Caloosahatchee River, Acrylic on Canvas Painting

Native Floridian Megan Kissinger traditionally employs charcoal or paint on canvas and believes that in many ways her art isn’t as much a product as a service. “If I never made a penny on my work, I’d still be out there painting away,” she confesses. “And, I love teaching people about nature with my art.” Perhaps it is her background in scientific illustration that helps her to present the beauty and the connectedness that she sees in every aspect of the natural universe, but it is her passion that drives her attempt to “make viewers aware of how everything in the world is connected in some way.”

In order to show the structures and designs in nature, Kissinger loves to get up close to things that normally aren’t accessible, like birds and butterflies, to bridge the magical distance that wild things have learned to maintain for their safety. That detailed precision is complemented by combinations of radiant colors in the sweeping settings in many of her paintings. Her compelling compositions do in fact reveal her fascination with light and line. “I can get lost,” the fine artist admits, “in late afternoon and twilight shadows—sweeping and arching lines— and in scenes like the dappled light of oak hammocks and pine scrub.”

THE ARTIST & THE EVERGLADES

In order to show the structures and designs in nature, Kissinger loves to get up close to things that normally aren’t accessible.

Kissinger grew up on Perdido Bay near Pensacola, but has lived in the Everglades for 25 years. “I really love the sense of place we have here on the Southwest coast. Especially if you visit some of the inland small towns like LaBelle and Alva that are east of Ft. Myers on the Caloosahatchee River. The people there go back a few generations and they can tell you things about the history and the environment you would never know if you didn’t have those conversations.”

She chose to paint this spot on the Caloosahatchee River near the Town of Alva because it’s overlooks a couple of oxbow islands. “I’ve always loved these river islands because they are so much a part of Old Florida—they let you still see how the river looked when it was allowed to make its own decisions on where it wanted to go. The Sabal palms and oak trees create such a wonderful contrast with each other. As an artist, painting that combination, you can’t beat the shadow play that can happen at any time of the day. And the habitat on the oxbow islands seems to stay more stable without all the invasive non-native plants, so they are also great places for rookeries and wildlife.”

Her kinship with the river is the same with the entire ecosystem, and collectors of her paintings appreciate that her ‘artist eyes’ see things differently than most. “The Everglades aren’t grand and sweeping unless you take the time to get off the path. I used to laugh at the overlooks the Park Service built that take the tourists high above the sawgrass prairies. That’s a five minute vista at best. Get off the path and kneel down along a trail and you’ll see six thousand things in one square yard. Look into the tannin-stained water of a cypress strand and watch a wildly-spinning group of water striders—now there’s the grandeur! That’s what folks miss when they stand on those overlooks and then get back in their air-conditioned cars. When I paint, I’m constantly trying to point out the ‘world in the grain of sand’ that William Blake celebrated.”

Although the fine artist has worked professionally for about seven years now, she feels she’s been an artist connected to the natural world her entire life. Like her artistic techniques, her environmental interest is thoughtful. “My work with LINC is prompting me to take the time to go back and fact-check a lot of things that I have assumed to be current. I’m realizing that when it comes to the Everglades, things are changing at such a fast pace that just listening to the television news only gives you a thin slice of what’s happening to it environmentally and politically. Habitats are under constant assault from development, invasive species, agricultural run-off, improper hydrologic design–the list goes on. We may be the first generation to have to admit that we broke the system and that it may never work correctly again. And if everything in nature is connected as my art tries to maintain, what does that say about my future—or, my children’s future?”

“I hope in fifty or one hundred years that what’s left of my art isn’t an artifact of something long gone. The Calusa civilization flourished along the banks of the Caloosahatchee River—their namesake river. The only thing we have left of them is a few small works of art found in archaeological digs. You’ll never meet a Calusa Indian today because they are all gone. We didn’t care enough to do something when they started to disappear because of habitat loss and invasive species…namely us. I hope we don’t fail in our attempts to restore and preserve what’s left of the Everglades. There’s only one place like this on Earth. If we break it, all the money and science in the world won’t bring it back.”

CALOOSAHATCHEE RIVER SCENE

The Caloosahatchee River in Southwest Florida now begins on the western edge of Lake Okeechobee and stretches west 70 miles before emptying into San Carlos Bay between the cities of Cape Coral and Fort Myers. At the Gulf coast, the river helps create an “estuary of national significance” that is part of the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program.

The Caloosahatchee was originally a shallow, meandering river that began in the proximity of Lake Hicpochee. But in 1882, Hamilton Disston dug a canal through Lake Hicpochee to link Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee River and the Gulf of Mexico. Between 1905 and 1927, the river was further channeled to accommodate navigation, flood control, and land reclamation needs. Agriculture is the prominent land use in the inland Caloosahatchee Basin where Kissinger’s scene is located. Citrus groves dominate the landscape, closely followed by sugarcane, beef cattle, and a significant selection of vegetable crops.

