Artist's Statement
In Nancy Langston’s linocut prints, the North is alive with motion and memory. Reindeer step through thawing rivers and rising light; owls hunt in the winter night; forests remember what the ice forgot. Drawing on years of fieldwork and immersion in northern landscapes, each hand-pulled print captures the contradictions of a world in flux—grace and grief, loss and return—while suggesting the possibility of renewal.
Each of Nancy’s linocuts begins with drawings and field notes gathered in the landscapes she knows best. Carving the block becomes a way of tracing the pulse of these places. Hand-pulling her prints allows her to explore how memory and renewal are held in texture and line. Her work reflects the deep interdependence of people, animals, and land in the North—a region transformed by climate change yet rich with resilience and hope. Through the language of print, she seeks to honor that enduring vitality.
She has recently completed a book on global reindeer conservation illustrated with 33 of her original, limited edition linocuts (Reindeer: A Global History Yale University Press, 2026).
Each of Nancy’s linocuts begins with drawings and field notes gathered in the landscapes she knows best. Carving the block becomes a way of tracing the pulse of these places. Hand-pulling her prints allows her to explore how memory and renewal are held in texture and line. Her work reflects the deep interdependence of people, animals, and land in the North—a region transformed by climate change yet rich with resilience and hope. Through the language of print, she seeks to honor that enduring vitality.
She has recently completed a book on global reindeer conservation illustrated with 33 of her original, limited edition linocuts (Reindeer: A Global History Yale University Press, 2026).
Artist CV
Education
Dartmouth College, English, BA 1984
University of Oxford, English, MPhil 1986
University of Washington, Environmental Studies, PhD 1994
Appointments
2024 Distinguished Professor Emerita of Environmental History, MTU
2018-2024 Distinguished Professor, Michigan Technological University; reappointed 2023.
2013-2018 Professor of Environmental History, Department of Social Sciences, College of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, and Great Lakes Research Center, Michigan Technological University
2012-2013 King Carl XVI Gustaf Professor of Environmental Science, Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious studies, Umeå University, Sweden.
2007-2012 Professor, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Dept. of Forest and Wildlife Ecology. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2001-2007 Associate Professor, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Dept. of Forest Ecology & Management. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
1995-2001 Assistant Professor, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Dept. of Forest Ecology & Management. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Awards and Honors
Art Residencies
2025 CRANE Residency, Arizona
2024 The Arctic Circle Residency, Svalbard
2023 The Fish Factory Residency, Creative Centre of Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland
2022 Greenhouse Green Transitions Fellow (Visual Arts), University of Stavanger, Norway.
2019 Just Futures Institute/Center for Environmental Futures, U. of Oregon Mellon Fellow.
1993 Dorland Mountain Arts Colony Residency, Temecula California.
1992 Dorland Mountain Arts Colony Residency, Temecula California.
Exhibitions (juried group and individual shows)
