This is inspired by a stream restoration project I spent a lot of time working on last year both on the ground and at a computer digitizing drone imagery. This is a piece about beaver, wood, and habitat complexity. The biggest thing I wanted to show with this painting is that healthy rivers are messy and that messy is beautiful! Structure is one part of what makes river habitat messy, complex, and awesome so I made sure to show that through log jams and beaver dams. (Side note: this habitat is probably not as messy as it could be but it is realistic to an area I spent a lot of time in.)

The quilting is a reference to patch dynamics, the idea that ecosystems are made up of a mosaic of habitats that change over time. The patterns on the quilted boarder refer to some of the major forces shaping river ecosystems. The embroidery outlines different geomorphic features and veg communities. The use of squares is a shout out to quilting and also remote sensing (aka using satellite or drone imagery to learn about the earth). All that said, I definitely took artistic liberties with the different elements and in the end it’s a creative project, not a textbook, but hopefully it’ll inspire people to think and learn more about rivers!

Check out the slides below to learn a bit more about the details included in this piece: