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ORACLE STATE PARK RESIDENCY

For sixteen days in Spring 2026, I had the opportunity to work as the Arizona State Park Artist in Residence at Oracle State Park. Thanks to support from Arizona Commission on the Arts, Arizona State Parks and Trails, Friends of Oracle State Park, and Triangle L Ranch, this residency gave me time to experience and create in response to the beauty and natural environment of Oracle State Park. As the artist in residence, I met park rangers, visited with community members, hiked in the park, saw wildlife, visited sites around the town of Oracle, and stayed in Triangle L Art Ranch. Throughout my time, I offered public programming at the park, including the four events below. (Coming Soon! Please read more about my experience in the blog post below shared by Friends of Oracle State Park.)

Voice Over Acting Workshop

I offered a Voice Over Acting Workshop that walked participants through ingredients they could combine to create a character voice. After an interactive presentation, participants utilized a script (or wrote their own additions) for voices of wildlife I had filmed at the park on a hike the day before. I later edited the recordings that participants made during the workshop into a video for participants to enjoy. 

Group Voice Over.jpg

Click the button to view the final video created by me and the workshop participants.

Puzzle Room

To begin testing characters for my final play, I created a puzzle room based on the visitor's center (and historic ranch house), history, and wildlife of Oracle State Park. The story-based game invited participants to try to save the park from conflict between Reptiles, Mammals, and Birds. Challenges focused on items in the visitor's center and facts about the wildlife I discovered from research about the park.

Jacob escape room 1.heic.JPEG

Open Studio

At the Open Studio, I offered engagement opportunities that also remained in the historic ranch house / visitor's center throughout portions of my residency. These included two audio guest book phones where visitors could leave voicemails for characters I created, a place to write greeting cards for the wildlife, and a whiteboard listing the most inspiring parts of the park. I utilized responses from these engagement opportunities in my final play.

Final Performance

As the culmination of the residency, I performed the original play I wrote during my time, Greetings from Oracle. Three community members volunteered to perform with me. The play consisted of 20 greeting cards exchanged about the park from aspects of the natural environment, including wildlife, geology, astronomy, humans, and more. In addition to the performance, I recorded the play myself and left the audio for the park. Here are excerpts of the audio play, and photos from the live performance. 

Click the button to listen to the audio recording of the play.

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