2025 Through the Quiet Hours. 3 linocut prints in forthcoming group show, Rozsa Gallery, Houghton MI
2025 Animal Life, 3 linocut prints in group show, Copper Country Community Arts Center, Hancock MI
2024. Art that Matters to the Planet:Clarity, three paintings, juried show Roger Tory Peterson Institute, New York,
2024 Animal Life, 3 linocut prints in group show, Copper Country Community Arts Center, Hancock MI.
2024 Winter is Coming Exhibition, monoprint of Iceland reindeer accepted for juried show.
2023 Shaft! 2 linocut prints, group show on mining’s legacies, Copper Country Community Arts Center, Hancock MI.
2023 Tipping Points: Lake Superior Paintings in a Time of Climate Change solo, The Well Read Raccoon, Houghton MI
2023 That Face! Portraits Both Human & Animal. 1 painting in juried show, Exhibition, McCord Gallery, Palos Park, IL
2023 New Horizons: Landscapes 2023, 6th Annual Juried Exhibition, Three Square Gallery, Fort Collins, Colorado [
2023 Animal Portraiture, Wild Heart Gallery [juried by Sara Soward; virtual].
2023 Animal Life: Art from the Kalevala,” 3 paintings, group show at Copper Country Community Arts Center, Hancock M
2023 Climate Change, 1 painting in juried show (digital) Las Laguna Gallery, California.
Selected commissions
2024 Three commissioned linocuts for collectors, Michigan
2022 Two paintings on Tipping Points, Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities, Stavanger, Norway
2022 Private collection, acrylic painting, Jill Fisher Casey Huckins, MI
Private collection, acrylic painting, Faith Morrison, Hancock MI
Private collection, acrylic painting, Dave Dempsey, Traverse City MI
2021 Private collection, acrylic painting, Liz Wyant, Cinncinati OH
Private collection, 2 acrylic paintings, Nancy Jacobs, Providence RI
Private collection, acrylic painting, Sara Gregg, Indianapolis IN
Private collection, acrylic painting, Kathleen Brosnan, Oklahoma City OK
Private collection, acrylic painting, Maxine Campbell, Herbster WI
Private collection, 2 acrylic paintings, Lynne Heasley, Kalamazoo MI
2020 Private collection, acrylic painting, Tracy Kuczinski, Madison WI
Private collection, acrylic painting, Lawrence Goodman, Greenwich CT
Private collection, acrylic painting, Patti Haines, Venice FL
Dartmouth College, English, BA 1984
University of Oxford, English, MPhil 1986
University of Washington, Environmental Studies, PhD 1994
Appointments
2024 Distinguished Professor Emerita of Environmental History, MTU
2018-2024 Distinguished Professor, Michigan Technological University; reappointed 2023.
2013-2018 Professor of Environmental History, Department of Social Sciences, College of Forestry and Environmental Sciences, and Great Lakes Research Center, Michigan Technological University
2012-2013 King Carl XVI Gustaf Professor of Environmental Science, Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious studies, Umeå University, Sweden.
2007-2012 Professor, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Dept. of Forest and Wildlife Ecology. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2001-2007 Associate Professor, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Dept. of Forest Ecology & Management. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
1995-2001 Assistant Professor, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and Dept. of Forest Ecology & Management. University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Awards and Honors
- CHE Alumni Award, UW-Madison, Sept. 2025
- The Arctic Circle Expedition, June 2024, art and climate science collaborations, Svalbard, Norway.
- Green Transitions Fellow, University of Stavanger, Norway. 2022.
- American Society for Environmental History Distinguished Scholar Award, 2021 (highest scholarly recognition in the profession).
- Fulbright Canada Research Chair award, 2020.
- Mellon Fellow in Environmental Humanities Award, U. of Oregon, 2019.
- American Society for Environmental History Distinguished Service Award, March 2018.
- Honorary Doctorate, Umeå University Sweden, 2014.
- King Carl XVI Gustaf Professorship, Umeå University Sweden, 2012-2013.
- American Society for Environmental History, President 2007-9.
- American Philosophical Society Fellowship, 2010.
- Winner, Leopold-Hidy Prize for best article published in Environmental History, 2009.
- Organization of American Historians, Distinguished Lecturer, 2007-2010.
- American Council of Learned Societies Fellow, 2002.
- Winner, Forest History Society Weyerhaeuser Book Prize for Forest Dreams, 1997.
- National Humanities Center Fellow, 1997.
- Eddy Postdoctoral Fellow, U. of Washington, 1994-1995.
- Marshall Fellow, Oxford University. 1984-1986.
