Jackson Hole Art Blog

Long a haven for creative and curious souls, the Murie Center — former home of environmentalists Olaus and Mardy Murie — is redefining itself, as it has been since the passing of Mardy, in 2003.

The Murie Ranch, a National Historic Landmark located in Grand Teton National Park, is just up the road, then down a gentler road, from the new Grand Teton National Park Visitor’s Center in Moose, Wyoming.  The Center still feels like the Park’s best kept secret; hours that it is open to the public are limited, however group tours are offered free of charge every Monday and Thursday, 2:00 p.m.

The Center, “Conservation’s Home,” has a mission to “engage people to understand and commit to the enduring value of conserving wildlife in wild places.”

July 22-25, the Murie Center will conduct an Avian Art and Writing Workshop. An extensive three and a half day schedule includes such activities as an introduction to Olaus Murie’s artwork, exploratory writing sessions and exercises, meals, bird watching and sketching activities.    The Teton Raptor Center is providing live birds as inspiration and subject matter for sketchers, painters, writers, photographers and sculptors.

Long time valley resident and accomplished plein air painter Greg McHuron leads the sketching workshops; McHuron’s work is represented by Trailside Galleries in Jackson.  He recently co-authored “Birds of Sage and Scree,” with valley ornithologist Bert Raynes.   and Jackson-based writer Susan Marsh will conduct writing classes.

Sculptor Greg Woodard (represented locally by Altamira Fine Art) will provide a sculpting demonstration.

$595 includes lodging in a Murie Ranch cabin for three nights, all meals and tuition; $395 includes all meals and tuition only.  The Murie Center has provided the following tentative schedule of events – for more information email info@muriecenter.org or phone 307.739.2246.

Thursday, July 22

5:30 pm – Welcome reception

6:30 pm – Dinner at Homestead Cabin

7:30 pm – Introduction to the Murie Center and Olaus Murie artwork – guest presenter Dr. Jamie Cornelius talks about tracking the red crossbill on the Ranch as a Murie Center biologist-in-residence.

Friday, July 23

8 am – Breakfast at Homestead Cabin

9 am – Exploratory writing session with Susan Marsh around the Murie Ranch

12 pm – Lunch at Homestead Cabin

2 pm – Greg Woodard sculpting demonstration with live birds from Teton Raptor Center

3 pm – Writing exercise with Susan Marsh and live birds from Teton Raptor Center

5 pm – Dinner at Homestead Cabin

6 pm – Avian bird-watching/photography

Saturday, July 24

8 am – Breakfast at Homestead Cabin

9 am – Greg McHuron and Dwayne Harty lead avian sketching session

12 pm – Lunch at Homestead Cabin

2 pm – Greg McHuron leads avian sketching session with live birds from Teton Raptor Center

5 pm – Dinner at Homestead Cabin

6 pm – Avian bird-watching/photography

Sunday, July 25

8 am – Breakfast at Homestead Cabin

10 am – 12 pm – Tours and demonstrations on-site at the Teton Raptor Center in Wilson ($10)

Weeks and weeks ago a friend turned me on to these delicate, gorgeous, tiny paper flowers constructed by bees.   Summer is here, more or less, so now seems a good time to share.

Kathleen Masterson passed these images and information to my friend, who has passed them to me.   I feel lucky to share it with all of you.

Bee Flower Art

by Kathleen Masterson

Images courtesy of Jerome Rozen/American Museum of Natural History

When we think of bee nests, we often think of a giant hive, buzzing with social activity, worker bees and honey. But scientists recently discovered a rare, solitary type of bee that makes tiny nests by plastering together flower petals.

The O. avoseta bee builds a tiny nest about a half-inch long using petals from the flower Onobrychis viciifolia. Each nest usually houses a single egg. Each nest is a multicolored, textured little cocoon — a papier-mache husk surrounding a single egg, protecting it while it develops into an adult bee.

