Oklahoma State University Art Professor Chris Ramsay was awarded a two-week Artist-in-Residency at Crater Lake National Park in September 2015. Professor Ramsay received external funding from the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition (OVAC) to support his research at the park.

 The residency included housing, access to the national park resources and the opportunity to discuss the affects of climate change with national park officials and research scientists. The research information derived from the residency will be directed towards the creation of new sculptural wall pieces that will strive to emulate ways in which natural processes reveal a narrative of the present conditions of the environment. The newly generated body of work will be exhibited at the University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources Gallery in Ann Arbor with additional venues to be added in the coming year.

"As an artist I am concerned with the subtle, yet, dramatic relationship between all components of our environment. To fulfill the requirements of this idea, my artwork utilizes a variety of media, form, and scale. I begin with objects that I have collected in flea markets or found while on walks. (No physical materials are collected on protected sites, i.e. National Parks) The materials can be both manmade and natural and are often aged or eroded in some way evidencing change.   I integrate these worn objects into my work as a metaphor for the cycle of change that all materials and objects are affected by, including myself. This process provides a vehicle for me to consider my place on earth and my part in nature. I fabricate structures that have a form relative to the theme of the piece to insert these objects or I sometimes literally work into larger objects that I find such as globes and large stones."

Professor Ramsay has been teaching metals and jewelry courses at Oklahoma State University since 1990 and served as the Head of the OSU Art Department from 2008-2012. He is recipient of the 2015 OSU College of A&S Regents Distinguished Teaching Award. Ramsay has presented numerous metalworking workshops at both Penland and Haystack School of Crafts and in universities in the USA and Cortona, Italy. Ramsay has previously been Artist-in-Resident at the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts, Portland, OR and Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, ME and Open Studio Resident at Haystack School of Crafts, Deer Isle, ME. Ramsay’s artwork is in several personal collections and the permanent collections of the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, Children’s Hospital of Cleveland, OH, and the botanical gardens of Southern Living Magazine, Birmingham, AL.