The past year has been wild indeed! For most of the year, each week has brought the challenge of creating the Wild Wednesday photo essays. This has been a wonderful opportunity for me to use my extensive photo library (constantly adding new material, which gets me out in nature with an inquiring eye) and my naturalist background to help inspire and inform others about the remarkable natural world we live in.

It has also helped increase awareness of the value of conservation no matter where we live. My main focus has been on my homeland—the Granite Dells or Prescott, Arizona—but also expanding awareness across the globe, especially with respect to East Africa, where I have led safaris for 45 years!

The Natural History Institute invited me to exhibit a one-person art show on “Art in the Service of Conservation” from October 27, 2023 through January 12, 2024. My public presentation allowed me to describe in images and words my lifelong progression as a conservation biologist, with art being an important element of my voice. My personal history and many examples of my paintings are included. You may view the video of my talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzBS5oRTNoo

My friend Kitty Harvill, co-founder of Artists and Biologists Unite for Nature (ABUN), recommended me to the editors of CanvasRebel (“Conversations with Entrepreneurs, Artists & Creatives”). Here is my interview: https://canvasrebel.com/meet-walt-anderson/ I was asked about the most meaningful project I’ve worked on, and it gave me the opportunity to describe my connections with Prescott College, Artists for Conservation, ABUN, the Sutter Buttes of California, Save the Dells, and the Granite Dells of Arizona.

In May 2024, I am displaying with artists Rebecca Davis/Roger Asay, Jan Marshall, and Tony Brown in the inaugural art show at the new Cicada Gallery on the campus of Prescott College (234 Grove Avenue). The show will be open to the public from May 3 – 30 from 10-noon, 1-4 Monday – Friday. I personally will be staffing the gallery on Thursdays (May 9, 16, 23, 30), and others will be there on the other weekdays.

David Cavagnaro in his forewords to my Sutter Buttes books wrote: “A naturalist, I think, is first a person of the earth, a shaman really, one who feels as well as sees, one who simply knows with greater depth and breadth than intellect alone can muster. Second, a naturalist is an interpreter, one who can translate the complex language of nature into the vocabulary of the common man, who can reach out to us from the heart of the natural world and lead us in.”

We can interpret with the language of science, but we can also appeal to the emotions through the language of art. Together, they are the tools of a naturalist, the means by which we draw connections.

If you check out the various pages of my website, http://www.geolobo.com/, you will see the balance of art & science that are my interpretive tools. My writing, photography, and trip-leading incorporate all these tools, and my paintings and other illustrations visually reach to a place in the heart that words alone may not penetrate.

Here are a few examples of paintings that suggest some of this kind of connection, but please go to my Interpreting Nature page for much more, and you can see art available for purchase at my Artists for Conservation site. My Artist Statement follows:

Kopje Cat

Mountain Lion, watercolor

Artist Statement

Evolution is the ultimate designer, and each organism reflects a winnowing creative process. Good design is beautiful, whether the product is as elegant as a gazelle or as comical (to our biased eyes) as a squat toad.

My goal as an artist is to interpret an organism with love, respect, and fidelity to essence. I love the delicacy of watercolor, which, though typically unforgiving as a medium, allows me to depict the softness of feather and the hardness of beak and claw equally well. I am now experimenting with other media, as the artistic process is enriched by media diversity the way a forest or grassland is enhanced through biotic diversity.

We often don’t see nature clearly; we may apply a name and then cease to observe closely, depriving ourselves and our subject of earned intimacy. I want you, the viewer of my paintings, to look more closely, to discover something that would not be apparent if you met an organism in the wild. If we can see clearly, we are blessed with priceless discoveries. Our human world is filled with distractions, many of them not good for our psyche. But marvel at the beauty of an animal well portrayed, and you can for a moment escape the confusion of modern society and connect with something much bigger and grander.

Walt Anderson