Environmental issues
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Friday, April 17th, 2026
Prairie Dogs, the Badlands Hoodoos near Drumheller, Alberta Canada. 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper, 27H x 33W” framed size – white mat and custom-built white wood frame with crackle finish. Showcased online at KBM Art Gallery, presenting “Our Power, Our Planet 2026” April 18th through May 29th.
The Canadian Badlands in Alberta and Saskatchewan are recognized for unusual mudstone and sandstone landscape formations, and also for having the largest deposits of dinosaur bones in the world. The geography in Horseshoe Canyon, Alberta is ancient, unique and incredible, and the prairie dogs – locals call them “gophers” – are an impactful part of prairie ecology, having extensive influence on vegetation and animal life. They live in colonies of up to several thousand, burrowing in networks of tunnels where other ground-dwelling creatures move in, various grass species are maintained, and rainwater is reserved and redirected.
They are cute to be sure, sitting up on their haunches chirping at one another, but they can be a nuisance to farmers whose horses and cattle can trip in the holes. Pest control programs during the 1900’s meant their numbers have declined, which congruently reduced acres of grasslands they helped sustain. As their own highways became populated with humans and cars, particularly during Springtime they are a road hazard.
In Torrington, Alberta, one lady has found a creative way to utilize the unfortunate casualties. You must visit The World-Famous Gopher Hole Museum located in the middle of nowhere, in a small hamlet where there is not even a gas station, along a seemingly endless dusty gravel road about an hour Northwest of Drumheller. Gophers are stuffed, sporting handmade costumes and placed in small cubicles displaying historic scenes. Completely bizarre, but actually very well done and absolutely worth the conversation-provoking side-trip if you are planning to visit Drumheller and the Tyrell Dinosaur Museum.
Scotch Broom: Beautiful Invasion
Friday, May 30th, 2025
Scotch Broom: Beautiful Invasion (02), Oceanside beach hillside, Oregon. 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper, framed size 27H x 33W” white mat and white wood frame with crackle finish.
Still Smoldering
Thursday, May 15th, 2025
Still Smoldering, after forest fire in Sequoia National Park, CA – 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper, framed size 27H x 33W” white mat and white wood frame with crackle finish.
Extinction – Save the Planet 2025
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025
Organic – Wildorado Wind Ranch, 25 miles from Amarillo, Texas – 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper. Framed size 27H x 33W” white mat and white wood frame with crackle finish.
“Organic” will be showcased in Gallerium’s ‘Extinction – Save the Planet 2025’ May 7th – July 7th.
Leaves and Petals
Saturday, October 5th, 2024
Prickly Pear Cactus (Sedona, AZ), 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper – 27H x 33W” framed, won Honorable Mention in Fusion Art’s 10th Annual Leaves and Petals Exhibition and competition.
Prickly Pear Cactus is native to the Americas including Mexico, an important food source for desert animals and for humans, but now threatened to extinction by a cactus moth that has no known natural predators in the US. In 2021, a wasp was exported from South America to Texas to help control the spread of moth devastation, with some success.
Butterfly Bush
Wednesday, June 12th, 2024
Showing in Exhibizone’s True Beauty June 12-Aug. 12th, 2024
Butterfly Bush – Buddleja davidii, Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown New Zealand – 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper. Beautiful invasion: Native to central China and an ornamental in North American gardens, the Butterfly Bush is viewed as invasive in many countries across the world. Originally drawn and posted April 7th, 2024.
Exhibition: Emptiness
Friday, December 16th, 2022
Showing online Dec. 15 – Jan. 15, 2023, Exhibizone’s “Emptiness” – Petrified Forest – Crystal Forest Trail, AZ – 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper. White frame with crackle finish, total size 27H x 33W inches.
This piece also won a merit award in Contemporary Art Room’s exhibition, “Trees and Fields”, showing online in December, 2021.
Douglas Fir
Saturday, July 30th, 2022
Douglas Fir, Salt Spring Island, BC – 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper
“The Coastal Douglas-fir (CDF) zone describes a unique set of ecosystems found only on southeast Vancouver Island, the islands of the Salish Sea, and the southwest coast of BC. CDF ecosystems are rare and highly endangered. These ecosystems include Douglas-fir forests, as well as Garry oak woodlands, wetlands, estuaries, and other unique communities of plant, animal, and fungi found nowhere else in the world.” Read more on the Islands Trust website
Wild Mustard
Friday, May 27th, 2022
Wild Mustard, Coppell TX, 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper. Like most invasive species, beautiful flowering en masse. That and being edible are two of many reasons it has been able to flourish, robbing resources and space usually occupied by Texas Bluebonnets and other native plants now said to be in danger because of it.
Fire in The Gorge
Monday, May 2nd, 2022
Fire In The Gorge, 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper, framed size 27H x 33W”.
Known as the Eagle Creek Fire, on Sept 2, 2017 a wildfire lit by a 15 year old destroyed 50,000 acres in the Columbia River Gorge, mostly in Oregon with some fires in WA. The fire burned for three months and Hwy 84, a historic route into and out of Portland, was shut down for much of that time, forcing travelers, including me on my way to Alberta, to take side-routes. That year there were forest fires in the mountains all along the drive north, and a border patrol officer commented, “You have ashes all over your car”.
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