The Art of Me 2: A Picture-Perfect Frame

I've been framed, and based on what I recently learned about frames, I think that's a pretty good development.

Around the Cape in the original matte.

When I purchased a print by Pacific Northwest artist Elton Bennett in August, I blogged about how I saw my perspective in Bennett's work. That alignment of viewpoints helped convince me to buy a print of his Around the Cape. I had the print framed last month, and Olympia Framemakers did such a great job, I see myself in the frame as well.

The key to the frame was finding the right matte for the print's perspective. Because the print already had a white matte when I bought it, I initially planned to just buy a frame for it. However, I knew the white matte didn't work with the print as well as other colors might. Olympia Framemakers explained that the matte and frame should mesh with the perspective an artist provides for a piece of art and suggested black or dark green matte to better match the colors of my print. I liked the dark green and had them use it to replace the original matte when they framed the art in a black frame.

Around the Cape in a dark green matte and
black frame by Olympia Framemakers.

As soon as I saw the finished product, I knew Olympia Framemakers had created a perfect frame for Around the Cape. The new matte supported all the colors in the print by letting them be as Bennett intended. As a result, the effect of the print expanded into the matte like someone stretching out in their bed. By extension, because I had identified with the print from the beginning, I could see myself in the matte too. The dark green felt like the Pacific Northwest, like home, like an essential part of me. I couldn't be happier with the work by Olympia Framemakers. For more information about them, check out their Web site.

In having my Bennett print framed, I learned that a perfect frame liberates as well as it contains.

The Art of Me

I am not an artist, but that didn't stop me from recognizing a big part of myself in the art of Elton Bennett.

Sea Birds Cry by Elton Bennett.

For a while, I've wanted to put some art of the Pacific Northwest on my wall, so some prints of Bennett's work caught my eye as I ate lunch at the Ocean Crest Resort on a recent trip to the beach at Moclips, Washington. They presented familiar scenes of the Washington coast in the soft, shadowy colors so common in the PNW.

Alone, the scenes in Bennett's work would have supplied me with enough interest for further research, but they also possessed a quality I knew I liked. After returning home and starting my investigation, I learned that Bennett had been a native of the Grays Harbor area in Washington, growing up and living not far from my hometown. That certainly struck a chord with me. The area had inspired much of his work, and I saw the care he had for some of the same things and places I grew up loving.

My photograph of a clam tide on January 2, 2015.

It wasn't just that Bennett's art portrayed a place I cared about though. As I examined his pieces in more detail, I discovered some of my own perspective in them. Many of his works emphasize the natural scene over human figures. Some contain no people at all. In those where people are present, the scenery often dwarfs the human, or the shadows or half-light blur them into the setting. I take photographs in much the same way. In fact, his piece Sea Birds Cry, which depicts the silhouettes of people digging clams against the blue-gray of the ocean and sky, recalled to mind some clam-tide pictures I took in 2015.

After conducting my research, I knew Bennett's art was the kind I wanted on my wall. I bought a print of Around the Cape, which beautifully expresses the essence of the coast on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. For more information about Bennett and his art, click here.

Although I could not have produced Bennett's art, its subject matter and perspective at least make me feel like it was created for me.

Art of the Heart

In art, some dogs play poker, but Mark Barone wants to raise awareness about the many dogs playing Russian roulette. 

Three years ago, Barone set out to draw attention to the fact that an average of 5,500 dogs are euthanized in animal shelters each day in the United States. With that number in mind, Barone created An Act of Dog, an art project featuring 5,500 dogs that have been euthanized. Check out a trailer for the documentary PBS is doing on the project:

An Act of Dog takes a sad and challenging issue and turns it into a powerful message and a labor of love. The number of pets in animal shelters strains the resources of those people trying to find homes for them, and we often overlook adoption as an option for getting a pet. All this amounts to some very difficult circumstances. Barone's project expresses the pain of the situation and calls for something better. For more information about his work, click here.

Considering the size of the problem, it's probably a good time to construct a better system for handling pets that need homes. It will take all of us and a new perspective about pets, but it promises to give Barone a more positive picture to paint.

