About

Travis Kelley

My background blending theater, photography, film, and floral design continues to shape how I think about spatial form, framing, and sequencing. The liminal spaces, thresholds, and forgotten histories embedded into landscape offer opportunities for deep engagement with place. It is in the moments of pause, when the lights dim and the audience forgets to breathe, that the magic of theater echoes these landscape thresholds, where visitors question, reflect, and anticipate what is behind and what lies ahead. I think of landscape design and the unfolding of experience in cinematic terms, where sequence derives meaning and stories unfold over time and through space. My training as a screenwriter gives me a design sensibility that integrates the fantastical possibilities of film, while my horticultural expertise gives me perspective grounded in the reality of site conditions. This trajectory has a natural continuation in landscape architecture, where storytelling, ecology, and art merge.

My ongoing graduate thesis project investigates the shifting cultural narratives of New England’s 14,000 legacy dams, seeking design responses that bridge ecological and historical considerations, aiming to construct didactic landscapes that make natural processes legible. Situated within conceptual frameworks revolving around Astrida Neimanis’s work on “hydrocommons,” Matthew Edgeworth’s “archaeology of flow,” and David Carr’s “ecological literacy,” the thesis asserts that dam removal is ethically and environmentally necessary, and presents an opportunity to reframe the human-river relationship. Building on research conducted with support from the Moore Family Fellowship in the Making of the American Landscape through the Garden Club of America, the project strives to create new imaginaries for post-dam landscapes.

Other research interests include landscape preservation as a maintenance lens and climate change as a design opportunity for historic cultural landscapes. How can these special places be adapted to better suit community needs and increase resilience in the face of a changing climate?

My spatial design skills were honed over years working in the fine horticulture industry, first as a florist, then in various garden management roles. Areas of particular expertise include perennial gardens and matrix plantings, urban and roof deck garden design, seasonal container installations, floral arrangements and installations, estate garden maintenance and enhancements, custom botanical installations, and landscape site plans. I am passionate about connecting humans to natural systems through classroom education, public gardens, and field-based learning.

Outside of work, you’re likely to find me out kayaking, biking, writing, exploring, or hiking. My lifelong appreciation for storytelling, from theater to media and the written word, led me to pursue a BA in Writing for Film and TV from Emerson College. I will finish my Master of Landscape Architecture from Rhode Island School of Design in May 2026.

I am available for lectures on naturalistic gardening, landscape preservation, mill towns and legacy dams, sustainable floristry, and human-river relations. You can catch my next lecture on mill town spatial dynamics with the Middletown Garden Club on March 19th at 1pm. The event will be held at the Portland, CT Library, which is at 20 Freestone Avenue, Portland CT 06480.

Use the Contact page to get in touch, or connect with me on Instagram.