“It’s not common for bees to use parts of plants for nests,” says Dr. Jerome Rozen of the American Museum of Natural History of the unexpected find. His team stumbled across the nests of the Osima (Ozbekosima) avoseta bee in Turkey. Oddly enough, another team discovered the same bee and flowery nests in Iran on the same day. The two teams published their research together in the American Museum Novitates.

One mother bee may make as many as ten nests, often nestling the single-cell berths near each other.

These Thumbelina-like nests are a fascinating natural work of art, but they’re also key to understanding more about how the roughly 20,000 species of bees live.

“There’s a demand for biologists to know bees nowadays,” Rosen says. “They are the foremost animal pollinators of plants, and tremendously important for maintaining ecosystems — not only crops but also for conservation.”

To learn more, the scientists watched the busy mama bees. Building a nest takes a day or two, and….the nests are often right next to each other. ( A bouquet!)  To begin construction, she bites the petals off of flowers and flies each petal — one by one — back to the nest, a peanut-sized burrow in the ground.

A bee closely related to O. avoseta bites off a flower petal with its mandibles.

She then shapes the multi-colored petals into a cocoon-like structure, laying one petal on top of the other and occasionally using some nectar as glue. When the outer petal casing is complete, she reinforces the inside with a paper-thin layer of mud, and then another layer of petals, so both the outside and inside are wallpapered — a potpourri of purple, pink and yellow.

Peeling back the outer layer of flower petals reveals the paper-thin mud layer.

These meticulous shells are just over a half-inch long and usually will house just one tiny egg. To prepare for her offspring, the mother collects pollen and nectar, which she carries back to the burrow in a nifty part of the digestive tract called the crop. She deposits this gooey blob of nutritional goodness in the bottom of the flower-petal nest. Then, she lays the egg, right on top of the gelatinous blob. The mother bee lays a single egg in the flowery bower, right on top of a nutritious deposit of nectar and pollen.

At this point, it’s time to seal in the egg. The mother bee neatly folds in the inner layer of petals, smears a paper-thin mud layer and then folds the outer petals. The casing is nearly airtight, which helps protect the vulnerable egg (and later larva, then pupa) from flooding or excessive dryness or hoofed animals.

In only three to four days, the egg hatches into a larva. When it finishes feasting on the nectar, the larva spins a cocoon (still inside the shell, which has hardened into a protective casing by this point) and then hangs out. Rosen says he isn’t sure whether it spends the winter as a larva or as an adult. But at some point the creature’s tissue begins to restructure itself, and it transforms into an adult. Come springtime, the adult bee emerges from its flowery bower.

Then, the cycle starts all over again.

(Picasso!)  Pablo Picasso’s ”Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” which had a pre-sale estimate of between $70 million and $90 million, sold the evening of May 4 for  $106.5 million, a new world record for any artwork sold at auction.  New York Auction house Christie’s hammered the sale to an as yet unidentified buyer.   Christie’s auction house on Tuesday evening to an unidentified telephone bidder.

The Washington Post reports that “There were nine minutes of bidding involving eight clients in the sale room and on the phone, Christie’s said. At $88 million, two bidders remained. The final bid was $95 million, but the buyer’s premium took the sale price to $106.5 million.

Conor Jordan, head of impressionist and modern art for Christie’s New York, said he was “ecstatic with the results.”

“Tonight’s spectacular results showed the great confidence in the marketplace and the enthusiasm with which it welcomes top quality works,” he said.

The striking work of Picasso’s muse and mistress Marie-Therese Walter has been exhibited in the United States only once, in 1961 in Los Angeles to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Picasso’s birth. The painting, which measures more than 5 feet by 4 feet, shows a reclining nude figure with an image of Picasso in the background looking over her.”

This is really special. Writer/Conservationist/Activist/Friend Cate Cabot has sent word that world renowned biologist artist Patricia Johanson will speak at the Jackson Hole Community School on Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at 5:30 pm.    The event is free and open to the public.