Today the river is part of the Okeechobee Waterway managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, which links the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean via Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie Canal and River. The polluted waters of Lake Okeechobee are discharged into both the Atlantic and the Gulf through this waterway and the harsh impact of large amounts of polluted freshwater continues to severely impact the estuary systems on both coasts.

http://www.protectingourwater.org/watersheds/map/caloosahatchee/

Loop Road in Big Cypress Swamp Oil Painting

Carol McArdle’s work is an expression of one of the most joyful parts of her heart. There is a reason her collectors often tell her they feel like they could just step into her scenes or that they can feel the silkiness of her painted bird feathers. “I am sharing my visual and emotional experience with places and things that I love and enjoy. My goal is for my paintings to take you to the scenes I paint and to express my experience and interpretation of those places.”

Like most fine artists, her connection to art is so viscerally strong McArdle insists she cannot separate herself from her art. “But,” McArdle adds, “I also feel the same way about nature—where I gather my subjects. I am so uplifted by exploring and breathing in nature. It is my cathedral, my oxygen, a source of deep gratitude and wonder.” She is successful in capturing that euphoric visual and emotional connection. Her compositions, and her talent for understanding the drama and play of Mother Nature’s lights against darks, consistently welcome the viewer in with glorious color harmony combinations.

THE ARTIST & THE EVERGLADES

McArdle’s chose Loop Road in the Big Cypress Preserve because it is fairly close to her home in Southwest Florida and because of her fondness for the ferns, pond apple trees, pop ash, bromeliads and other foliage in the cypress stands. And the birds! McArdle also adores the region’s birds and her portraits realistically capture both the personality and poise of some of the region’s most popular feathered friends.

Her connection to nature has been ardent wherever she has lived, from her birthplace in Jamaica to her homes abroad.

She adopts the local eco-system, and in return, it has always adopted her. She’s only started exploring the Everglades in about the last four years after moving to Southwest Florida in 1995, but her relationship with the region already seems to be deep rooted. “I wish I had known the Everglades many years ago. I envy people who grew up around the Glades and knew the wonders of them like only a child can. I still have a wonder in my eyes like a child does though.”

Carol McArdle’s dreams and goals involve further exploration of the Everglades which will involve asking for more guidance from the locals and securing access by airboat and swamp buggies to portions of the wilderness that still elude her.

McArdle’s ‘artist eyes’ are critical to the future of the ecosystem because the Everglades does not always present the grandeur typically offered by mountain or canyon landscapes. “I have sent people to visit the natural areas that inspired some of my paintings, and they come back saying ‘there was nothing there.’ Artists can see beauty where others do not—but more importantly, artists tend to notice things that other eyes might miss if they weren’t pointed out.”

LOOP ROAD SCENE, Big Cypress National Preserve

Loop Road is a 27-mile meander through the dwarf cypress forests, pine forests and deep strands of Big Cypress National Preserve in Southwest Florida. The freshwater in the Big Cypress Swamp is essential to the health of the neighboring River of Grass to the east, but its watershed also supports the rich marine estuaries of Florida Bay to the south and the Gulf of Mexico to the west. The 729,000 acres of vast swamp host an uncommon mixture of both tropical and temperate plant communities. Bird watching opportunities in the preserve are spectacular along with its opportunities to encounter a host of remarkably diverse wildlife

Smith has been painting and sketching Southwest Florida’s natural landscapes on and off for 25 years and maintains that every time she sketches she learns something new.

Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve Watercolor Painting

As a former professional graphic artist, you would think that all of Smith’s paintings reveal her incredibly literal technique. But her body of work also includes figurative abstracts that reveal interpretations that are magically truthful. Some are designed to draw viewers in so they can create more of their own meanings, while in other pieces she may deliberately simplify her drawings so the art skills seem more accessible.

“With my realistic images, I sometimes add written notes that direct the viewer’s attention into different channels with information about science, history, mathematics, or even flashes of poetry. The more abstract images are meant to evoke added emotional responses and I’ll sometimes even use simple sketches to convey a sense of child-like wonder.” Although all of her art is presented as a component of nature deserving of the viewer’s reflection, collectors of her art seem to appreciate her style of sharing a sense of both mystery and story.

Smith believes her blog is an art form in itself and strives to instill a deeper sense of place and appreciation of nature through its informal images and words. It’s really her online field journal, and the blog’s weekly drawings and watercolor sketches invites participants to explore the natural world of Southwest Florida–and in the process–also coaches followers to start their own visual nature journal.

THE ARTIST & THE EVERGLADES

Smith has been painting and sketching Southwest Florida’s natural landscapes on and off for 25 years and maintains that every time she sketches she learns something new.

Her painting of the estuary is just one part of the Everglades that Smith is enamored with. In terms of the overall system she speculates, “I think the colors and spaces move me the most. Just look at a vast yellow and green sawgrass prairie topped by a huge blue sky piled with violet-blue storm clouds in the late afternoon sun. Then again, I marvel just as much at the gnarled and twisted branches of a pond apple, bristling with airplants and secret animal and insect life. ”It’s easy to see that the natural environment thrills her, but its historical cultures and families also pull her into the landscape’s story.

