Artist in Residence

ICL's 2025 Artist in Residence

Jasper Vanspoore

Jasper Vanspoore grew up wandering the mountains between Montana and Idaho and swimming in the rivers flowing below them. In the granite mountain basins and thick cedar forests of her childhood, Jasper fell in love with the natural world—and she creates art to celebrate this love. Through her work, she strives to understand the personality of a landscape: the place where ridges become valleys, the path a river takes to carve through stone, and the way sunlight dances across tree lines. Jasper primarily works with watercolor and gouache, mediums she began exploring while living and working as a sea-kayak guide in the Alaskan rainforest. There, she taught herself to paint, finding a powerful connection between the fluidity of water in nature and on paper. As a river and sea kayak guide–navigating rapids, eddies, and tides–she learned to trust and understand water; a relationship that now inspires her artistic process.

In 2018, she returned to the river canyons of Idaho and has since guided multi-day trips on the Lower Salmon River every summer, deepening her understanding and love of Idaho’s wild spaces. In 2022, Jasper graduated from the University of Montana in her hometown of Missoula with a degree in English Teaching. Her educational journey also included time at the University of Alaska Southeast in Ketchikan, where she studied ethnobotany, archaeology, and anthropology with Haida and Tlingit teachers.

These studies deepened her belief in the interconnectedness of humans and the natural world, and instilled a hope that people can live in reciprocity with the land. For the past three years, Jasper has taught English at McCall-Donnelly High School in Valley County. Now, she is thrilled to begin a new chapter with Idaho Conservation League—an opportunity that allows her to develop her career as an artist while continuing to advocate for the landscapes that inspire her.