Hortus Arboretum & Botanical Gardens > Art in the Gardens

Art in the Gardens – July 4th, 2026

(raindate July 5th)

12:00-4:00 pm

Nervous System photographed by Rebecca Miller

Nervous System is the collaborative artistic practice of Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg. Based in Palenville, New York, they create artworks that draw inspiration from the growth, structure, and evolution of living things. Through collaborations with scientists and mathematicians, they develop computational methods that reveal patterns in nature and transform them into sculpture, jewelry, lighting, puzzles, and immersive installations. Their work explores the rich connections between art, science, mathematics, and the natural world.

Founded in 2007, while Jessica was studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Jesse was studying mathematics at MIT, Nervous System has developed a distinctive artistic language that dissolves disciplinary boundaries. Their work has appeared on the cover of Science and is held in the permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Centre Pompidou, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

We will also feature the Pop-Up artists:

*Ben Ioffe from Lumi Leaves – I work with real botanical leaves – collecting, preserving, and engraving them. Each piece begins outdoors and ends as a one-of-a-kind work of art, shaped by the natural form of the leaf itself.

*Alaina Enslen –My process begins with acts of noticing: a seed head, a curling leaf, a stem catching the light. I draw and preserve these fragments of the natural world, then allow them to drift into forms that are part memory, part invention. Through molten wax, layered textiles, and monotype prints, cloth is dismantled and transformed. Frayed edges become rivers, threads become roots, and fabric finds a new language beyond utility- rewilding itself to its origins as fiber, field and living form.

Art in The Garden Pop-Up

During the day, I’ll be sharing my plant-pressing process, demonstrating cyanotypes and printmaking techniques, and offering encaustic botanical jewelry and art inspired by the resilience and imagination of the natural world.

*Thistle Pernot – Cordage Project – Thistle Pernot is exploring art as an interactive, interspecies, interdisciplinary practice. Their work is in collaboration with the flora, fauna, and funga of the Hudson Valley; either taking direct inspiration from local ecologies or including natural specimens in their art pieces. Thistle works primarily in collage & assemblage, watercolor & ink, and foraged fiber arts.

*Elinor Kwitney Stapylton – American chestnut leaf ID workshop with Microscopes and Nature journaling. Want to learn how to identify American chestnuts? Join us for a leaf ID nature journaling opportunity where we will learn how to tell different species and hybrid chestnut trees apart by looking at their distinct leaf structures under the microscope. Do you think you’ve found an American chestnut tree on your property or on a trail? Bring the pressed or fresh leaf with you and we will ID it together under the microscope and take illustrative notes on the key distinguishing features. Then after the program, and with your new identification skills, take to the trails as a citizen scientist and help find lingering healthy American Chestnut trees who are crucial for preserving the genetic diversity of the species in conservation breeding programs. Limited supplies of paper and homemade grapevine charcoal will be available for illustrating your botanical observations.

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This free event is sponsored by Stewarts Shops, Stephen Zaima & Judy Wolford.

Donations are welcome and appreciated.

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PAST FEATURED ARTIST(S) – 2021-2025

Lori Merhige

My current body of work marks a departure from my previous sculptural practice, reflecting a deepened commitment to ecological awareness, material reuse, and the reimagining of natural resources. As an artist, I see my role as both a witness and an agitator—challenging the cycle of waste while confronting broader social structures of patriarchal power and oppression. By drawing on techniques of bushcraft and outdoor survival, I explore how discarded and organic materials can be transformed into sculptural forms that not only speak to resilience but also suggest utility in an environment shaped by scarcity and adaptation.

As I consider my contribution to Hortus Arboretum, I am intentional about creating work that is more than an object on display. In contemplating this exhibition, it became crucial to me to make a positive environmental impact in the gathering of materials and making of the work. The sculptures are assemblages almost entirely constructed of recycled, salvaged, and repurposed materials, most of which have been pulled from the Hudson riverfront and other Hudson Valley dump sites. Their intention is to engage with their surroundings, provoke thought, and serve a function beyond mere aesthetics. Whether through interactivity, ecological function, or conceptual depth, my work aspires to be a catalyst for dialogue and change, fostering a more conscious relationship between art, nature, and society, and to encourage us to think about what our future looks like.

