Flagler College welcomes Dakota-Joan Parkinson as the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum’s (CEAM) Artist-in-Residence from Feb. 18 to March 4, 2026. An artist talk will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at 6 p.m. at Ringhaver Student Center’s Virginia Room, located at 50 Sevilla Street in downtown St. Augustine. This event is free and open to the public.
Dakota-Joan Parkinson's work spans clay, performance, wood firing, and installation, and explores the creation of sacred spaces where body, labor, and material converge. Her use of nonconventional materials challenges and expands the definition of clay. By altering clay's texture, behavior, and presence and through the natural extensions of performance and installation, the artist constructs spaces that invite pause, grief, and contemplation. During her residency, Parkinson will participate in campus activities, working with students, staff, and faculty through class visits, student critiques, and a public artist talk. The artist will also engage with the community and collaborate with local artists through special programming, while researching historical ceramic objects and getting to know the vibrant local network of ceramicists and potters.
Parkinson is currently the Studio Manager at The Hive Community Clay. She was a former Ceramics Technician and Resident Artist at the Morean Center for Clay in St. Petersburg, Florida, from 2022 to 2024. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and the lead organizer of the trans/clay/body project, a 20-week program that provides clay education for trans and gender-nonconforming youth in Florida. She has taught and assisted in wood-firing workshops at the OkiDoki Studio, Penland School of Craft, Queens University, and the Morean Workshop Space, and her work has been shown at the Lighthouse Arts Center, Kansas City Clay Guild, and Worcester Center for Crafts.
The CEAM Artist Residency, in collaboration with Flagler College’s Department of Visual Arts, is a regular program of artists-in-residence to engage in themes of place-making while collaborating with some aspect of St Augustine’s local community, the city’s significant and varied roles in American history, or its rich natural environment. A goal of the residency is to foster diverse perspectives on these aspects of our local community, and artists and scholars in a range of fields are invited to integrate and collaborate between the areas of fine art and broader fields of inquiry, such as curatorial practice, performing arts, and creative writing.
ABOUT CRISP-ELLERT ART MUSEUM
CEAM programming is supported through grants from the Dr. JoAnn Crisp-Ellert Fund at The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida, and the St. Johns County Tourist Development Council administered through the St. Johns Cultural Council. Additional support is provided by Volkswagen of St. Augustine, VyStar Credit Union, and AC Hotel St. Augustine. For further information on programming, please visit the website at www.flagler.edu/ceam, or contact CEAM Director Julie Dickover at 904-826-8530 or crispellert@flagler.edu. The museum’s hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, noon to 4 p.m., while classes are in session. Photos to accompany the press release are available here.
