisciplinary artist from Bowling Green, Kentucky, Marilee’s creative process mirrors ecological systems — layered, iterative, and shaped by both intention and unpredictability. She often incorporates branches, seed pods, stones, and other found detritus into her installations and prints, referencing cycles of growth, accumulation, decay, and renewal.
Recently, she added a very unusual material to her process: kombucha tea SCOBY. SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) is a thin, pancake-shaped biofilm formed during the fermentation of tea.
Marilee has been experimenting with wrapping SCOBY over fallen tree branches and other natural materials she has collected at Bernheim.
She explains her interest in working with this unusual material:
The translucent membranes cling to the surfaces of the branches, creating forms that both conceal and reveal what lies beneath. This process connects to my longstanding interest in exposing the hidden structures and processes that shape the natural world. The SCOBY introduces a new collaborator into that process. Rather than depicting growth, the material is growth itself. Produced through the activity of bacteria and yeast, it records the actions of living organisms and carries evidence of its own formation.
I am drawn to fallen branches because they exist in a state of transition. Like the mushrooms, seed pods, cicada shells, plants, and other materials I collect, they speak to cycles of growth, decline, decay, and renewal. Wrapping them in SCOBY creates a conversation between these different stages of life. The branch becomes a trace of what once was, while the SCOBY suggests ongoing transformation and regeneration.
The uninterrupted time to work in the beauty of nature is something Marilee has especially cherished during her residency at Bernheim.
I am deeply grateful for this uninterrupted time to connect with nature. In daily life, time is often structured around so many obligations. Here, I have been able to simply be curious. Time feels almost irrelevant, measured instead by changing light, weather, growth, and discovery.
We look forward to seeing what comes next in Marilee’s experimentations. Her residency concludes July 13.
Join Marilee in Creative Exploration This June
Marilee will host a Nature (+) Cyanotype Printmaking class on Sunday, June 28, from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Meet the artist and enjoy creating cyanotypes alongside her.
Cyanotypes, also known as sun prints, produce brilliant deep-blue images through the chemical reaction of sunlight or UV light with an iron salt solution on paper. Marilee will guide participants in gathering natural materials from the landscape to create these beautiful prints.
Bernheim Members: $45; Non-members: $55
About the Artist-in-Residence
Marilee has exhibited worldwide, and her work is included in 35 public art collections, including the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland and the Sakima Art Museum in Okinawa, Japan. Notable grants include support from South Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the Great Meadows Foundation. She is an associate professor of art at Western Kentucky University.