This is a talk everyone who feels the Town of Jackson should evolve with consideration to new urbanism, and as a sustainable and cultural reflection of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, need attend.   These are the ideas and concepts crucial to how Jackson, now an urban entity, can become a model of sustainable, artful urban existence in the midst of protected land.  Jackson leaders mandate must be  this: to consider all indigenous and cultural qualities of our region in their civic planning.

A wonderful story:  Johanson used her time with her young children wandering the woods and open spaces.  As her children explored, she created biological, artful field sketches of the places they visited.   According to Cabot,  Johnson’s “small artistically stunning studies became what her earlier vision had anticipated, massive functional interactive installations which incorporate sculpture with local natural history and the cultural story line of an area with the intent to resolve a problem…”

A problem, in Johanson’s case, is defined as  polluted water and heavily polluted land sites.   Johanson has worked to design passive natural filters for dirtied waters, and restore it as potable.  She also creates systems that reclaim crucial habitat shared by mankind and myriad species.

“Her work is jaw dropping in scale, composition, effectiveness, beauty and comprehensive synthesis,” says Cabot.  “These installations have regenerated environments all over the world with many works completed, many more under development. I think of Thomas Berry’s perspective, that “we humans are genetically coded for beauty” when I consider Patricia Johanson’s work.”

Descriptions of Johanson’s book, Art and Survival: Patricia Johanson’s Environmental Projects , published in association with the Islands Institute, praise her environmental solutions expanding, healing and softening sites ranging from congested waterfronts to urban wastelands.  Johanson’s designs are accepted as important new models for the reclamation of gardens and parks eroded by neglect, lighting the way for new sustainable, integrative landscapes.

Johanson’s book is available at the Teton County Library.

For more information about May 4th’s event, contact Sarah Drake at 307.733.5427.

To read other posts relating to landscape and planning, an invitation is extended to search this site using any of these key words: Urban Planning, Landscape, Placemaking or Walter Hood.

Item #2:

The Jackson Hole Art Auction is back, returning to the J.H. Center for the Arts Theater, on Saturday, September 18, 2010.   I believe the Auction is still open for consignments–last year’s cut off date was June 1.    The Jackson Hole Art Auction is its own entity and is produced by the partnership of Trailside and Gerald Peters Galleries. It is a pinnacle event of the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival.

As anyone who has attended this auction knows, it is the real thing.  The Auction features “Past and Present Masters of the American West,” focusing on historically recognized artists, according to the Auction’s Emma Zanetti.   Lots auctioned in past sales include works by the Taos Society of Artists, and deceased Masters.  Artists you may recognize include, but are not limited to  C.M. Russell, Albert Bierstadt, Maynard Dixon, Charlie Dye, Frederic Remington, John Clymer, Bob Kuhn, Carl Rungius, Donald Teague, Olaf Wieghorst, and more. Top contemporary artists include William Acheff, Clyde Aspevig, Ken Carlson, Martin Grelle, Clark Hulings, Z.S. Liang, Bill Owen, Jim Norton, Kenneth Riley, Mian Situ, Howard Terpning, Jie Wei Zhou and others.

Last year’s solid auction sales totaled just under $6 million.   To talk with the Auction about consignments, stop by Trailside Galleries in Jackson (130 East Broadway) or email Emma Zanetti at registrar@jacksonholeartauction.com.

I don’t have many answers, but I do have lots of questions. Jackson’s sustainable and artistic efforts should fuse. But how? What models are out there in the world that we can study, even emulate?

Jackson’s future, in many ways, depends on the questions we ask. We should be asking more “baby step” questions and the larger ideals will naturally evolve. Just the other day, the Grand Teton Music Festival announced some news: Anonymous pledges (signaling that donors  don’t wish to be placed on pedestals for their contributions) totaling $3.5 million will establish a Housing Fund that will support its participating artists and stabilize “the largest line item in the Festival’s budget.”

