A love affair with the wild South
I have spent a lifetime falling in love with the wild South. I have camped in her mountains, swum in her oceans, walked her trails and slept under her stars. I have studied her plants, listened to her birds, watched her wildlife, and still, I’m in awe of this majestic and richly diverse region.
The Southeastern United States is unlike anywhere else on Earth, and we are fortunate to still have many wild places that are home to an astonishing number of native species. But of course, wild habitats here, as throughout the world, are vanishing and our plants and animals along with them. The statistics are all too familiar, and doom and gloom hang like a heavy cloud over all those who love the Earth and her wild places.
When I determined to study and paint the most vulnerable of the native species of our region, those listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I braced myself for heartache. But instead, I found story after story of the powerful resilience of nature, and incredibly impressive tales of conservation.
Roan Mountain bluet and spreading avens
And these are stories so good that I feel compelled to share them in any way I can. In addition to my book Endangered Plants of the Southeast: Stories of Persistence and Hope (due out April 2027), I will use this website to share my paintings and stories to provide brief glimpses into the lives and beauty of these plants and animals and the people who are using innovative and creative ways to save them.
A question is often asked about extinction: What kind of people are we to allow another species to disappear? But after spending the past several years immersed in these stories, I find myself asking a different question: What kind of people devote years of their lives, often for little money or recognition, to saving a tiny species that most of us will never see?
The people I have met and the stories I have heard have shown me that conservation can bring out the very best in humankind—curiosity, ingenuity, persistence, generosity and hope. I’d like to introduce you to some of those people and to the remarkable wild lives they are working to save.