Lori Merhige was born in 1975 in Teaneck, NJ. In 2009 she received her MFA Degree in Sculpture from CUNY Hunter College and was a recipient of the Tony Smith award. She earned her BFA from The School of Visual Arts in 1999. She has been a Professor of Sculpture at Ramapo College of NJ since 2016, and has lived and worked in Beacon, NY since 2011. Examples of her work can be found at @lorimerhige on Instagram, or at www.lorimerhige.com

2024 Artist – Alison McNulty

Alison McNulty is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and curator based in the Hudson Valley, NY. She grounds artmaking in embodied poetics through explorations of ordinary material traces, precarious places, and ecological entanglements. Her work has been presented at museums, galleries, conferences, and unconventional spaces throughout the US, Europe, and Columbia. McNulty was recently awarded an Arts Mid-Hudson Individual Artist Commission, a Saltonstall Foundation Residency Fellowship, the Stone & DeGuire Contemporary Art Award from Washington University in St. Louis, and the Empowered Artist Award from Arts Mid-Hudson in support of her work with the Artist in Vacancy initiative of the Newburgh Community Landbank in 2022-2023. She curated the 2023 exhibition “Listening to Land: Imaginal Technologies, Material Conduits, & Landscape Translations Toward Perceiving Place” a group exhibition at Ann Street Gallery exploring practices of listening in relation to place and the place-making potential of creative acts of listening. 2023 exhibitions include Manto “el velo que cubre la piedra” “The Veil that Covers the Stone” at Casas Riegner, Bogota, Shifting Ecologies: Contemporary Artists & The Environment at the Maguire Art Museum in Philadelphia, and and Entanglements at Arts Mid-Hudson Gallery. McNulty is a Part-Time Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design and the Director of Ann Street Gallery, a nonprofit contemporary art space in Newburgh, NY.

https://alisonmcnulty.com/

@mcnulty_alison

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2023 – Habitat for Artists

Marielena Ferrer – I look to nature for analogies to help me understand human relations and to experiment with new social paradigms and models. My current research focuses on poison ivy as a metaphor for the socially excluded and for exploring possibilities to make art with it. For my Hortus Arboretum HFA participation, I propose spending a day gathering poison ivy and extracting its sap while engaging in conversations with the public about the plant, lacquer art, and how labor is valued.

Marielena Ferrer with poison ivy.

Janice La Motta – A Modern Herbarium – Walking the grounds I’d like to record the naturalized plant specimens of Hortus with the thought of creating a contemporary herbarium that leaves the plants intact but that uses observation and interpretation to “record” in journal fashion the species of plants on the property. The herbarium may take various forms and incorporate various methods of “recording” – ie: drawing, digital referencing, cyanotype processes, etc. The act of walking the property, discovery, observation and then working within the Hortus landscape will all inform the journal’s creation.

Janice La Motta collecting around Hortus.

Emilie Houssart (The DIRT Project) –The DIRT Project will be in residence at the Habitat for Artists studio at Hortus Arboretum on August 5th. Emilie Houssart will create an interactive DIRT installation for play and conversation based around the following question: why should we care about dirt? Come and join the project!

Emilie Houssart – The DIRT Project

Simon Draper – CHUTNEY with DRAPER –small batch canning , with a variety of herbs and spices and tried recipes to see what NEW fruits might find themselves as preserve on YOUR plate with a good Cheese and fine bread. I grew up collecting various fruits and vegetables from our garden , and making preserves from the bruised , the over abundant and had a enough of …This was always a production , the family gottogether in the late summer months to “put down “…bottle/can veg and fruits. Years later I find myself missing this activity but wanting to approach it in a more creative way . What if we made small batches that takes 45 mins from fruit to bottle , and if needed amend the recipe ? AND have others discover the ease and fun of an age old kitchen practice. We ‘ll see what is available to ” put down ” in July , in the knowledge that Hortus has some unusual and not the usualplants on hand …that might have fruit to preserve !!

Simon Draper chutney making

Lisa Breznak –Using common materials of wire, foil, and paint, I will use the gardens’ botanical imagery to inspire, refresh, and play to expand my ideas, moving into new directions and new work. Referencing nature, architecture, costume, and body language, I make abstracted forms to show that beauty, thought, humor, creativity, and significance are not mutually exclusive. www.lisabreznak.com

Lisa Breznak and botanical inspirations

Michael & Mariah with felled White Pine from Hortus to be milled.

Michael milling Pine in NorthWoods

(Some of) Habitat for Artist along with “pop-up Artists” Sergey Jivetin & Anne Arden Mcdonald – 2023 Art in the Gardens Event

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2022 – Johnny Poux – Outdoor sculpture works by local designer and sculptor Johnny Poux

Poux

Poux “Bench”

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2021 – Karen Lovenguth – Cast bronze sculptures. Many of the sculptures of Lovenguth’s continue to be displayed in the arboretum and are for sale.