The money is out there. Affordable housing, one of our biggest crises, will be available where the Festival is, in Teton Village. Where the artists actually work. In theory, not a lot of additional traffic. Green.

If we’re not going to create better mass transit opportunities, we’d better put housing where workers work.

I did not attend Jackson’s recent Energy Summit. No doubt I missed a lot of cool interaction, scintillating discussion, theory, science, inspiring vision, good networking and even a photo op or two.

The questions that formed in my mind, that weren’t answered to my satisfaction prior to the Summit, are these:

What was its cost?  Will Summit organizers offer up a financial report of this and any subsequent summits, as it is “for-profit” and not “non-profit?”

Who receives any fees the community pays out to the Summit? Why should the community contribute to it now, rather than to established initiatives? Perhaps it’s simply a choice, but am I the only one feeling stretched?  And kind of guilty just for sometimes having to say “no?”   In this economy, I’d love a time line for practical Summit results related to Jackson.

How big was this summit’s carbon footprint?

Are our new, empty buildings green? Are they going to be made green before or after they’re occupied?  What is the plan to fill all these empty spaces?  Is anyone considering reducing rents in exchange for tax credits, in order to attract new businesses that would provide good jobs?

How do such summits aid or detract from efforts to resolve, in a financially prudent way, our Comprehensive Plan?  Do they address land use? What is the interface with the planning process?

Will we price out middle class families looking for memorable, but affordable experiences here? If we can’t offer lodging under $400 a night, “regular” people can’t visit. And if they don’t visit, they won’t know the valley, or feel any impetus to protect it. How can we move forward with being green and ensure keeping it “real?”

Many less sexy communities without real estate hyper-spikes haven’t crashed as hard as Jackson.  How will we address that?

A tunnel running under Teton Pass would provide safer and faster commutes, run beneath habitat, and balance real estate values. On this side of the Pass, values would come down a bit.  Over in Idaho, they’d go up a bit because Jackson Hole would be more accessible. We’d give the mountain back to wildlife.  Mass transit would operate more efficiently.  That road is treacherous.  Avalanche emergencies and related deaths would be reduced.

Ted Kerasote once suggested a tunnel, in lieu of a bridge, for GTNP. How about a tunnel to go under that freakin’ Pass?

“The Earth is at a crossroads never before experienced. My hope is that we begin a new path, one of enlightenment, understanding, appreciation, and tolerance for all living things.” – Tom Mangelsen.

Here in Jackson Hole, wildlife photographer Tom Mangelsen needs no introduction.  Our arts, particularly our conservation-based arts, have long looked to his intuitive, prescient practice of seeking out species and their habitats around the globe.   Tom Mangelsen is a given, thank goodness. But preservation of wildlife, its assured survival, will never be a “given.”  We are responsible, and Mangelsen has taken up the sword.  He won’t put it down.

His awards include “Outstanding Nature Photographer of the Year” honors from the North American Nature Photographer Association and “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” from the BBC.

So welcome the chance to take in his work – a significant and renowned oeuvre – and reconnect to the wildlife and landscapes Mangelsen spends eight months a year exploring.  The National Museum of Wildlife Art opens “On the Natural World: Photographs by Thomas D. Mangelsen,” on October 1.  The exhibition remains up through April 25, 2010.

“These animals, even the most seemingly insignificant ones, are the barometer of the health of this planet,” says Mangelsen.  “It doesn’t take long to realize that we are on that same chain, we are all linked in nature.”

I am the proud owner of Mangelsen’s quintessential book, “The Natural World.” It is a prized possession.  Through his looking glass I peer. I close my eyes, fan the pages and stop.  I do this several times, opening my eyes to see where I’ve landed.