Adopting a pet is simple, so we tend to forget the power it carries, but An Act of Dog finds a way to communicate just how meaningful it is.

Pure Poetry

Poetry often describes the qualities of air, but a new poem improves air quality.

At the University of Sheffield, the humanities and the sciences combined forces to both say and do something about air pollution. One of the buildings on campus has a wall covered by a banner displaying In Praise of Air, a poem by Professor of Poetry Simon Armitage.

While the poem communicates the importance of air, it does something no other poem about this subject has done: It actually cleans the air. The banner the university printed the poem on has a special coating that removes nitrogen oxide from the air, reducing smog. To see the unfurling of the banner, watch the video below, and to learn more about the poem, click here:



In Praise of Air and its medium represent a great development in environmental messaging. As we attempt to address the challenging environmental issues facing us, we'll need to communicate and act at the same time. The work by the University of Sheffield provides an example for such multitasking.

Good poetry moves us; the best poetry moves us to act.

Amphibian Art

The Baroque Period has nothing on the Croak Period.

Populations of frogs and other amphibians continue declining, and an organization called Save the Frogs! is making art a key piece of its efforts to address the issue.

Save the Frogs! holds an art contest each year from January 15 to October 15. The contest raises awareness of the problems facing amphibians in two ways. First, those who participate gain knowledge about the issue, and then, they produce art that helps spread the message. Check out some art from previous years in the video below:



With its art contest, Save the Frogs! takes a smart approach to a worldwide problem. The contest is open to people around the world. Consequently, it lets any individual become a voice for amphibians in her or his country, and it allows children to engage in the issue. In other words, Save the Frogs! employs a long-term, big-picture perspective. For more information about the organization and its art contest, click here.

Creating a world where amphibians are celebrated and safe is what I would call a masterpiece, and we can all wield the brush.

Going to the Wall

Art imitates death too.

An artist known only as ATM uses graffiti to challenge a system that has brought bird species to the edge of extinction in England. TreeHugger shares some of the artist's work and the story behind it here.

To me, the choice of using graffiti serves to highlight the desperation of the birds' situation. While a painting could have received attention, it likely would not have communicated the full spirit of the problem. ATM's work makes a statement literally on the social structure that threatens the birds, and considering the nature of extinction, anything less would have been insufficient.

The story of ATM and England's declining birds provides a microcosm for the environmental issues we face as a planet. With extinction rates soaring and a climate system saturated by carbon dioxide, it's no longer enough to just paint pictures of what's happening. We have to go further and make fundamental changes to human society. For example, today's report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed the need for major, urgent action to address global warming.

Our backs are against the wall, from which ATM's birds stare down at us.

The Art of a Child

Some are born to be wild, and as the story of a nine-year-old Oregon boy shows, some are born to protect the wild.

According to this article from The Oregonian, Harper Graham-Nye has turned a passion for animals and a recent trip to Africa into art, a business, and a conservation effort--all before the age of 10. While visiting Africa, he learned about the impacts of poaching and met a wildlife photographer named Julien Polet.

The experiences in Africa combined with what appears to be a natural interest in animals and sparked Graham-Nye's creativity. He used editing software to alter Polet's digital pictures, creating pieces of art. Teaming with Polet, he put the images on T-shirts. The shirts are sold, and half the proceeds go to help stop poaching. To check out Graham-Nye's project, visit his Web site, Happy Tusk.

The things that interest us when we are young tend to influence our career and life choices. Graham-Nye simply has a particular affinity for the environment and a head start in turning that interest into his life's work.

Children might be the future, but this one has created a better present for wildlife.

Art as a Feather

Art is in the wing of the beholder or any other place you find feathers.

Artist Chris Maynard of Olympia, Washington, uses feathers as his medium. He photographs, arranges, or carves feathers into works of art, and true to their base material, his creations carry an avian theme, depicting birds and drawing attention to the beauty of feathers.

Maynard's interest in feather art began at around age 12 and is rooted in his love of birds. A member of Artists for Conservation, he uses his work to encourage people to protect birds and bird habitat. For more information and to see Maynard's feathers, go to his Web site by clicking here.

