Gaia's Sentinels

n 2023, Louisville artist Teresa Koester received an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to create a new body of watercolor landscape paintings, depicting the most sacred or meaningful places held by women she interviewed who steward large tracts of public or private land—be it as a farmer, land manager, scientist, forester or private landowner in Kentucky. The project grew as Teresa asked the first group of land stewards she contacted to then recommend additional women they thought should be included. Each painting will remain in the hands of the land steward who inspired it at the end of this traveling exhibit.