Lord, he’s been written about.  But my guess is, Tom (May I call you “Tom?”) is most proud of his connection to Jane Goodall, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a UN Messenger of Peace. She thanks Tom for his “magnificent enterprise,” and she speaks of his work:

“There I found myself in a magic place, for the breathtaking photographs around the walls transported me to faraway countries, some loved and familiar so that looking at them woke a yearning to be back, others that provided tantalizing images of other worlds I had yet to experience.  Here, at last, were photographs that had captured…the very essence of the wilderness scenes depicted.”

I wish I could be there this Thursday, but I’m traveling.  You all go, you hear?   What better place to take in Mangelsen’s work than within the rustic stone walls of the Museum, crouched on its butte like a watchful cougar?

For information, log on to www.wildlifeart.org or phone 307.733.5771.

The Jackson Hole Art Association addresses global warming with its summer exhibition GAIA and Global Warming: Women Artists Champion Nature, kicking off with a free “art talk” at the Center for the Arts Theater on June 24, beginning at 7:30 pm.    The show opens June 26 with a 5:30 pm artists’ reception at Artspace; the work remains on display through September 27, 2009.

Curated by Lowery Stokes Sims, GAIA looks at climate change through the eye of the arts.  In other words, this is not an exhibit about climate change; it is a show examining–considering–the myriad ways the arts have explored themes of global warming, sustainability (which, in its true sense, refers to any activity or practice that, no matter how often executed, never leaves a corrosive environmental trace) and responsibility.

Hope Sandrow, Peggy Diggs, Margaret and Christine Wertheim (of the Institute for Figuring), Nancy Macko and Judy Cotton are participating artists.

So, GAIA is not land art–art that disappears or transforms–nor is it work designed for a specific public installation. The show is at once a retrospective and commentary. Tracing the “explosion” of enviro-art back to 2006, GAIA embraces the concept that artists are at the vanguard of environmentalism.  Creativity and its derivative tactile arts reflect our experience of the world around us.

The Art Association notes that collaborations with “….scientists, statisticians, public policy wonks, municipal officials and arts organizations (has) set the protocol for this genre of art making. Artists thus have been at the vanguard of concretizing (sic) scientific, social, political and economic theory around the environment into specific projects which they have situated in venues for maximum exposure to the public.”

June 24th’s free panel discussion features moderator Lowery Stokes Sims, forest ecologist Nalini Nadkarni, and artists Nancy Macko, Susan Thulin and Lyndsay McCandless.

For more information, phone the Art Association at 307.733.6379.

Lots and lots of National Museum of Wildlife Art news and updates!   Here is a full list of activities related to our museum on the hill.

#1:  Dr. Seuss!

Whose childhood–and by extension, adulthood–has not been charmed by Theodor Geisel’s opus?  We all occasionally find ourselves thinking “Seussical.”

“The Lorax: Original Illustrations by Dr. Seuss” is on display at the museum through September 7.   NMWA notes that the Lorax’s tale is a cautionary one, a tale ahead of its time, warning us of our own penchant for wrecking our beloved environment.   The exhibit gives us access to Seuss’ process, from conceptual sketches to to camera-ready line art.  Anthropormorphism of wildlife and our relationship to the natural world are the coal in creative story-telling engines; Disney has built an empire around these themes.   Stand out exhibit characters include Swomee-Swans and Humming-Fish.

“Seuss was not one to shy away from contemporary topics or social commentary. The Lorax is among his most pointed, taking to task a company whose greed causes grave environmental harm,” notes the Museum. ” This exhibit combines original art as it probes humanity’s relationship with nature, making a perfect match for the National Museum of Wildlife Art.”  The exhibit is on loan from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library & Museum.

Special fun-for-kids activities tied to Seuss’s art will be offered throughout the Museum. The Lorax exhibition is included in Museum admission: $10 for adults, $5 for kids 5-18, and free for children under 5. A family rate of $30 for the first two adults, first two children, and $1 for each additional child helps make the Museum affordable for larger families.

#2:  Out of the Box!

