September 4, 2026 - The Miller Art Museum in downtown Sturgeon Bay invites the community to gather at the Dome House for an intimate evening of fire, conversation, and shared creativity with 2026 Al & Mickey Quinlan Artist-in-Residence Juan Carlos Rodríguez Rivera. From Bloom to Ash: Fire as Material Process will take place Saturday, September 19, from 7 to 9 pm at the Dome House in Sturgeon Bay. Space is limited and registration is required.
Guests are invited to enjoy s'mores, hot cider, and casual conversation around the fire as Rodríguez Rivera discusses why flowers and fire have become central to his art-making practice during his residency. Attendees are encouraged to bring dried flowers to add to the burn, along with a poem, story, or piece of writing they'd like to share by the firelight—transforming the evening into a collective, ephemeral work shaped by event attendees.
Rodríguez Rivera is a Detroit-based artist, designer, and educator whose work explores Puerto Rican identity, ecological vulnerability, and community-rooted storytelling through site-specific installation and design. Shaped by his roots in Cataño, Puerto Rico, his practice uses nature not only as inspiration but as material—incorporating pigments extracted from locally sourced flowers and plant matter, handmade paper, and bioplastics made from Lake Michigan water. During his residency at the Dome House, he has been developing new work as part of his ongoing project Becoming Post-Tropical, drawing on elements from the Door Peninsula landscape for material experimentation.
"The Dome House residency offers a critical opportunity to expand my ongoing project, Becoming Post-Tropical, in close dialogue with a northern environment shaped by fresh water, seasonal change, and geological erosion," said Rodríguez Rivera. "My goal is to explore how the Door Peninsula landscape informs my material experimentation."
Rodríguez Rivera holds an MFA in Communications Design from Pratt Institute and a BFA from Miami International University of Art & Design. He is the sixth artist to take part in the Miller Art Museum's Dome House Al & Mickey Quinlan Artist Residency Program.
From Bloom to Ash: Fire as Material Process is free and open to the public; only a limited number of spaces are available, and registration is required. Register online at eventbrite.com.