Reagan Herndon

 Reagan Herndon was the Artist in Residence at Catoctin Mountain Park September 2-26, 2024.  She is a two-dimensional artist from Durham, NC.    She works mainly with acrylic paint but enjoys exploring other mediums such as wood, mixed media and digital techniques.  She focuses mainly on themes of life and nature and blends them with surreal imagination. She takes the realistic natural elements around us and exaggerates their color and shape to create fascinating compositions to give the audience new but familiar worlds to explore.

During her residency, Reagan presented a program at the Thurmont Library—Visual Storytelling: An Exploration of Color.  around the library.  They then used elements that they had seen on the walk to tell a story with a drawing and explore the ways that color can help to relay the message of the story. 

During their residencies, Rachel Wojnar (Artist in Residence at Cunningham Falls State Park) and Reagan co-presented a program at The Delaplaine Arts Center.  The program lasted about an hour with 20+ people in attendance.  Both artists did a slide presentation and spoke about their practice and what inspires their work.

"Between the Echoes"

By Reagan Herndon.

Acrylic on canvas

16”x20”

During my time at the park, I often heard the pileated woodpeckers on the trails. Their very distinct calls easily carried through the forest, reverberating through the trees, and after I would hear them, of course I would do my best to follow and try to find the source, so I could hopefully catch a glimpse of one. I was so excited when one day while following the direction of their calls, I was able to find and see a group of them amongst the trees and some fallen logs. I stayed there quite a while just watching and listening to them and it was one of my favorite experiences at the park.      Reagan Herndon