NMWA’s biennial “Out of the Box Show and Auction” is one of the museum’s best-loved events.  This year, the show and sale takes place Friday, June 12 and includes over 115 creatively altered boxes by regionally and nationally acclaimed artists.   Prices have typically ranged from an affordable $25 to $4,000 and more.  Proceeds support the Museum’s adult and youth education programs.

Each box is unique, and artists are invited to work in any medium as long as the work retains its function as a box.  The box artworks will be auctioned by auctioneer Jim Loose, and the evening’s M.C. is KMTN’s “Fish.”   Of course, there are door prizes: two CityPass books, a two-hour art appraisal by Art Appraisals of Jackson Hole, LLC, two bird-themed notions boxes and a tour of the newly opened Jackson Hole Raptor Center with guide Roger Smith.

Volunteer Chair Ann Nelson notes the event is a labor of love, with 15 volunteers devoting much of the last two years organizing the show.    “The community of Jackson Hole anticipates Out of the Box with great enthusiasm; this show will have something for everyone,” says Nelson.

Out of the Box is free for museum members, $7 for non-members; free for children.  Event admission includes light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar.  Doors open at 5:30 p.m.    733-5771.

#3: Wyoming 2009 Junior Duck Stamp Winners!

Through August 23, take time to visit this year’s entries and winners of the Wyoming Federal Junior Duck Stamp Contest. Now in its 15th year, this exceptional program, a national art competition for students in grades K – 12 simultaneously teaches art, conservation of wetlands and natural resources, and awareness skills.

The exhibit is traditionally on display in the Museum’s King Gallery; check with the front desk to confirm.   The list of winners is long, and every entry is a winner in itself.

The following information on is provided by the Museum.

Eighteen year-old Bryant Helm, of Cokeville, Wyoming, received the 2009 Best of Show award for his painting, “Provocative.”  His oil painting depicts a striking portrait of a Long-tailed Duck.  Bryant’s painting represented Wyoming at the Federal Jr. Duck Stamp contest Wednesday, April 22, 2009, at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C. The winner of the national competition will receive $5,000, a trip to our nation’s capital along with a parent and the art teacher, and have his or her artwork used to make the 2009-2010 Junior Duck Stamp.  Proceeds from the sale of the Junior Duck Stamps, which cost $5.00, support conservation education.

Baily Schupp, a eight year-old student from Pinedale, for the second year in a row,  won the 2009 Betty Nelson Artistic Promise Award for the best art in the youngest age group.  The Betty Nelson Artistic Promise Award was established eight years ago to recognize the artistic accomplishment of students in the K-3rd grade age group and to honor the late Betty Nelson, a generous supporter of the Junior Duck Stamp program.

The 1st through 3rd place Wyoming winners of the Jr. Duck Stamp contest can be viewed online on the Museum’s web site, WildlifeArt.org.  The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place contest winners will be honored at a dinner and awards ceremony at the National Museum of Wildlife Art on Saturday July 18, 2009.

For more information, please contact Amy Goicoechea at (307) 732-5435.

Oh, I LOVE this.  This is a story about Vertical Gardens.  The Art of Green.  Green urban gardens. Happy Earth Week, Jackson Hole!  The photo above is from Vertical Garden’s Exit Art website.

Vertical Gardens is “…an exhibition of architectural models, renderings, drawings, photographs and ephemera that depict or imagine a vertical farm, urban garden or green roof.”

Imagine Jackson’s new downtown garage transformed as a vertical garden.  A vertical forest, a vision of vines!   Imagine it surrounded with indigenous wildflowers and plants, an ever-changing public art installation, transforming itself with every season.  Wow.

Vertical Gardens encompasses over 20 projects by “…artists and architects that envision solutions for building greener urban environments.” Cities all around the world are finding ways to include gardens in their planning, knowing the urban aesthetic will increase a hundred fold.   They’re great ways to feed and inspire urban dwellers, and since Jackson’s downtown is bent on adding multi-million dollar commercial and residential spaces, how about including green gardens in the design?   Provide space for sustaining, aesthetic projects in every development and pay it back, pay it forward to the community.   And bring our town’s profile up to new age marketing snuff while you’re at it!   Bring the region’s great beauty right past the city line and into…town’s heart.

