ABOUT ARTIST IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM

Caumsett AIR Committee

Jessica Brassler
Committee Chairman and Foundation Liaison

Brassler graduated from the University of Tennessee with a B.A. in Art History and earned her Master’s in Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, NY. After taking her first job in Marfa, TX at Ballroom Marfa, Brassler returned to New York City to work for Vito Schnabel, Christie’s Auction House and most recently, several private collectors through her own venture, Oliver George Fine Art.

In Texas, Brassler also volunteered at the Chinati Foundation, which is well-known for its Artist in Residence program. When Almeida presented his vision for Caumsett AIR to the Caumsett Foundation Board, Brassler was excited to help bring the program to manifest. The committee was quickly formed and the team is thrilled to be hosting artists for a second year at Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve.

Stephanie Fiumara Perry

Perry lives and works as a ceramicist and painter in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. Perry was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA. She began her ceramic work in 2014 at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia where she was an associate artist. Stephanie participated in several individual and group exhibitions (Portland, Oregon, Philadelphia, PA, Long Island, NY, etc.). She sells her work under the name CABINE in boutiques in California, New York and on 1st Dibs.

Perry is an avid explorer of Caumsett, interested in our collective relationship with the natural world. Also, a former Caumsett AIR program alum (September/October 2023), she focuses on the rhythm and narration between her artwork and the environment.

Susan Van Scoy, Ph.D

Van Scoy is an Associate Professor of Art History at St. Joseph’s University, New York, where she has taught since 2015. She earned her B.A. at Tulane University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. at Stony Brook University.

Susan’s research interests include female photographers of the 1980’s, the history of photography, and public art and architecture. She is the author of The Big Duck and Eastern Long Island’s Duck Farming Industry and has contributed to Landscape Painting Now. Her current research projects include the photo-documentation of Fire Island and Kenji Nakahashi’s drawings, paintings, and photo-conceptual work.

Van Scoy is currently curating a permanent installation of photographs taken by Neil Scholl, which will be on view in the Caumsett classrooms.

Karli Wurzelbacher

Wurzelbacher is the Chief Curator of The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York, where she has organized exhibitions on modern and contemporary American artists including Connie Fox, Wood Gaylor, Courtney M. Leonard, Richard Mayhew, Helen Torr, and Amanda Valdez.

She has worked at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Hunter College Art Galleries, and the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio. She has contributed to recent museum exhibition catalogues including Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1963-2017 (2018), Joan Mitchell (2020), Joseph Stella: Visionary Nature (2022), The World Outside: Louise Nevelson at Midcentury (2023), and George Grosz: The Stick Men (2023). She holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Delaware.

Gina J. Wouters

Wouters is President and CEO of Planting Fields Foundation, a not-for-profit that works in a public-private partnership with New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, to steward Planting Fields, a 409-acre Olmsted Brothers-designed historic estate. Her focus is on the preservation and revitalization of historic sites, with an emphasis on estates from the Gilded Age and Country Place Era.

Prior to joining Planting Fields, Gina was Curator of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami, Florida, a National Historic Landmark, then Vice President of Museum Affairs and Chief Curator at Cheekwood Estate and Gardens in Nashville, Tennessee. Her degrees include a B.F.A. in Photography and Art History from Barry University, an M.A. in Dutch Art in a European Context from the Universiteit van Amsterdam in her native country, the Netherlands, and a Ph.D. in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester in the UK.

She has curated numerous exhibitions as well as site-specific commissions from artists such as Mark Dion, David Brooks, Diana Al-Hadid, and others, and has published extensively on related subjects. Gina has lectured nationally and internationally including at ICOM, AAM, NPS, and CAA conferences and is an alumna of the 2015 Attingham Summer School.

CJ Escobar Rodgers

Rodgers is a multidisciplinary figurative sculptor based in NYC and Long Island. He received a B.B.A, a B.A. in Psychology, and a B.A. Honors from the University of Notre Dame. Rodgers is a Caumsett AIR program alumnus (October 2024) with research interests in sensation, perception, and animist ways of knowing and is experienced in a wide breadth of media including ceramics, metalworking, woodworking, foundry, fibers, and robotics.

Rodgers’s work has been exhibited at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History, and Science; Anderson Museum of Art, Swope Art Museum, Muskegon Museum of Art, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts and has earned places in the collections of the Midwest Museum of American Art and South Bend Museum of Art. He will also be featured in the January/February 2025 issue of Sculpture Magazine.

He has taught at Ox-Bow School of Art and has worked at the Snite Research Center in the Visual Arts, Raclin-Murphy Museum of Art, and South Bend Museum of Art in textile research and art handling capacities. Rodgers will begin a new role at Sotheby’s in January 2025.