Art Residencies
2025 CRANE Residency, Arizona
2024 The Arctic Circle Residency, Svalbard
2023 The Fish Factory Residency, Creative Centre of Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland
2022 Greenhouse Green Transitions Fellow (Visual Arts), University of Stavanger, Norway.
2019 Just Futures Institute/Center for Environmental Futures, U. of Oregon Mellon Fellow.
1993 Dorland Mountain Arts Colony Residency, Temecula California.
1992 Dorland Mountain Arts Colony Residency, Temecula California.
Exhibitions (juried group and individual shows)
2025 Through the Quiet Hours. 3 linocut prints in forthcoming group show, Rozsa Gallery, Houghton MI
2025 Animal Life, 3 linocut prints in group show, Copper Country Community Arts Center, Hancock MI
2024. Art that Matters to the Planet:Clarity, three paintings, juried show Roger Tory Peterson Institute, New York,
2024 Animal Life, 3 linocut prints in group show, Copper Country Community Arts Center, Hancock MI.
2024 Winter is Coming Exhibition, monoprint of Iceland reindeer accepted for juried show.
2023 Shaft! 2 linocut prints, group show on mining’s legacies, Copper Country Community Arts Center, Hancock MI.
2023 Tipping Points: Lake Superior Paintings in a Time of Climate Change solo, The Well Read Raccoon, Houghton MI
2023 That Face! Portraits Both Human & Animal. 1 painting in juried show, Exhibition, McCord Gallery, Palos Park, IL
2023 New Horizons: Landscapes 2023, 6th Annual Juried Exhibition, Three Square Gallery, Fort Collins, Colorado [
2023 Animal Portraiture, Wild Heart Gallery [juried by Sara Soward; virtual].
2023 Animal Life: Art from the Kalevala,” 3 paintings, group show at Copper Country Community Arts Center, Hancock M
2023 Climate Change, 1 painting in juried show (digital) Las Laguna Gallery, California.
Selected commissions
2024 Three commissioned linocuts for collectors, Michigan
2022 Two paintings on Tipping Points, Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities, Stavanger, Norway
2022 Private collection, acrylic painting, Jill Fisher Casey Huckins, MI
Private collection, acrylic painting, Faith Morrison, Hancock MI
Private collection, acrylic painting, Dave Dempsey, Traverse City MI
2021 Private collection, acrylic painting, Liz Wyant, Cinncinati OH
Private collection, 2 acrylic paintings, Nancy Jacobs, Providence RI
Private collection, acrylic painting, Sara Gregg, Indianapolis IN
Private collection, acrylic painting, Kathleen Brosnan, Oklahoma City OK
Private collection, acrylic painting, Maxine Campbell, Herbster WI
Private collection, 2 acrylic paintings, Lynne Heasley, Kalamazoo MI
2020 Private collection, acrylic painting, Tracy Kuczinski, Madison WI
Private collection, acrylic painting, Lawrence Goodman, Greenwich CT
Private collection, acrylic painting, Patti Haines, Venice FL
Langston trained as an ornithologist, and for the past two decades, her academic research has explored the ecological histories of wildlife in northern ecosystems. She returned to visual arts in 2019 while on sabbatical at the Center for Environmental Futures in Oregon, where she was supported by a Mellon Foundation fellowship and immersed in a community of artists, writers, and scholars exploring environmental change.
Her prints convey changes to wildlife--particularly birds and reindeer--in cold regions, where the waters are rising, forests are dying, fire cycles are changing, wildlife is vanishing, and people are struggling. But these are the places that we still love, places that remain heartbreakingly beautiful even as they undergo massive transformation.
Author of six books on reindeer, Lake Superior, toxics, climate change, and old growth forests, I am Distinguished Professor Emerita of Environmental History at Michigan Technological University. I have been the recipient of fellowships from the University of Stavanger’s Greenhouse Center for the Environmental Humanities (visual arts), the Fulbright Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Marshall Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Council of Learned Societies.
Her prints convey changes to wildlife--particularly birds and reindeer--in cold regions, where the waters are rising, forests are dying, fire cycles are changing, wildlife is vanishing, and people are struggling. But these are the places that we still love, places that remain heartbreakingly beautiful even as they undergo massive transformation.
Author of six books on reindeer, Lake Superior, toxics, climate change, and old growth forests, I am Distinguished Professor Emerita of Environmental History at Michigan Technological University. I have been the recipient of fellowships from the University of Stavanger’s Greenhouse Center for the Environmental Humanities (visual arts), the Fulbright Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Marshall Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Council of Learned Societies.