Here’s more from their site:

“Largely based on the principles of hydroponics, vertical gardens would also be mostly self-sustaining because they would capture large amounts of natural sunlight and water, and could use wind as an energy source. In a country where cities are suffocated by high rises, cement and industrial materials, where can green space exist? As this exhibition demonstrates, one possible answer is “up.” These and other urban parks and gardens provide areas for socialization and recreation; a location for a city farm or community land-trust; an outlet through which hundreds of people can learn about farming and agriculture; and the addition of much needed plant and animal life to the otherwise concrete jungle.”

Vertical Gardens is a project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics) , which is an off shoot of Exit Art, which “…is an independent vision of contemporary culture prepared to react immediately to important issues that affect our lives.”  The New York City center, 25 years old, engages in “…experimental, historical and unique presentations of aesthetic, social, political and environmental issues.”  Exit Art says it “absorbs cultural differences that become prototype exhibitions,” and embraces multiple disciplines.   Starting as a ‘grass roots’ project, it has grown into a contemporary green, artistic powerhouse.  Always changing, it is now internationally recognized for its innovations, curatorial depth, media savvy and stick-to-it-ness.

Few endeavors build community like gardening.  And few activities provide the warm sense of well-being that gardening does. Win. Win again.  If we incorporate the Verticle Garden vision into ours, we won’t be able to take our eyes off the results.

Tuesday, March 3

Art After Hours
Presented by the Dragicevich Foundation
7:00PM in the Cook Auditorium
FREE

It was a century ago when William Hornaday, Theodore Roosevelt, and early members of the American Bison Society (1905) established the first bison reserves. These early efforts were primarily directed at the capture and containment of the few remaining bison on fenced preserves to save the species from extinction. Present efforts to conserve the largest land mammal, the American bison, are far reaching and complex.

In 2006 the American Bison Society was re-established with a new mission directed at the ecological restoration of the species. Keith Aune is Senior Conservation Scientist for the North American Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and works on several conservation issues including ecological restoration of the American Bison.

Aune has been involved in wildlife research in Montana and Wyoming for 32 years. He has conducted field or laboratory research on black and grizzly bears, wildlife diseases, wolverine, cougar, and, more recently, bison. Aune is currently based in Bozeman, Montana, and will discuss the history of bison conservation and recent bison restoration efforts by WCS through its American Bison Society Initiative.
Co-sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society.

For information regarding this and other NMWA programs, phone 307-733-5771 or log on to www.wildlifeart.org.

(This essay was written January 2008, inspired by tributes to Martin Luther King. This month, we are inspired by our new President-elect, Barack Obama. Also, a reminder that this website’s content protected by copyright–TC)

The day before our nation celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, I went to the gym. Alone in the place for over half an hour, I plodded along on the treadmill, channel flipped and considered my future and the future of Jackson Hole. How would they be tied together in the coming years? How would my new business, Jackson Hole Art Tours, fare? Would it be a rewarding experience, working to weave this new venture into Jackson’s tapestry? And would the business truly give back, and make a difference, as I hope?

After a while Franz Camenzind arrived, and now we were two. Not long ago I’d sent a note to Franz, an emotional response to the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance’s holiday meeting and party. The evening featured Charlie Craighead’s slide presentation about his life growing up with wildlife, and how our relationship with wildlife has had to change as people flood to the valley and we develop more and more land. It was a wonderful evening, spent with some of Jackson’s most creative and change-making citizens. The crowd was warm, optimistic; everyone seemed bright with hope.

And hope is everything.

I clicked over to the Tennis Channel, looking for Nadal’s Australian Open quarterfinal match. It wasn’t on, and I complained to Franz. In the second I looked away from the screen, Franz said, “Isn’t that it?” I looked up, and there was Nadal.