The estuary system fascinates her because there is so much to see and experience there. “Estuaries are unique and a fundamental platform for the abundance and diversity of our oceans and coastlines. Rookery Bay contains several different habitats, and there is always some kind of bird activity.” Her passion for the estuary is evident as she describes how fresh and salt water meet there and are rocked by the tides, or how the Red mangroves interweave their roots to form protective nurseries for marine life, while their branches provide resting places for many types of birds. “Its sparkling water stained red-brown by tannins with the detritus that nourishes life pulls me in, while not much further inland,” she explains, “the dwarfed and stunted scrub oak emerges from an ancient sea bed of white sand surrounded by puffs of gray-green lichen. And, then nearby the grasses stretch across a flat wet prairie, dotted by wading birds. The visuals just go on and on for me there!”

Smith appreciates that she is lucky in her ability to express her unique connection to Florida’s natural and cultural heritage and does believe artists often make unique connections that echo in their audience. “People become aware of a resonant response deep within themselves that they didn’t know existed until they looked at a particular piece of art or read a certain moving phrase,” she insists. “Successful artists illustrate that which is difficult to describe otherwise–and I am hopeful about what can happen when showing others a new way to connect to nature.”

“I have a fascination with how humans interact with nature, and our penchant for collecting. From time to time, I create a painting of small natural items representative of a certain place or habitat–they become part of my ‘Cabinet of Curiosities.’ Part of my purpose is to draw attention to the stories behind these little bits, and to present them in a human context. “

ROOKERY BAY SCENE

Located in Southwest Florida, at the northern end of the area known as the Ten Thousand Islands, the Rookery Bay Reserve protects one of the few remaining undisturbed mangrove estuaries in North America. The fabled “Ten Thousand Islands” are really mangrove islands too numerous and varied to count. Within their reaches an incredibly diverse estuary is formed by the freshwater rivers and sloughs of the Everglades mixing with the saltwater of the Gulf of Mexico.

An amazing world exists within the Reserve’s 110,000 acres of pristine mangrove forest, uplands and shallow waters. Its rookeries—the breeding grounds of colony forming seabirds, marine mammals and even some turtles—nurture a remarkably diverse habitat. A myriad of wildlife, including 150 species of birds and many threatened and endangered animals, thrive in its brackish waters, upland hammocks, and scrub.

Cape Sable from Florida Bay

Right now, LINC Board member and artist Christopher Still is focusing his eye on Tampa Bay including the 1757 expedition of Spanish explorer Don Francisco Maria Celi who first mapped Tampa Bay. As a part of his historical research and attention to detail, Still traveled the Florida coast last Summer following Celi’s route from Cuba to Tampa Bay.

Best known for his fascinating studies of Floridians in their natural environment, and his stunning landscapes, Still creates paintings celebrated for both artistic excellence and historical accuracy. His people are just as much a part of the landscape as the landscape is a part of his people. “What I try to do is use iconic images,” Still explains, “to tell a complicated story simply.”

Although Still is a native of Florida, he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, took courses in human anatomy at Jefferson Medical College, and completed an apprenticeship in traditional techniques in Florence, Italy. Still returned to the Tampa Bay area in 1986, to explore his home state with what he calls “the new eyes” he had received through education.

THE ARTIST & THE EVERGLADES

As a part of his current focus on the history and beauty of Florida’s Gulf Coast, Still chose this section of the Everglades after seeing the Cape for the first time from the waters of Florida Bay. “It was exciting for me to see a whole coastline with nothing on it. It was a wonderful experience just to imagine the Florida coastline the way it was for many years before all its urban development. It was very special to me. Jewel like.”

Still has worked in the Everglades for many years but insists that each visit is a new adventure. “To do a painting requires that I sit in one place and work for a long period of time. I’m often amazed by what I see by being still and patient.” He also recognizes that his artist eyes may allow him to experience its wonders differently than most visitors. “Since my work often requires me to visit the same place many times, and since I’ve done so over the years, I think I see details others might miss. Others might visit the Everglades with a plan to search for something specific where as I just go out and observe the natural world and wait patiently for something special to reveal itself to me.”

While attuned to the vastness and wildness of the Everglades, Still finds both its cultural and natural landscape “hauntingly spiritual.” He marvels that this still untamed wilderness “enabled the Seminoles to survive in the last century, and that its isolation in this century can still sustain some of the country’s most endangered wildlife.”

CAPE SABLE SCENE, from Florida Bay

Still’s oil painting is of Cape Sable, the southern-most tip of the North American continent. The peninsula in southwest Florida is part of Everglades National Park and stretches west from Flamingo before curving north into Ponce de Leon Bay where it ends at the mouth of the Shark River.

Still’s oil painting is of Cape Sable, the southern-most tip of the North American continent. The peninsula in southwest Florida is part of Everglades National Park and stretches west from Flamingo before curving north into Ponce de Leon Bay where it ends at the mouth of the Shark River. It forms the southern and western boundaries of White Water Bay and provides an untouched stretch of glorious sandy white beaches facing the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Bay.

Behind the beaches, on the eastern and middle parts of the Cape, there is a marl prairie that looks something like a shallow freshwater slough. Lake Ingraham, the southernmost lake in the US, once provided freshwater to Native Americans and mariners. Tragically, it is now connected to the Gulf of Mexico and western Florida Bay by canals built in the early 1920′s.