All posts filed under: Featured Ekostories

octoberama-charley-harper

Art, Animal, Essence: The Drawings of Charley Harper

Published by

I don’t remember exactly when I stopped drawing. I don’t mean the occasional doodles I do now; I mean before, when drawing was like daily bread, a childhood mainstay. I mean the classes, the contests, the urge to recreate images I saw in books, from movies, outside, everywhere. It was definitely before middle school, before that one time in English class where we had to speak about one of our hobbies and why it meant a lot to us. Being a teenager with no particular aspirations, I chose to pluck something from the past and spoke about drawing. I talked about how I would spend hours tracing and retracing, how time would dissolve while depicting a new world, the pride I would feel after finishing. After class, my best friend at the time pulled me aside. “I have never seen you draw. Like at all.” He was right. One day I stopped. I dropped the old ways and went on. But the memories were still there. The drawings, too. A few months ago while visiting …

grasslands greenview Lyn Baldwin

Finding Place through Art and Science: The Field Journals of Lyn Baldwin

Published by

This piece was featured as an Editor’s Pick on Discover WordPress June 30, 2016. I began my first field journal in Belize, during my time there for biology field school. Each evening after night walks I would jot down a list of the day’s seen species under the fluorescent hum of generator lights. Flipping through the spiral-bound notebook now a decade later, I wish I hadn’t been so rigid in my musings, so clinical in my descriptions of those treasurable weeks in a new place. Now and then memories surface – hiking up trails in Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Preserve; huddling close to campfires pitched by the Sibun River after a day of canoeing; swaying in a hammock and looking out at the sunset while listening to someone strumming the guitar. These happenings now slip through my mesh of English and Latin names, scrawled neat on ruled lines. I wish I did a better job at capturing moments. I wish I could go back. *** Maybe regret is why I so admire those skilled at conveying …

May 2013 Styro-Buck at Ohio Falls

My Top 5 Eco-Art Tales, by the Artist at Ohio Falls

Published by

It wasn’t my intention to continue with the art theme. But as the rule of three calls and  I learn more about writing and blogging, I found myself more inclined to follow intuition than push through to produce work that doesn’t feel right. Perhaps it was just easier to showcase other people’s incredible work instead of doing research for a long piece. Given the choice between being attuned and growing lazy, I’m sticking with the former interpretation. I’ve been a fan of Albertus Gorman’s work over at The Artist at Exit 0 Riverblog ever since I began blogging in 2012. For the better part of the last decade, Gorman has used materials washed up at Ohio State Park to create sculptures and craft stories that explore the impacts we have on the places we inhabit. Some of his work from Ohio Falls is now featured in The Potential in Everything, an exhibition at the Carnegie Center for Art and History in New Albany, Indiana. In a recent post exploring the evolution of nature writing, we …

X-ray coloured tulips

X-Ray Photography of Nature, by Arie van’t Riet

Published by

Last week’s art by Greg Mort connected the intimate with the infinite. This week, I thought it would be interesting to explore art that delves into a world hidden from plain sight. With the use of  x-ray radiography, medical physicist and artist Arie van’t Riet creates stunning glimpses into the inner workings of the natural world. For me, van’t Riet’s photographs work on multiple levels. I enjoy the story of his path towards becoming an artist. In his work, I find a keen aesthetic judgement that balances an artist’s intention with the intrinsic beauty of the subject matter. Most importantly of all, I connect with his desire to showcase the vibrancy of life in his more complex pieces.