“Anything else you’d like me to make happen?” Franz teased.

“Yes,” I replied. Boo-yah, my own personal genie! “I’d like you to make me the person who wakes everyone up to the true connections between the arts and conservation. I want to be that person here by 2010 and I want to instigate a dynamic, creative project that will draw everyone’s attention to the fact that, now, our environment and arts cannot survive without one another.”

Remember, I’m on a treadmill here. And those weren’t my exact words, but they’re close enough.

I sensed Franz doubted the validity of my theory. But he humored me. “Think about it,” I said. It takes creativity to communicate the beauty and utter indispensability of our natural world. Consider, for a second, the void of a world with no painters, sculptors, writers, and all manner of artists sending up messages about the earth? And where would artists be if not for our planet’s magnificence? What else inspires infinite prayers, offered via a brush, or a pen, or a camera’s lens? We would be living in a hellish, cold place. Bleak.

Art testifies, and as one of my favorite writers, Scott Russell Sanders has written, we’re telling the holy.

Franz nodded, then asked me: “But what came first, the natural world or artists?”

The natural world, of course.

Having previously lived in Jackson, I returned five years ago. To hasten reconnecting to the valley, I attended the January 2004 ‘Greater Yellowstone Power of Place’ conference. Panel ‘teams’ made presentations and talked about their connections to one another. I attended the Arts and Environment discussion. The fact that the Arts and Environment panel had been conceived as an obvious duo struck home. I recall that while all the panel members honored each other’s work and visions, there was an impasse when it came to actually naming a tangible project that would allow everyone there to contribute, and that would provide something of educational value. Stoked by the conference energy, but feeling shy and new girlish, I didn’t speak up. However, I did describe a vision I had to one of the conference organizers.

I imagine a giant, interactive screen. Glowing, luminous. This screen would depict everything within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: terrain, wildlife, flora, our rivers, lakes, weather, the sky, and snow—everything indigenous to our region. The screen’s function would be to educate the user about how development, global warming, water and air pollution, and human traffic change our ecosystem’s balance. For example, if someone wanted to know how five (or any number) of drought years would affect either wildlife, our rivers and lakes, forests and wilderness, they would touch a certain spot on the screen and the screen’s technology would transform its image to depict those effects: trout would having a tough time, declining lakes, all wildlife being challenged to find nourishment, parched grasses and trees. The number of wildfires would grow, and with those come smoky skies. That’s the short list, of course. The picture would be redrawn.

Artists could imagine and render images. Conservationists and scientists would inform these artistic choices, be the books behind the art. And technology would figure out how all the components would function, build in images and text. There would be nothing like it in the world. This reflection of us would be its own technological museum, and any kid could use it, and want to use it. Adults would want to use it, as we use our computers and I-phones.

This morning, on Martin Luther King Day, I flipped on my computer to scan the New York Times E-paper headlines. Photographer Camilo José Vergara has documented 12 urban murals of King; many are in Los Angeles and New York. He says such portraits of King are everywhere. One mural depicts King as the center figure in a triptych of images that includes Jesus and the Virgin Mary. One depicts him with Pope Paul—he’s also with Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X. Another shows King as a great teacher. And one portrait paints King’s image as a strong, confident leader atop a mountain of really hip graffiti art.

On any given holiday Google incorporates relevant artwork into its home page graphics. Today three boys are drawing a chalk portrait of Martin Luther King on the sidewalk. How wonderful is it that the artists are young kids? How do they know about Martin Luther King? What inspired them to draw his image?

Viewing these powerful, beautiful and respectful images, I was reminded of the recent political flap over whether King was responsible for igniting racial reform, creating its destiny and bringing his message home, or if this was Lyndon Johnson’s victory.

Who first brought the Dream?

Martin Luther King, of course.

–Tammy Christel
January 21, 2008