This is the kind of art that leaves birders and environmentalists flying high.

A Pet is Worth a Thousand Pictures

Image is everything for pets waiting to be adopted.

Mother Nature Network reports on this story about an organization of artists who are helping animal shelters. HeARTs Speak connects animal organizations with artists who want to donate their talents like photography, design, and illustration.

One of the coolest results of the collaborations that take place through HeARTs Speak is that good photographs help animals' chances of being adopted. Of course, animal shelters rarely have the resources to pay for such great shots, so the pro bono pics are doubly meaningful. For more information about HeARTs Speak, click here.

Pictures have an inherent power, but the HeARTs Speak images carry the force of a good cause.

Just a Few Lines

There is an art to communicating global warming.

For the Sightline Institute, that art is poetry. The Pacific Northwest organization, which does research into and communication about sustainability, recently publicized the work of oceanographer Greg Johnson, who wrote haikus to articulate the recent findings on global warming from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Johnson's poems present the findings in a simple, powerful way. To check them out, click here.

A lot has been said about global warming, but these haikus say it all.

Winter Camp

Sure, summer gets all the glory when it comes to camps, but the Oregon Zoo is bringing the fun of camp to winter.

The zoo's ARcTic Adventure is a day camp where children in grades K-4 can learn about animals while building their art skills. A nice potential outcome is that the campers can discover opportunities to connect with nature through art.

Camps are scheduled for December 30-31 and January 2-3. For more information, click here.

Winter break isn't usually associated with camp and the environment, but any time is a good one for finding ways to connect with nature.

Dragonfly Squadron

When it comes to keeping tracking of dragonflies, it's a case of science meeting art.

The elegance of dragonflies cannot be denied. They are one of those creatures that cause me to stop whatever I'm doing and watch. That appeal would seem to make them prime candidates for citizen science projects, and the Migratory Dragonfly Partnership is providing three such opportunities.

Pond Watch involves recording information about the arrival to, activity in, and departure from local ponds. Migration Monitoring helps collect data about the insects' migration behavior, and Stable Isotopes uses hydrogen isotopes to track them. For more information about the projects, click here.

Through citizen science like the MDP's projects, the next time someone stops to marvel at a dragonfly, it can become a key contribution to the scientific knowledge about these stunning insects.

Sound Buy

Bird sounds have something special about them.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, one of the works that helped propel the modern environmental movement, took its name from the unnerving quiet that came from DDT's devastating impact on bird populations. An art exhibit in Sydney, Australia, plays the songs of birds that used to inhabit the city. Then, on a personal level, the song or call of a species I am familiar with is enough to give me a smile.

Bird sounds are also important for identification purposes, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a great collection of songs and calls from North American species. The lab is now making the complete set available for purchase as MP3 files. A smaller, less expensive collection is also available. Both can be purchased for a limited time at a discounted rate. For more information, check out this entry from the lab's Round Robin blog.

Bird sounds occupy an important place in our world, and getting to know them makes their impact all the more meaningful.

The Art of Nature in Finland

Nature has a strong influence on Finnish life, including the country's art.

Jean Sibelius, Finland's famous composer, took much inspiration from nature, and a lot of the art from the country is based on environmental themes and images.

When I was in Turku at the Aboa Vetus and Ars Nova Museum, I saw an exhibit by Finnish artist Kaisu Koivisto. Koivisto uses many different types of art, including photographs, sculptures, and video. The exhibit, titled Loud Silence, included photographs of Soviet Cold War buildings and missile sites that are being overgrown by nature.

Another piece, called The Absorption of Pollution, is made of cow horns. The piece is moved to different places around the world, sits outside, and collects pollution from those areas. It changes as more pollution is collected.

Reintroducing the Species is a part of the exhibit that focuses on the idea of bringing cows back to Staten Island, where they could be found on farms several decades ago. Koivisto made cows out of blankets, placed them around the area, and took photographs of them.

Koivisto also keeps nature in mind when creating her art. She reuses (upcycles) old materials to make her pieces. To see and learn more about her work, check out her Web site.